The one-word behavior-measuring tool

The repentance clock is ticking and getting louder by the day. We have 17 days left to complete the “cheshbon ha-nefesh,” the “accounting of our souls” that we are supposed to do during this final month of Elul, as we approach Rosh Hashanah and the Ten Days of Repentance it inaugurates.

I often refer to this “accounting form” as “the Road to Repentance Checklist.” It is not an easy form to complete for various reasons, but the Torah provides us with a tool that makes that task much easier if we use it objectively. That tool is a single word that we can use to measure our behavior in 5785 to see what we need to do to improve in 5786.

That word is tzedek. It appeared quite prominently last week in Parashat Shofetim, and it reappears this week in a key verse in Parashat Ki Tetzei. Those two appearances, which conveniently occur during Elul each year, and their contexts place tzedek at the top of the “Repentance Checklist” because tzedek must inform everything we do.

What, though, does tzedek mean?

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The word appeared twice last week in Deuteronomy 16:20, and in a way that underscored its overarching importance. Tzedek tzedek tirdof, the verse said. The standard translation is “justice justice shall you pursue.” That translation, however, does not do justice to what that doubled-up tzedek actually means in this context.

This week, tzedek translates differently in Deuteronomy 25:13-15:

“You shall not have…different weights, a large and a small. You shall not have…different measures, a large and a small. But you shall have a full and honest weight [eh-ven sh’lemah va-tzedek], you shall have a full and honest measure [eifah sh’lemah va-tzedek]…..”

The use of the word “tzedek” for “honest” in verse 15 is very telling. Other Hebrew words more directly make the point — “yashar,” especially, because it means honest. Tzedek, however, has multiple meanings, including righteousness, justice, truth, purity, honesty, equity, sincerity, kindness, virtue, and piety.

As I have written at other times, the Torah is telling us by these two tzedek references — last week’s doublet and this week’s “honest” — that tzedek must never be defined narrowly. It must always be defined by all its various meanings at one and the same time.

Everything that we do must meet the tzedek test in all of its definitions. Justice that is not righteous, equitable, kind, virtuous, pure, and pious is not justice. Righteousness that is not just, equitable, kind, virtuous, pure, and pious is not righteousness.

To these definitions, our Sages of Blessed Memory added yet another — “to be liberal with.” Specifically, they said, “tzadek mi-shel’cha v’ten lo,” which essentially means “be liberal with what is yours and give it to [a poor person]” by adding a bit more than was requested, but at no additional cost. In other words, if a poor person with a large family comes to buy a pound of flour because that is all he or she can afford, the storekeeper, in an unobtrusive way so as not to embarrass that person, must add some extra flour to the sack. (See the Babylonian Talmud tractate Bava Batra 88b.)

There is still more, however. The use of the word tirdof, meaning “to pursue,” in last week’s phrase tells us that it is not enough to live a life of tzedek. This commandment, this mitzvah, is not fulfilled passively. Not only must we pursue tzedek in all its definitions in our own lives, but we must also actively pursue it in our community or in our world.

We cannot ignore an injustice of any kind, regardless of where it exists. We cannot say it is not our problem, so we will not get involved.

We must get involved whenever and wherever tzedek is being ignored — in the world at large, in our communities, neighborhoods, workplaces, and even our own homes. All must be exemplars of tzedek tzedek in every respect. The Torah demands it. Repentance requires to do what we can to make that happen.

Our prophets took this principle very seriously, especially the “be liberal with” definition which they derived from this week’s verse long before our Sages did. Thus, Amos says (see 8:4-10):

“Hear this, O you who swallow up the needy, so as to destroy the poor of the land, saying: ‘When will the new moon be over, so that we may sell grain? And Shabbat, so that we may set forth wheat to make the ephah measure small and to make the shekel great, and to deal with deceitful scales; that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?’ The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob, ‘Surely I will never forget any of their doings. Shall not the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it…? I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.’”

In BT Bava Batra 90b, our Sages expanded the scope of the activities to which Amos referred. These also include people who buy sought-after commodities, for example, when prices are depressed and hoard them until prices rise; those who lend money at usurious rates; and those who greedily raise prices on essential goods when demand increases, something we saw happen when covid-19 first hit. (Prices on non-essential items are allowed to rise on a free market basis.)

In such ways, tzedek enters into the entire realm of Jewish business practices, and it works both ways. Just as the seller must have an “honest weight and an honest measure,” meaning he or she may not shortchange us in any way, we cannot shortchange the seller. A checkout clerk, however, may sometimes give us too much change or may mistakenly undercharge us for an item. Even if we realized it only when we got home, in evaluating how we behaved in 5785, we must consider what we did when we became aware of it. Did we act with tzedek?

Because of the tzedek connection last week and this, the message is clear: Tzedek in all its definitions, including “to be liberal with,” applies to every aspect of Jewish law, meaning that it applies to every aspect of our Jewish lives.

Here is another example, this one dealing with the rights of workers. We observed Labor Day on Monday. Tomorrow, Deuteronomy 24:14-15 warns us not to take advantage of “a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow Israelite or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. You must pay out the wages due on the same day before sunset, for the worker is needy and urgently depends on it.”

The laws of the Torah are implicitly interdependent; they do not stand alone. There is no one without the other. Sometimes, however, connections are explicitly made by what two verses say. Just as Deuteronomy 24:15 demands that workers be paid on time, so does Leviticus 19:13. That verse, however, refers only to the Israelite worker. Deuteronomy 24:15 extends that requirement to everyone. Because connections flow both ways, something else the Leviticus verse insists on also applies to the Deuteronomy verse: We may not underpay someone for the work they do for us.

Taken separately and together, tzedek applies to every aspect of workers’ rights, regardless of their background. Discrimination in the workplace is forbidden, thus guaranteeing workers the right to equal pay for equal work, regardless of the worker’s gender, race, or immigration status. These verses also aim to protect vulnerable workers, regardless of their identity, by providing them with safe and healthy working conditions, because Leviticus 25:43 forbids creating harsh working conditions for workers.

In evaluating how we behaved in 5785, we must consider whether we acted with tzedek in our interactions with people who did work for us.

There is so much more to consider. Did we act with tzedek in how we responded in word, deed, or even thought, to a spouse, a friend, or a stranger, or how we interacted with them? Did we act with tzedek towards the environment? Did we act with tzedek when caring for our pets? Did we even act with tzedek when we cared for ourselves?

And that brings us back to the word “tirdof,” to pursue — meaning to pursue tzedek wherever it is needed, not just in our own behavior. It is not enough to donate money, say, to a food pantry, or to Mazon. Roughly 47 million Americans are considered to be food-insecure, including 13.8 million children. Tirdof requires us to be proactive in demanding that our nation maintain and even improve federal programs to help those people, rather than rolling back those programs as is now being done. It also demands that we must be proactive in protecting the rights of workers, rights that have been dwindling away since late January, including in areas of worker safety.

The repentance clock is ticking. Not only do we have just 17 more days to decide how to integrate tzedek into every aspect of our lives, but we have to begin to act on our decisions.

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.