Parshas Ki Savo
Bounty and Bitterness
The messages of this week's parsha are certainly mixed ones, to put it
mildly. The parsha begins on an optimistic, almost cheerful note. The
Jewish farmer, secure in his homeland in the Land of Israel and blessed
with a bountiful harvest as a reward for his labors and toil, brings a
thanksgiving offering of his first fruits to the priest in the Temple.
There he records his memory of the Jewish story till his day. As he stands
in the Temple with his offering in hand, he remembers the Patriarchs and
the enslavement of Israel in Egypt, and God's ensuing redemption and
beneficence to Israel over the centuries until that very moment. This is
truly an idyllic scene, the realization of the personal and national
aspirations of Jews from the time of Abraham onwards. It represents the
fulfillment of all of the dreams and hopes that the prophets of Israel in
later centuries predicted would yet occur. It truly is paradise on this
earth.
How startling therefore is it that the long and bitter tochacha - the
predictions of disaster and tragedy that would befall Israel – is found in
the same parsha that begins with such blessing and serenity. We are all
witness to the fact that there is no hyperbole or exaggeration in the
doleful words of the tochacha. We possess the film footage and pictures to
prove its authenticity. The Torah makes it clear that the tochacha is not
so much a punishment of Israel as it is an almost natural result of the
Jewish people forsaking its tradition and reneging on its obligations
undertaken in the covenant forged between God and Israel at Sinai. The
tochacha occurs because God's protective hand, so to speak, is removed
from us and what results is the natural flow of history, hatred and
violence proceeds unchecked. I have no understanding and/or explanation
for the tochacha and its ferocity, or for the Holocaust that consumed six
million Jews in the past century, but I am nevertheless struck by the
uncanny prediction of its details in this week's parsha, written over
three millennia before the event itself occurred. God's will is
inscrutable to we mortals, but it is obvious to all that that will exists
and works throughout human history and events. Moshe himself will confirm
this analysis for us in next week's parsha when he states that: "The
hidden and not understandable belongs to God but the revealed message is
clear to us and our children - to live up to the covenant of Sinai and do
our duty and fulfill our obligations." So has it been throughout time and
so it remains.
Jews always live in a paradoxical world. - suspended between the material
blessings of the farmer's offering at the Temple and the realization of
the possibility of the tochacha becoming a reality once again. It is the
presence of these two possibilities that drive Jewish life and account for
the angst and tension that surround us. Yet, there remains the core of
unfailing optimism and utopianism of the Jews. May the coming year show
that the tochacha has spent itself and that we are well on the way to
again bring our loving offering of the fruits of our labor to the Temple
in Jerusalem.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
Text Copyright © 2004 by Rabbi Berel Wein and Torah.org
Visit www.rabbiwein.com for a complete selection of Rabbi Wein's books and tapes.
