Deuteronomy 18:13

תָּמִ֣ים תִּֽהְיֶ֔ה עִ֖ם יְיָ אֱלֹ־הֶֽיךָ

You must be TaMiM (perfect/complete/wholehearted) with Adonai your God. (Deuteronomy 18:13)

This key line from this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, poses a real challenge not only to translators, but to the very essence of what it is to be human. The work TaMiM has a whole range of interpretations as seen above. Are we being asked or commanded by God to be “perfect”? I sure hope not. To be “complete”? Well, if that’s the case, then I’m pretty sure our work here is done and there is nothing more to accomplish. No, I would hold that wholehearted is likely the best meaning, as reflected in the following commentary by Rabbi Harold Kushner:

“To be whole before God means to stand before God with all our faults as well as our virtues and to hear the message of our acceptability.… Know what is good and what is evil, and when you do wrong, realize that that was not the essential you. It was because the challenge of being human is so great that no one gets it right every time. God asks no more of us than that.” (Rabbi Harold Kushner, How Good Do We Have to Be, p. 180)

-Rabbi Craig Axler