Parashas Ki Seitzei

In this week's parashah, we are told "When you build a new home, you shall make a fence for your roof...lest one who falls fall from it."

Rashi, citing Sifri, explains that the person who will fall is, in fact, "one who falls" – he is a wicked person whose destiny it is to fall and die. Even so, the Torah tells the homeowner: You do not want to facilitate this occurrence, because bad things are brought about through guilty people.

Let’s think about this for a moment: If the homeowner doesn't put up a gate, the other person, who is guilty, will fall – indicating that the homeowner, too, is a guilty person in some way; yet if this same guilty homeowner puts up a gate, the world is perfect because the other fellow will not fall there.

Does the homeowner’s status change just because he put up a gate?!

Sifsei Chamaim says that it means that if s person falls, people will say that the homeowner is a guilty person. Perhaps he understands the Torah to be giving this not as a reason, but as an incentive: do this to protect your reputation.

But there is another way to understand this.

Building a new home is a tremendous undertaking, involving a myriad of details.

The Torah tells us that even when we are consumed with everything that has to be dealt with – the plans, the “surprises,” the supplies, supervising the work and coordinating all the craftsmen and deliveries – we need to remain considerate of the needs of others, even those who are guilty of sins that would justify their falling to their deaths.

Every one of us has shortcomings and failings. But if we remain sensitive to the needs of others with failings, Hashem will, middah k’neged middah, treat us with compassion.

When a person putting up his new home considers ways to protect those who are liable to fall off, Heaven views the owners shortcomings less severely. Not as a consequence of the fence, but because of the thought behind it.

Conversely, when one is consumed with himself and oblivious to the needs of others, Heaven judges him according to the full measure of his deeds. When that happens, the owner’s guilt may bring about that his negligence will bring about a death.

In the zechus of our consideration for others, may we be granted forgiveness and a kesivah vachsimah tovah.

Gut Shabbos.