Parshas Ki Tavo: Blessings Promised, Curses Guaranteed

In our Torah portion this week, Ki Tavo, Devarim (Deuteronomy) 26:1 - 29:8, Moses describes a heaven on earth promised as a result of applying God's design for living in Torah. The Divine blueprint, first given to the Jews at Mt. Sinai, to be practiced in Israel and given to all of humankind, was a gift promised to deliver prosperity, happiness, and flourishing on earth. Moses also offers a horrifying picture of the total collapse of human civilization, curses guaranteed as a result of end stage spiritual bankruptcy transpiring from the rejection of this gift.

The portion opens with a lesson in gratitude to God for sustenance as shown Him through the laws of the first fruits, offerings to the Temple as well as to the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. This practice is taken very seriously in the agrarian society of the time as a way of securing God's blessings and protection.

Moses then conveys instructions to create monuments displaying all the words of Torah in strategic locations. These will serve as constant reminders of the civic and religious standards expected of the Jews, required to maintain the special contract with the Almighty to which they previously agreed. He contrasts the blessings of keeping the covenant with the curses of forsaking it regarding idolatry, disrespect for parents, real estate fraud, using uninformed consent to exploit people for profit, judging against those who lack protection in society, such as the convert, the orphan, and the widow, aberrant familial sexual actions, gossiping, and profiting from the execution of the innocent. Moses completes the list with a general cautionary declaration to consider all of Torah in this light.

The contrast between the blessings and the curses makes a dramatic argument in favor of total acquiescence with sincere gratitude and reverence. Blessings promised are robust fertility, healthy offspring, plentiful crops, peace of mind and soul, territorial security, military readiness, financial success, good reputation and Divine providence.

Curses guaranteed are lackluster fertility, sick offspring, unhappy family life, starvation, anxiety and fear, disease, military unpreparedness, invasion, terrorism, genocide, drought, disability, exile, business failure, contempt, tyranny and enslavement.

The portion closes with reassurances that spiritual growth and love of God come only after pain and suffering self-imposed through conceit and willfulness. Every day is a day when we can allow circumstances to humble us. Today is the day when we can discard selfishness and reconstitute ourselves as channels of Divine inspiration. In our Haftarah this week, Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 60:1-22, Isaiah reprises this reassuring theme.

Perhaps Moses means to inspire the people into adherence, perhaps he means to scare them into obedience. Whatever his intentions, our history as chronicled in Tanakh clearly shows a correlation between God centered living and flourishing, as well as a correlation between human secularism and suffering.

These correlations endure the test of time. Western societies once rooted in Torah principles enjoyed abundant blessings of growth and prosperity and territorial integrity. Though applied imperfectly, these principles served as beacons to guide us towards greater understanding of God's world and our place within it.

Contrast this with curses guaranteed as a result of breaking our covenant with God and defying Torah principles. Declining birth rates, increasing sickness and early death, ebbing fortunes, invasion and terrorism resulting from a multitude of errors:

-abandoning God for a belief in a never ending list of isms,

-replacing parental guidance with social media influences,

-using uninformed consent to exploit people for profit in many areas of health and medicine, including vulnerable parents denied access to ultrasounds and dangers of abortion to meet abortion business quotas, 

-appraising the baby in the womb orphaned by both parents as sub-human and unworthy of protection,

-failing to provide support and encouragement to abandoned mothers and their unborn children,

-loss of family and sexual morality,

-defamation, accusation and prosecution without cause or accountability,

-profiting from the execution of the innocent, as in private businesses that sacrifice human beings in the womb for profit and government entities that destroy human beings in the womb to save socialized health and welfare costs and to supply baby parts to research facilities that forecast sizable earnings from unconscionable experiments.

Because the cause of these worldly problems is spiritual, so must the solution be spiritual. Political, military and social strategies conceived in human minds will fail us and increase our woes. Moses gave us the solution long ago - repent and rely on the love and mercy of God to restore peace and prosperity to Israel and to every other nation. And He will!

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Cecily Routman

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.