Sometimes He just says No!
Although Ki Teitzei is the quintessential mitzva sedra, with 74 of the Torah’s 613 (12%) in less than 2% of the whole Torah, there are issues of Hashkafa and Elul- time introspection that commandeered the Lead Tidbit this week.

The title of this piece is the “punchline” of the well-known story of the little girl who followed her K’ri’at Sh’ma each night with a request of G-d for a new doll. Not being as silent with her prayers as Chana had been, her older and skeptical brother overheard her nightly petition. He teased her, as older brothers are wont to do, saying things like, “Hey, where’s the doll; G-d doesn’t listen to you”. Undaunted, even after weeks and weeks of her fervent pleas, she replied to her brother: “Yes, He does listen to my prayers; He just keeps saying No!”

Over the last hefty chunk of time, many Jews fervently beseeched G-d to stop the Disengagement. Large groups gathered, not only for protest rallies, but for earth-shaking, sky-rending communal davening. We must believe that He always listens to our prayers, and that sometimes, for reasons of His own that will often elude us, He just says No. We must remain unwavering in our belief in the power of prayer, and we must accept decrees from Heaven that might not be to our liking. We may be deeply saddened by what has occurred, but we must always accept that this is G-d’s world and He “calls the shots”, or at least oversees what takes place.

Our immediate challenge is to help our displaced brothers and sisters in the myriad of ways that are needed. It behooves us to actively seek ways to be of service - physically, socially, financially, to ACHEINU KOL BEIT YISRA’EL.

A strengthening of our commitment to mitzvot - the 74 of Ki Teitzei and the other 539 - interpersonal and between the Jew and G-d, is the order of business for any Elul, how much more so for this current one.