Parashat Ki Tavo 5782

by Rabbi Margie Cella

Moses again exhorts the people to keep God’s commandments “with all your heart and soul” (26:16). Just as “You have declared the Lord to be your God,” he says, “the Lord has declared you to be [God’s] special people… set high above all other nations” (26:17-19).

This parashah contains both curses and blessings. Curses apply to anyone who: makes a graven image; dishonors father or mother; hinders the blind; perverts the judgment of strangers, orphans, and widows; strikes their neighbor secretly; takes a bribe; does not maintain all the words of the Torah.  

Observing the commandments will bring blessings: in the city and field; with abundant  fruit of body, ground, and animals; coming in and going out. Israel’s enemies will be defeated, and they will be established as a holy people.

Not obeying the commandments will be equivalently cursed in all the same areas. Additionally, gruesome curses will be suffered by a disobedient nation, including but not limited to: pestilence, sickness, rain and drought; defeat by enemies; madness and blindness; exile; famine so severe as to cannibalism of family members; plagues on them and their children; fear; enslavement. Instead of numbering as the stars of heaven, they will be left few in number.

Still, the parashah ends on a positive note. Moses reminds the people of all that they have seen that God did for them, from the plagues and subsequent deliverance from Egypt to forty years in the wilderness when their clothes and shoes did not wear out, and God provided manna for them to eat; when attacked, they defeated the kings of Heshbon and Bashan.

The parashah ends with this exhortation from Moses: “Keep therefore the words of this covenant,… that you may prosper in all you do” (29:8). Be the recipient of blessings, not curses. Hazak v’Ematz