Parashat Ki Tetze contains more mitzvot than almost any other portion in the Torah. At first glance, its many laws can seem like a collection of unrelated commandments—laws about workers, property, marriage, courts, business practices, animals, and relationships between people. But beneath these many details lies one powerful message: a just society is built not only through grand principles, but through the small choices we make every day.

The Torah does not limit justice to the courtroom. Justice begins in the marketplace, in the workplace, in our homes, and in the way we treat people and even animals that depend upon us.

One of the most remarkable examples appears in the commandment concerning an ox that is threshing: “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.”  At first, this seems like a very small and specific law. Why does the Torah care so much about whether an animal can eat while working?  The answer is profound.

Imagine an ox walking back and forth, day after day, doing difficult work. In front of it is food—grain that it could easily eat. Yet the owner might be tempted to prevent the animal from eating so that it does not consume any of the valuable produce. The Torah says: Do not do that. The animal is working. Therefore, it deserves to benefit, even in some small way, from the work it is doing.

This is a Torah vision of justice that speaks remarkably well to our own generation. We live in a world in which people work incredibly hard. Employees, caregivers, teachers, construction workers, delivery drivers, nurses, assistants, farm workers, office workers, and countless others contribute their time and energy to the success of organizations and communities.

Sometimes, however, it is easy to see a person only as a resource: someone who produces, performs, delivers, or accomplishes. The Torah tells us to see the living being behind the work. The ox is not merely an instrument of production. It has hunger. It has needs. It experiences the world. And if the Torah commands us not to muzzle an animal while it works, how much more carefully must we consider the dignity and well-being of human beings?

Justice means asking more than, “How much can I get from this person?”  It asks:

“What does this person need?”  “Is this arrangement fair?”  “Have I remembered the human being behind the job?”

A society does not become just merely because it has good laws written in its books. It becomes just when people develop the habit of acting fairly when they have power over someone else.

The real test of justice is often not what we do when everyone is watching. It is what we do when nobody knows. Do I pay someone fairly if I could get away with paying less?

Do I give credit to the person whose work made my success possible? Do I keep a promise when breaking it would benefit me? Do I return something that I could easily keep?

These are not minor questions. They are the building blocks of a moral society.

There is also something beautiful about the fact that the Torah teaches this lesson through an animal. The ox does not have a voice in the marketplace. It cannot negotiate its wages. It cannot complain to its employer. It cannot organize a protest. It cannot explain that it is hungry. Yet the Torah tells the human being to notice its needs.

That means morality begins with attentiveness. The commandment not to muzzle the ox teaches us that we are responsible not only for what we do to others, but also for what we fail to notice.

Ki Tetze reminds us that the answer begins with something very simple: do not take advantage of another being simply because you can. Perhaps the deepest message of Ki Tetze is that justice is not an abstract ideal belonging only to governments, courts, or institutions.  Justice begins with me.  It begins with how I speak. How I pay. How I employ.

How I negotiate. How I treat those who serve me. How I treat people who cannot benefit me. And, ultimately, how I behave when I have the power to take advantage of someone who cannot stop me.

The Torah asks us to build a world in which even an ox eating while it works is not considered an insignificant matter.

Because when we learn to care about the smallest injustice, we become capable of recognizing the larger ones.

And perhaps that is the challenge of Ki Tetze for our generation:

Let us build a world where no one is merely a tool for someone else’s success, and every person who contributes to our success deserves dignity.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Refael Cohen