Parshas Ki Tavo – The Important of Being Good

 As an English teacher, I often ask students to take a large concept and break it down to its most simplified form. Parshas Ki Tavo is, therefore, rather fascinating in its structure in that Bnei Yisrael are first presented with what could be considered a skeleton list of behaviors to be avoided lest one be cursed followed by an extremely detailed composition describing life when blessed by Hashem verses life when cursed by Hashem.

 

The skeletal list of curses, which one expects from the text to be paired with a similar list of blessings but is not, are fascinating. They do not mention any of the halachos that we most associate with living a Torah life, and they do not mention anything about the avodah, although the mishkan and its actions have taken up a large percentage of the Torah thus far. In fact, of all the curses listed, only one could be considered bein adom l’makom – and that one prohibits the making of idols and setting them up in secret, which is a very specified avodah zara.

 

In other words, Hashem is not saying to curse the person who does not keep Shabbas or who eats non-kosher food or who violates the holidays, even though these topics are related numerous times in the Torah. But one who violates basic human decency, that is whom one should curse, and the actions for which one shall be cursed are oddly specific: insulting one’s parents, moving a landmark, misdirecting a blind person, taking a bribe to be a false witness, and etc. Taken as a whole, however, they create broad brush strokes of decency.

 

The only one of the curses that is not hyper-focused, so to speak, is the concluding “Cursed be whoever will not uphold the terms of this Torah and observe them.—And all the people shall say, Amen” (Devarim 27:26). The debate, which one can even say is ongoing as rabbis today prepare divrei Torah, is whether this refers to the just completed list to which it belongs or to the Torah in its entirety. But that is a mute point for now.

 

There is one other subtle unifying factor of these curses. They are all private acts, things that might be done when – or because – there are no witnesses.

 

The curses and the blessings are to be recited just before Bnei Yisrael enter the Promised Land. This warning of the temptations that might follow, the lure of selfish violations of decency, is declared just before Bnei Yisrael are going to leave the safety of Hashem’s palpable presence. These curses are a mother or father telling their newly adult child not to overspend on their credit card. It might not seem problematic and it’s so easy to do, but the repercussions for the future are serious.

 

The curses of transgressors of decency may be directed at entering the Land of Canaan in Parshas Ki Tavo, but the curses are a warning no matter where one lives. And the temptations are far greater in gulus than when Bnei Yisrael lived in the spiritually infused Promised Land, where the recognition of Torah and Hashem was ever-present. So here we are, 2 long millennia in exile constantly encountering a world in which the mores of society are ever changing. Ours, however, should not. Gulus is a world in which Hashem’s face is hidden, in which we struggle to feel the spiritual around us, but the necessity of being a good person – of not doing ill to another even when one thinks they cannot be caught – never goes away.

 

I wish you all a good Shabbas.