August 27th, 2023
Twice every year the Torah readings focus on reward and punishment as expounded in a Tochechah, a series of blessings and curses. This Shabbat is one of the two occasions.
It promises rewards for obedience to the commandments and threatens horrific punishments for disobedience.
However, it all sounds very unfair. Surely a person should comply with the Divine rules for their own sake and not need a handout from heaven as a sweetener! Surely a person should do the right thing without needing threats of suffering as a warning against sin!
The explanation seems to be that the rewards and punishments are not incentives but consequences. Do the right thing for its own sake, and the consequences will be positive. Avoid the wrong thing, not because you fear punishment but because you know it is wrong, and the consequences will turn out to be negative.
Posted by oztorah
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Ki Tavo, Parashah Insights | 
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August 27th, 2023
The nations of the world will see that God is with us and they will give us respect. This assurance comes in the Torah portion (Deut. 28:10).
When we hear these lovely words we say, “If only!”
It is well known that if and when a Jew appears before a court, the judicial bench takes it for granted that Jews are a law-abiding people who very rarely commit an offence. The few Jews who get in trouble are exceptions to the rule and they bring dishonour to the name of God.
That is no guarantee that outsiders will always praise our virtues and never contemplate antisemitism. The “once again” form of antisemitism is happening too much, and all we can do is to conduct ourselves with honesty and uprightness.
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| Ki Tavo, Parashah Insights | Permalink
August 27th, 2023
The sidra tells us (Deut.26) that when we enter the Promised Land and build a sanctuary we must bring first fruits to the kohen and explain that the land has brought us fertility, going back to the time of our ancestors.
The Hebrew is Arami Oved Avi. According to a rabbinic view found in the Haggadah, this means that an Aramean, i.e. Laban, had tried to destroy Jacob the Patriarch.
Another view understands the Hebrew as saying, “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean (and I am one of his descendants who settled in Egypt before coming to Eretz Yisra’el).”
Many people prefer the second interpretation to the first.
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| Ki Tavo, Parashah Insights | Permalink
August 27th, 2023
Crowds built up on the way to the Temple with the first fruits. Many of the Shirei HaMa’alot were sung during the pilgrimage. It was an exciting, colourful spectacle, its pomp unequalled by any other observance.
It may be from this ritual that we derive the congregational principle, b’rov am hadrat Melech, “The King is acclaimed in great crowds” (Prov. 14:28).
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| Ki Tavo, Parashah Insights | Permalink
August 20th, 2023
The Torah reading gives us the basic information about the Jewish ethic of war. It begins by saying “When you go out to war”… implying that there are two types of conflicts – those that are marked by going in and those that are marked by going out.
Going in is civil war in which a nation is divided within itself. Going in requires an agreement to recognise that both factions share an identity and ought to be able to live together despite their differences.
Going out is a war in which we confront and take up weapons against another nation or battle another worldview. It is not merely a fight which you take the initiative to start off or respond to, so that a group of weapons are at war with one another.
The going out war must be avoided at all costs. There must be a serious initial overture of peace in which the other side is offered (Deut. 20:10-12) the opportunity of working out a modus vivendi. Only if the peace overture is rejected is it possible (and permitted) to take up arms.
Whichever type of war we are thinking of, the fundamental ethic is Isaiah 2:4, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”.
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| Ki Tetzei, Parashah Insights | Permalink
Twice every year the Torah readings focus on reward and punishment as expounded in a Tochechah, a series of blessings and curses. This Shabbat is one of the two occasions.
