Ki Tavo, When You Come, begins a long, long time ago when Gd lived within the limited geographical confines of the children of Israel (aka Jacob), first among other gods, but certainly not the only one.

The portion of Ki Tavo provides guidelines for making us a people of the land, as conquerors and settlers and usurpers. In it, we get instructions for tithing, remembering that someone once tried to kill us (Deuteronomy 26:5), and a tower of blessings and curses.

This portion is a kind of oracle, projecting us as the victims of actions like our own as takers of the land, when the land will be taken from us.

My own curse is foresight. Lately, every Torah portion I read terrifies me. Not because I am afraid of HaShem, perish the thought, but because I am terrified of the impacts on the Jewish mess of a community resulting from literal readings. That fear, at least, is grounded in history, past and present.

And when I get to portions like Ki Tavo, I feel that fear threefold. A literal reading of the curses in Ki Tavo can give only pain. In them we see both the seeds of our own destruction and that we ourselves will be blamed for it. Isn't it useful for those who have sought to destroy us to see the curses in this text and excuse their own actions as the will of Gd?

Who hasn’t heard someone say about antisemitism and the Holocaust: “Didn’t the Jewish people bring some of the violence on themselves?” I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard something like that, from both Jews and non-Jews alike. The next time you hear such a statement rattle off this great Yiddish curse:

וויפיל יאר איז ער געגאנגען אויף די פיס, זאל ער גיין אויף די הענט

For as many years as he’s walked on his feet, he should walk on his hands.

Another great curse you might want to try out is straight from the Talmud. "Vinegar, son of Wine," used to describe the son of an esteemed rabbi who sold out his compatriots to the Roman invaders.

Here are some questions to think about when reading the curses in Ki Tavo:

Many in Ze Kollel hadn’t read the curses before or were reading them carefully for the first time. It's not surprising that there was some fear and aversion that resulted from reading the text.

More than one person found the reading confusing. One asked, “What does it want me to do? The world is coming apart at the seams. One-third of Pakistan is underwater. Aren't these curses for all of us? Doesn't HaShem apply justice even-handedly? Look at King David, he suffered? He was king.”

In trying to make sense of this passage, several participants tried to place it in historical context.

One participant connected the curses to the story of the wicked child from the Passover Hagaddah who puts themself outside the boundaries of the collective. He pointed out that the curses are in the second person singular in the Hebrew. So while the curses feel like they are directed at the collective, they are still directed at a singular you. By making it singular you reinforce the collective. Or in the words of that famous proverb, “there is no I in team.”

Another found comfort in the curses. “We are cursed only if we have done something bad, which is a bit comforting to me. These can be a useful for control and social cohesion.”

She went on to comment on the way that Jewish communities see themselves as having thrived only to be destroyed. “I don't know how useful it is to carry this idea of being alone in the world, the idea that if we build up, we will be torn down. Is that a recipe for wellbeing and healing?”

It’s hard to read some of the curses and not think of climate change and the impacts of habitat destruction. We asked ourselves how can we avoid these curses and how do they serve as a reminder of how to interact in the world?

How do those power dynamics impact the collective itself?

Are threats the most effective way to motivate people? Some argued that they weren’t. For instance, we know that threats don’t work to educate children. And some of us shut right down when threatened. As one participant said:

Another respondent asked: “To whom is this text actually directed? If you can use it against power, that makes sense.”

One participant challenged this notion of equal impact for individuals and the collective. She reminded us to think of the privileges of social status and remember that the notion that individual actions are all equal is not true. By thinking of the collective as an equal and homogeneous unit, we deny its heterogeneity.

Speaking truth to power, demanding consequences for the actions of the powerful few can make these curses useful in activism and help to create a fair and just society instead of putting the burden of consequences on the least powerful.

Remember the Oven of Achnai? It's often the first portion of the Talmud that one learns because it's fun to read and teach, and it's accessible to the noob and the experienced alike. In it, a rabbi who performs miracles for the others to show how correct is his ruling gets overturned by the majority. How did HaShem feel about this? Well Elijah tells us:

What does that have to do with Ki Tavo? Well, get ready. Our Talmud instructor, Sophie Bigot-Goldblum came up with a 🤯 mind-expanding connection to the impact of these curse on us, the children of Israel. She pointed out that our very survival means that we have defeated the curses. "My children have defeated me"

Like the immortal jellyfish who repeats the cycle of life over and over and over again.