An Enduring Question
Several years ago, while teaching a seminar at a UMJC conference on nonviolent resistance, one of the participants asked me a question that has remained with me ever since. “Rabbi Paul,” he said, “if you had lived during the rise of Hitler, wouldn’t you have been willing to fight to save the lives of the Jews and the millions of others who were murdered?”
It was an honest question, and it deserved more than a simple yes or no.
I answered that I certainly hoped I would have been willing to fight if that had become necessary. But as I reflected on his question, I realized there was a better question to ask. The better question was not whether I would have had the courage to fight in 1944. The better question was whether I would have had the courage to speak in 1933. Would I have recognized the danger while it was still taking shape? Would I have challenged hatred when it first began to disguise itself as patriotism? Would I have used whatever influence God had given me before evil became so deeply entrenched that war seemed to be the only remaining option?
That conversation has stayed with me because I believe it captures one of the central tensions of this week’s parashah. The Torah is neither naïve about evil nor resigned to it. It calls God’s people to confront evil without allowing evil to reshape their own hearts. That is a difficult balance, but it is one that both the Torah and Yeshua insist we learn.
The Torah Is Not Naïve
Our parashah opens with remarkable realism: “When you go out to battle against your enemies…” (Deuteronomy 21:10). Moses does not say if you go to battle, but when. The Torah recognizes that we live in a broken world where conflict is sometimes unavoidable, where nations must defend themselves, and where evil cannot simply be ignored. Yet the Torah never glorifies violence. Even in warfare Israel was expected to exercise restraint, to pursue justice rather than revenge, and to remember that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God.
This is one of the remarkable features of the Torah. It acknowledges the necessity of strength without celebrating brutality. It prepares Israel for the realities of life in a fallen world while continually reminding her that she must never become like the nations whose violence she opposes. Strength is necessary. Vengeance is not. Justice is holy. Hatred is not.
It is against that backdrop that Yeshua’s words in the Sermon on the Mount become much clearer.
Loving the Enemy
Yeshua declares, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy'” (Matthew 5:43). Students of Scripture have long asked where the Torah ever commands us to hate our enemies. The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t.
Many scholars believe Yeshua was responding to popular interpretations of His day, perhaps even to communities such as Qumran, whose writings speak of loving “the sons of light” while hating “the sons of darkness.” Whatever His immediate target, He was not correcting the Torah. He was correcting distortions of the Torah. Israel’s Scriptures consistently point in another direction.
Solomon writes, “If your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and if he stumbles, let your heart not be glad” (Proverbs 24:17). The sages carried this same spirit into the rabbinic tradition. The Talmud praises those “who are insulted but do not insult in return, who hear themselves reviled and do not answer, who act out of love and rejoice in suffering.” Of such people it is said, “Those who love Him are like the rising of the sun in its strength” (b. Shabbat 88b). Likewise, Ben Zoma asks, “Who is mighty?” His answer is striking: “He who conquers his own inclination” (Pirkei Avot 4:1). The greatest victory is often not over an enemy standing before us, but over the hatred that threatens to grow within us.
That is the kind of strength Yeshua commends. It is not weakness. It is mastery of one’s own heart.
Remember Amalek
At first glance, the closing verses of our parashah seem to move in another direction. Israel is commanded, “Remember what Amalek did to you…you shall not forget” (Deuteronomy 25:17–19). Some have misunderstood this command as permission to nurture perpetual hatred. I do not believe that is the point.
Israel was commanded to remember Amalek because forgetting evil is dangerous. Amalek preyed upon the weak, attacked the weary, and showed no fear of God. To remember Amalek was to remember how evil works. It was to remain vigilant so that such wickedness would never again be ignored or tolerated. There is a profound difference between remembering evil and becoming consumed by hatred. One sharpens our moral vision. The other corrodes our soul.
That distinction seems especially important in our own generation. Antisemitism rarely begins with violence. Tyranny rarely arrives overnight. Evil generally begins with words before it becomes actions, with prejudice before it becomes persecution, and with indifference before it becomes injustice. History teaches us that the greatest tragedies often occur because too many decent people remained silent while evil was still gathering strength.
Perhaps that is why Yeshua instructed His disciples to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Wisdom recognizes evil early. Innocence refuses to imitate it.
A Different Kind of Strength
Yeshua was neither a passive idealist nor a violent revolutionary. He acknowledged the reality of conflict, yet He consistently redirected His followers away from domination and toward sacrificial service. “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… But it shall not be so among you. Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant” (Mark 10:42–43). In every earthly kingdom power is measured by the ability to control others. In the Kingdom of God, power is measured by the willingness to serve them. The cross does not eliminate strength. It reveals what true strength looks like.
History occasionally gives us flesh and blood examples of this kind of discipleship. One of the most compelling is Richard Wurmbrand. Born into a Jewish family in Romania, Wurmbrand came to faith in Yeshua as Israel’s Messiah but never forgot his Jewish identity or heritage. Under the Communist regime he spent fourteen years imprisoned, much of that time enduring torture because of his faith. In his memoir, In God’s Underground, he recounts an encounter with one of his persecutors, a man named Borila. Wurmbrand’s refusal to surrender to bitterness was not the result of weakness or forgetfulness. It was the fruit of a heart transformed by Messiah. He understood that hatred would only complete the work his captors had begun.
His story also reminds us that forgiveness and reconciliation are not identical. Forgiveness releases us from the poison of vengeance and entrusts justice to God. Reconciliation requires repentance and the rebuilding of trust. Yeshua never asks us to pretend that evil does not exist. He asks us not to let evil become our master.
Our Calling Today
I often think back to that question from the UMJC conference. Would I have fought to stop Hitler? I certainly hope so. But I hope even more that I would have had the courage to speak while there was still time. Perhaps that is one of the enduring lessons of Ki Tetze. We spend a great deal of time imagining what we would have done had we lived in another generation. The more searching question is what we are doing in our own. Are we recognizing evil while it is still taking root? Are we willing to raise our voices before hatred hardens into persecution? Are we defending the vulnerable before injustice becomes institutionalized? Those are not merely political questions. They are profoundly spiritual ones because they reveal whether we possess both the wisdom to recognize evil and the courage to confront it before it becomes overwhelming.
Israel was never chosen simply to survive among the nations. She was chosen to become a light to the nations, reflecting the character of the God who redeemed her from Egypt. That vocation has now been entrusted to all who belong to Israel’s Messiah. We bear witness to His Kingdom not by becoming more ruthless than our enemies, nor by pretending that evil does not exist. Rather, we bear witness by confronting evil with courage while refusing to surrender our hearts to hatred. Such love is neither sentimental nor naïve. It is rooted in the confidence that the Judge of all the earth will do what is right. Because we trust Him, we are free to overcome evil with good.
Perhaps the participant at that conference asked the wrong question. The question is not whether we would have had the courage to fight in another generation. The deeper question is whether we have the courage to speak in our own. Evil is rarely defeated only on the battlefield. More often it is confronted much earlier, when ordinary men and women refuse to surrender truth to convenience or love to hatred. That is what Israel was called to model. That is what Yeshua embodied. And that remains the calling of everyone who seeks to walk in the footsteps of Israel’s Messiah.