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8/20/2021 Parashat : Measures of Power Mishkan Minyan 13 Elul 5781 // August 21, 2021 | Sefaria

Parashat Ki Teitzei: Measures of Power Mishkan Minyan 13 Elul 5781 // August 21, 2021

Source Sheet by Dan Ross

א. דברים כ״ה:י״ג-י״ט Deuteronomy 25:13-19 .1 You shall not have in your pouch alternate ל ֹֽא־יִ הְֶ י֥ה לְ ךָ בּ ִכֽי סְ ךָ ֶ א֣ בֶן וָ ָ א֑ בֶן גּדוָ ל֖ה weights, larger and smaller. You shall not ו קְ טַּנָה׃ לֹא־יִ הְֶ י֥ה לְ ךָ בּ בֵי תְ ךָ אֵי ָ פ֣ה וְ אֵי ָ פ֑ה have in your house alternate measures, a גּדוָ ל֖ה ו קְ טַּנָה׃ ֶ א֣ בֶן שׁ לֵ ָ מ֤ה וָ ֶצ֙דֶ ק֙ larger and a smaller. You must have ִיֽ הְיֶה־ לָּך אֵי ָ פ֧ה שׁ לֵ ָ מ֛ה וָ ֶ צ֖דֶק ִיֽ הְיֶה־ ּ לָך completely honest weights and completely honest measures, if you are to endure long לְ ַ מ֙ עַן֙ יַ אֲִ ר֣יכו יָ מֶ֔יך ע ַ֚ל ָהֽ אֲדָ מָ֔ה on the soil that the ETERNAL your God אֲ שׁר־יְ ה ָֹ ו֥ה אֱל ֶ ה֖יך נֹ ֵ ת֥ן ָלֽך׃ ּכִי תו עֲ ַ ב֛ת is giving you. For everyone who does those יְ ה ָֹ ו֥ה אֱל ֶ ה֖יך כּל־ ֹע֣ שׂה ֵ א֑ לּה כֹּל ֹע֥ שׂה things, everyone who deals dishonestly, is ָעֽוֶל׃ }פ{ .abhorrent to the ETERNAL your God Remember what did to you on זָ כ֕ור ֵ א֛ת אֲ שׁר־ עָ ׂ שָה לְ ךָ עֲ מֵָ ל֑ק בּּ דֶרֶך ,your journey, after you left Egypt— how בּ צֵא תְ ֶ כ֥ם מִ מּ צְָרֽיִם׃ אֲ ׁשֶר ָקֽרְ ךָ בּּדֶרֶך undeterred by fear of God, he surprised וַיְזַּ נֵב בּ ךָ כּל־ הַ נּ חֱ שִׁ ל֣ים ַאֽ חֲֶר֔יך וְ אַּ תָה you on the march, when you were עָ֣יֵיף וְיֵָ ג֑ עַ וְ לֹ֥א יֵָ ר֖א אֱל ִהֽים׃ וְ הָיָ֡ה בּ הִָ נ֣י חַ famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the יְ ה ָֹ ו֣ה אֱל ֶ ה֣יך ׀ל ְ֠ ךָ מִ כּל־ ֹא֨יְ בֶ֜יך מִ סּ ִב֗יב ETERNAL your God grants you safety בּ ָ א֙רֶ ץ֙ אֲ ׁ שֶר יְ הֹוָה א־ ֱ֠ל הֶ֠יך נֹ ֵת֨ן לְ ךָ נַ חֲ לָ ה֙ from all your enemies around you, in the לְרִ שׁ תָּה תּ מְ חֶ ה֙ אֶת־ֵ ז֣ כֶר עֲ מָ לֵ֔ק מִּ תַ חַת land that the ETERNAL your God is הַ שׁ ָ מ֑יִם ל ֹ֖א תּ שׁ ּכָח׃ }פ{ giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under . Do not forget!

ב. ויקרא י״ט:ל״ה-ל״ז :35-37 .2 You shall not falsify measures of length, לֹא־ תַ עֲ שׂו ָ ע֖וֶל בּ מּ שּׁ פָט בּ מּּדָה בּ מּ ְׁשָ ק֖ל weight, or capacity. You shall have an ו בַ מּשוָרֽה׃ מ ֹ֧אזְ נֵי ֶ צ֣דֶק אַ בְ נֵי־ צֶ֗דֶק ֵ א֥י פַת honest balance, honest weights, an honest ֶ צ֛דֶק וְ ִה֥ין ֶ צ֖דֶק יִ הְֶ֣יה לָ ֶ כ֑ם אֲ נִ י֙ יְ ה ָֹ ו֣ה ephah, and an honest hin. I the אֱ לֹ הֵי כֶ֔ם אֲ שׁר־הו ֵ צ֥א תִי אֶ תְ ֶ כ֖ם מֵ ֶ א֥רֶץ ETERNAL am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt. You shall faithfully מִ צְָרֽיִם׃ ו שׁ מַרְּ תֶם אֶת־ כּל־ חֻ קּ תַ י֙ observe all My and all My rules: I am the ETERNAL.

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וְ אֶת־ כּל־ מִ שׁ פּ ַט֔י וַ עֲ שׂי ֶ ת֖ם אֹ ָ ת֑ם אֲִנ֖י יְ ה ָֹוֽה׃ }פ{

ג. רש"י על דברים כ״ה:י״ד:א׳ on Deuteronomy 25:14:1 .3 THOU SHALT NOT HAVE לא יהיה לך לא יהיה לך. אִם עָ שׂי תָ כּן, לֹא יִ הְיֶה This suggests: if YOU do so (if you — לְך כּלום )עי' שם(: you will have לא יהיה לך ,(have false weights nothing (you will become impoverished, being deprived of your , as you have deprived others of theirs) (cf. Sifrei 294:3).

ד. רש"י על דברים כ״ה:ט״ו:א׳ Rashi on Deuteronomy 25:15:1 .4 THOU SHALT אבן שלמה וצדק יהיה לך אבן שלמה וצדק יהיה לך. אִם עָ שׂי תָ HAVE A PERFECT AND JUST כּן, יִ הְיֶה לְך הַרְ בּה: WEIGHT — This again suggests: if you will do this, (using just weights and much (יהיה לך) measures), you will have (cf. Sifrei Devarim 294:3).

ה. אבן עזרא על דברים כ״ה:ט״ו:ג׳ Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 25:15:3 .5 THAT THY DAYS MAY BE LONG. For למען יאריכו ימיך. כי זה ידוע כי כל it is well known that all righteous מלכות צדק תעמוד כי הצדק כבנין kingdoms will endure, for righteousness is והעיוות כהריסו' ברגע יפול הקיר: like a building. However, unrighteousness is like a ruin. Its wall collapses in a moment.

ו. רש"י על ויקרא י״ט:ל״ה:א׳ Rashi on Leviticus 19:35:1 .6 לא תעשו עול במשפט. אִם לְדִין, הֲרֵי YE SHALL NOT DO לא תעשו עול במשפט If — משפט UNRIGHTEOUSNESS IN כּ בָר נֶ אֱ מַר לֹא תַ עֲשו עָוֶל בּ מּ שׁ פּט this has a reference to the execution of )פסוק ט"ו(, ו מַהו מִ שׁ פּט הַ שׁנוי כּאן? justice it would be redundant, for it has הוא הַ מּדּה וְ הַ מּ שׁ קָל וְ הַ מּשורָה, מְ לַ מּד already been stated (v. 15) “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment”. What, then שׁ הַמודֵד נִ קְרָא דַיּן, שׁ אִם שׁ קּר בּ מּדּה mentioned here? It משפט is the meaning of הֲרֵי הוא כִ מְ קַ לְ קֵל אֶת הַדּין, וְ קָרוי עַוּל, refers to what is right in respect to measure שׂנאוי ו מְ שׁ קּץ, חֵרֶם וְתו עֵ בָה, וְגורֵם of length, to weight and to measure of לַ חֲ מִ שׁה דְ בָרִים הָ אֲמורִים בּדּיּן — here משפט capacity. The use of the word teaches us, therefore, that one who has to מְ טַ מּא אֶת הָ אָרֶץ, ו מְ חַ לּל אֶת הַ שׁם, do measuring (in trade or commerce) is termed (is regarded as) “a judge” so that if

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ו מְ סַ לּק אֶת הַ שׁ כִי נָה, ו מַ פּיל אֶת יִ שׂרָ אֵל he gives false measure he is like the judge who perverts justice and he is therefore בּ חֶרֶב, ו מַ גְ לֶה או תָם מֵ אַרְ צָם )ספרא(: ,hateful ,( עַוָל) ”called "an unjust person detested, doomed to destruction, and an abomination (cf. Rashi v. 15). He brings about those five things which are mentioned in connection with the judge who perverts justice: he defiles the land, profanes the of the Lord, causes the Shechinah to depart from Israel's midst, Israel to fall by the sword and to be exiled from their land (, , Chapter 8 5).

ז. מדרש תנחומא, כי תצא ח׳:א׳ Tanchuma, Ki Teitzei 8:1 .7 Rabbi Banna'ah opened [his discourse] זָכור אֵת אֲ שׁר עָ שׂה לְך עֲ מָ לֵק בּדּרֶך with Prov. 11:1), “Fraudulent scales are an) בּ צֵא תְ כֶם מִ מּ צְרָיִם. רַ בּי בּ נָ אָה פּ תַח, abomination to the ETERNAL….”: if you מֹאזְ נֵי מִרְ מָה תו עֲ בַת ה' )משלי יא, א(. ,see a generation whose measures are false אִם רָ אִי תָ דור שׁ מּדו תָיו שׁ קֶר, דּע know that the empire [government] will engage that generation in battle. What is שׁ הַ מּ לְכות מִ תְ גּרָה בּאותו הַדור. מַה ,(.the evidence? [It is written] (ibid טּ עַם. מֹאזְ נֵי מִרְ מָה תו עֲ בַת ה'. ו כְ תִיב Fraudulent scales are an abomination to“ אַ חֲרָיו, בּא זָדון וַיּ בֹא קָלון וְ אֶת צְנו עִים the ETERNAL….” And after that is חָ כְ מָה. רַ בּי בּרֶ כְיָה בּ שׁם רַ בּי אַ בּא בּר written (in vs. 2), “When deliberate wickedness comes, disgrace comes as well.” כּ הֲ נָא אָ מַר, הַ אֶזְ כּה בּ מֹאזְ נֵי רֶ שׁע ו בְ כִיס R. Berekhyah said in the name of R. Abba אַ בְ נֵי מִרְ מָה )מיכה ו, יא(, אֶ פְ שׁר דור bar Lahana (Micah 6:11), “’Shall I be שׁ מּדו תָיו שׁ קֶר, שׁהוא זַ כּאי. ו בְ כִיס אַ בְ נֵי ’?righteous [and successful] with false scales מִרְ מָה, אָ מַר רַ בּי לֵוִי, אַף מֹ שׁה רְ מָזָה Is it really possible for a generation with false measures to be successful, (ibid., לָ הֶם בּתורָה, שׁ נּ אֱ מַר: לֹא יִ הְיֶה לְך cont.), ‘and have a bag of fraudulent בּ כִי סְך אֶ בֶן וָ אָ בֶן, לֹא יִ הְיֶה לְך בּ בֵי תְך. weights’?” R. Levi said, “ also alluded מַה טַ עַם. כּי תו עֲ בַת ה'. מַה כּ תִיב to it (honest weights) for them in the (in Deut. 25:13-14), ‘You shall not אַ חֲרָיו, זָכור אֵת אֲ שׁר עָ שׂה לְך עֲ מָ לֵק. have alternative weights in your bag, [a larger and a smaller]. You shall not have in your house….’ If you do so, the empire will come and engage you in battle.” And what evidence is there? (Deut.: 25:16:) “For [everyone who does these things, who acts dishonestly, is an abomination to the Lord.” What is written after that (in vs. 17)? “Remember what Amalek did to you.”

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ח. From Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters by Deborah .8 Stone (2020)

People didn’t always trust numbers as readily as we moderns do. Before the eighteenth century, measuring sticks and containers weren’t standardized as they are now. Counting was a local and customary affair. In every relationship—lords and serfs, landlords and tenants, merchants and farmers—the powerful controlled the instruments of counting and used them to practice what we now call portion control. They counted “low” to extract more produce, labor, and taxes from their subjects...A miller might pay a farmer for his grains by heaping the measuring container so high that no more particles would stay. Then when it came time to measure out grain owed to the lord or seigneur, he’d be sure to level off the container. Knowing the gains to be had from heaping measures, the seigneur and tax collector could redesign a measuring container with a broader base so it would hold a higher heap. Their tactics were obvious, but their measuring methods were .

Thus, for the people on the weak end of these relationships, measuring tools and the numbers they yielded were hardly vessels of truth. They were opportunities for bosses and merchants to stint, cheat, and weasel out of a fair bargain.

By the end of the eighteenth century, support for a standardized measuring system was easy to come by. While French peasants were slowly fermenting their rise up to revolution, French scientists were cooking up the metric system. Their recipe pegged a standard unit of length—the meter—to the distance between two points on the earth’s surface. It sounded like a good idea at the time. What could be more fixed and more natural than the ground we stand on?

The Academy of Sciences hired two engineers to survey the length of a meridian from a town in northern France to Barcelona...Each man scouted out the highest hills, steeples, and towers on which to perch his survey instruments...Add 3 scoops of geometry, 2 scoops of astronomy, a dollop of imagination, et voilà! A meter is exactly 1 ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator.

...in 1792 the meter was given physical form in a pure platinum stick. The platinum stick, in turn, was given its first rush of political authority when it was presented with great fanfare to the new, democratically elected French legislature.

...From then on, there would be “one weight, one measure,” as the Revolutionary slogan proclaimed. The people’s craving for deliverance from local tyrants was strong enough to invest the scientists’ concoction with almost holy truth... Iron replicas of the platinum meter stick were presented to foreign scientists. A Dutch astronomer felt his iron stick beginning to forge “fraternal bonds” among European peoples.

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That’s a of magical power for a metal stick fashioned by human hands and minds. These eighteenth-century testimonials to the meter stick sound overblown to our ears, but the democratic promise of standardized measures hasn’t lost any of its allure. In the mid-twentieth century, Witold Kula ended his magisterial history of measurement with an ode to the metric system: “Gone are the countless daily opportunities for the strong to injure the weak, for the smart to cheat the simple, and for the rich to take advantage of the poor.” Would that it were so.

The metric system seemed to protect weak villagers from their local heavies, but no measurement system enforces itself. Standards of any kind—counting methods, legal rules, or quality criteria—must be defined and enforced by someone. Just as nobles had once imposed their preferred measures on the people they ruled, France’s new national government imposed the metric system on the nation.

Even though the new government was obviously throwing its weight around, French citizens had fought for a centralized government and they convinced themselves that democracy gave them more control over their local nobles. No doubt the “little people” experienced a greater sense of fairness when they saw that the same counting methods applied to everyone. A uniform counting system, people believed, prevented officials from manipulating the facts. Decisions based on numbers came to seem more objective than personal judgments. Uniform measuring systems became associated with equality and fairness. A platinum stick, after all, couldn’t play favorites. It couldn’t count low for the poor and high for the rich.

***

Predictive algorithms suction up all that government power, call it data, and bottle it in mathematical formulas. The data are factual in the sense that they record things that actually happened. But think about what actually happened. Officers in the criminal justice system made stops, arrests, charges, convictions, and sentences. That means the data incorporate the officers’ intuitions, instincts, rules of thumb, and biases as they decided how to enforce the law. The subjectivity that algorithms supposedly avoid resides deep in their data sets, only now it’s much harder to see.

And here is where math meets Madison. Madison examined how the law treated slaves—as salable property without free will. Then he converted those utterly human decisions into inborn character traits. Since those traits are how slaves are, Madison insisted, it is correct to count them as part human, part property. Slaves became three- fifths of a person. Three-fifths of a person remained a slave.

In today’s criminal justice system, predictive algorithms examine how the law treats people. The algorithms give great weight to arrests, convictions, and sentences. Then

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they convert those utterly human decisions into character traits of the people the system has already swept up, only now character traits go by the more scientific- sounding name of “risk.” Defendants become six-tenths of a criminal or whatever risk score an algorithm assigns. Sixth-tenths of a criminal remains in jail.

If we don’t want to maintain the laws of , metaphorically speaking, it behooves us to delve into how the categories inside our counting practices were established and what power relationships defined them. If we simply rely on categories and counting rules embedded in past practices, we’re perpetuating the same power relationships that wrote the laws in the first place.

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