Parshas Ki Seitzei: Fighting the Final Boss

Ki Seitzei is a parsha full of struggle.

It opens heavy: the captive woman taken in war, the unloved wife, the rebellious son who eats and drinks himself into a future the Torah calls unsaveable. 
Torah doesn’t skip the mess of human life. It names it, desire unchecked, love that falters, children gone astray.

Then the tone shifts. Instead of only telling us about broken families, the parsha turns to ordinary moments: 
a lost object lying on the road, a donkey collapsed under its load, a mother bird you send on vacation before taking her young, a guardrail built so no one falls. 
Small mitzvos of compassion and responsibility, tucked right in the middle of the chaos.

But the parsha circles back for another round. 
The next section cuts even deeper: betrayal, coercion, divorce, the breakdown of intimacy and trust in their most painful forms. 
Torah doesn’t look away. It names these too.

And once again, compassion returns. Pay your workers on time. Return a poor man’s collateral before nightfall. 
Protect the convert, the orphan, the widow. Keep honest weights. Leave food for the hungry in your field. 
Simple ways of showing dignity in the middle of brokenness.

Finally, at the very end, comes the final boss: 
Amalek. The one who attacks from behind, striking the weary and the weak. 
Amalek is cruelty, despair, that inner voice whispering: you’ll never change, you’ll always be this way.

Every person’s struggles look different. Every teshuva is its own. 
But what we share is the fight against our own Amalek inside. 
To remember our struggles and not run from them. 
To face them, and to face ourselves.

Notice how the Torah prepares us for that fight. 
It doesn’t only speak in lofty visions. 
It teaches us through the most mundane things: 
treat people with respect. Be kind even to animals.

Those ideas of the small mitzvos are the tools. 
Day-to-day acts of compassion and responsibility. 
Lessons in honesty, gentleness, and care, for others and for yourself.

That’s how Amalek begins to lose its hold.

The mitzvah of Amalek is threefold: remember, erase, and don’t forget.

Remember the cruelty, the voice that strikes when you are weak. 
Don’t pretend it never happened, you can’t undo the past. 
And from that place of honesty, erase its power over you.

That’s how Teshuva happens.


Wishing you all a Shabbos of small acts of kindness, and the strength to fight your battles with compassion.

🩵 Berke