Not just of borders. Not just of roads and crossings. A blockade of breath. Of imagination. Of the heart’s ability to see beyond the next headline.

“IDF reservist killed, nine wounded by explosive in southern Lebanon amid truce… Sgt. First Class (res.) Lidor Porat, 31… an engineering vehicle rolls over a bomb…”

Even in a truce, the ground is seeded with death.

And there is not a family in Israel that escapes it. Some carry it in memory, some in fear, some in the quiet dread of a phone call that has not yet come. War has a way of flattening distance—what happens at the border reverberates in the kitchen, at the Shabbat table, in the silence before sleep.

We are living in a moment of blockade. A narrowing.

After October 7th, something closed. Not only physically, but spiritually. The space in which we could imagine differently, respond differently—it constricted. Grief did that. Trauma did that. Fear did that.

And the Torah begins this week in that exact place:

After loss, after devastation, after the unspeakable.

The Torah does not begin with healing. It begins with reality. With death that cannot be undone.

And then it asks: Now what?

How do you live after that?

How do you remain human after that?

How do you hold onto something sacred when everything inside you is screaming for something else?

There is a verse in this parashah that cuts through the noise with almost unbearable clarity:

“You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt… nor shall you do as they do in the land of Canaan…” (Leviticus 18:3)

Egypt—the place that wounded you. Canaan—the world you are entering, the norms that surround you.

Do not be like either.

Rashi says: the Torah is warning us not to adopt the practices of societies that have normalized what should never be normalized. Do not look around and say, “this is how everyone behaves,” and let that become your moral compass.

Malbim goes further. Egypt is your past. Canaan is your present. One shaped you; the other pressures you. And the Torah demands something almost impossible: do not be defined by either.

Identity is not accidental—it is chosen.

And that is the question pressing on us now.

Because yes—Israel is a country like all other countries. It has enemies. It has the obligation to defend its people. October 7th was not an abstraction—it was brutality, it was terror, it was the shattering of safety in the most intimate way.

Any response that ignores that reality is not moral clarity—it is moral blindness.

But the Torah is not asking what is understandable.

It is asking what is required.

“You shall not do as they do…”

Not as Egypt did to you. Not as the nations around you do.

And that is hardest precisely now.

Because after October 7th, after the ongoing war, after the funerals that never seem to end, something inside us wants to close. To harden. To say: the world is this way, and we will be this way too.

But that is the blockade.

Not only the physical siege lines and military strategies—but the internal blockade that limits who we believe we can be.

The Torah pushes against that narrowing.

It says: even now, especially now, you are not exempt from the work of moral distinctiveness.

We see the cost of this moment everywhere.

In Gaza, devastation that stretches the limits of what we can hold. In Judea and Samaria, tensions that erupt into acts that test the rule of law. In the conversations about justice and punishment, where the lines between law and vengeance can blur.

These are not simple issues. They resist easy answers. But they demand honest questions.

Are we becoming what we were meant to resist?

Rashi whispers: do not normalize what is wrong just because it is common.

Malbim insists: do not let your past wounds or your present fears define your moral boundaries.

The Torah does not deny the need for strength. It assumes it. But it refuses to let strength become the only value.

Because strength without restraint is not strength—it is something else.

There is a haunting structure to this parashah. After the death of Aaron’s sons—who came too close, too fast, without boundaries—the Torah does not shut down the possibility of closeness to God.

It says: there is a way to enter the Holy of Holies—but not anytime, not anyhow.

Even holiness requires discipline.

Even longing requires limits.

After October 7th, the desire for justice is real. The need for security is real. The obligation to protect life is non-negotiable.

But without boundaries, without constant moral calibration, those legitimate needs can overflow.

And when they overflow, we risk losing something essential.

The Torah’s vision is not that we will never feel rage. It is that we will not be ruled by it.

Not because it is easy.

But because it is who we are called to be.

“You shall not do as they do…”

It is a verse that sounds almost impossible in a moment like this.

And yet, it is precisely in a moment like this that it matters most.

Because if we only live by our highest ideals when it is easy, then they are not ideals—they are conveniences.

The real test of identity is what we do when everything in us is pushing in the other direction.

And here is the uncomfortable, necessary truth:

It is not too late to course correct.

Not too late to ask hard questions about how power is exercised. Not too late to insist on equality before the law. Not too late to remember that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim—in the image of God—even when that truth is difficult, even when it complicates everything.

Course correction does not mean weakness. It does not mean abandoning security.

It means remembering what security is for.

Is it only about survival?

Or is it about the kind of society that survives?

Because a nation can survive externally and erode internally.

It can win battles and lose its sense of itself.

The Torah imagines something more demanding.

A people who can defend themselves fiercely—and still ask: are we living up to who we are meant to be?

A people who refuse to let trauma become destiny.

A people who, even in a moment of blockade, refuse to let their moral imagination be sealed off.

Malbim’s words echo: do not be Egypt. Do not be Canaan.

Not just in name, but in action.

Not just in memory, but in choice.

And that choice is not made once. It is made again and again—in policy, in leadership, in the quiet decisions that never make headlines but shape the soul of a nation.

The Torah does not end there.

It moves forward—with boundaries, with responsibility, with the possibility of atonement, of return, of recalibration.

That is the gift of Acharei Mot.

It does not deny the darkness.

But it refuses to let the darkness have the final word.

And so we stand here, in our own acharei mot moment.

After October 7th. After the losses that continue to unfold. After the names that are added, one by one, to a list we wish did not exist.

Will we allow this moment to define us?

Or will we define ourselves within this moment?

Will we accept the blockade of the heart?

Or will we insist—however difficult, however costly—on remaining open to a higher calling?

“You shall not do as they do…”

It is not just a command.

It is an act of faith.

Faith that even now, even here, we can choose differently.

Faith that identity is not lost in crisis—it is revealed in it.

May the memory of those we have lost, including Lidor Porat, not only be a source of grief, but a call to responsibility.

To build a society worthy of their sacrifice.

To live in a way that honors not only their courage, but our calling.

And to believe, even in a time of blockade, that the path forward is still open—if we have the courage to choose it.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)