Instructions for counting the omer are found on our Omer Overview Page. You can find the specific blessing for today at chabad.org.
We’re dedicating a new Sefer Torah on the first day of Shavuot. In honor of this joyous occasion, we’re using the counting of the Omer to take a whirlwind trip through the Torah
Today’s portion is Ki Teitzei from the book of Deuteronomy. Today’s insight was generously provided by Rose-Ella S.
Verses of note: Deuteronomy 21:18 – 21:21
What caught your attention in this parashah?
This portion contains more Mitzvot than any other Parsha – 74 of the 613 in the Torah. Do any of them have relevance to me today? Not so much in a literal sense – only in the idea that all people should be treated with dignity. Interesting in a historical sense as the portion is dedicated to the eradication of moral and ritual depravity from the community of Israel, even if it’s one’s own child. One wonders about the moral climate at the time these laws were written.
What’s one explanation for these verses?
I found the most troubling section to be about a defiant son who continues to disobey his parents even after they discipline him. The parents can take him to the elders of the town and “Thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death.”
Really? The Torah doesn’t state how egregious the disobedience must be, only that the mother and the father must both agree (and we know that mothers didn’t necessarily have much power to contradict fathers). This idea of a rebellious son is also found in the Passover Seder.
By the time of the Rabbis, they tried to mitigate these verses and show that they are only hypothetical; included in the Torah to emphasize the “Honor thy father and mother” commandment. I have trouble with this interpretation because it leads to the question: if this law is hypothetical, then which other laws in the Torah are hypothetical?