What Blessing? Which Curse?

^{27 Elul 5782 | September 23, 2022}

Parshat Nitzavim

Sarah Rosenberg

Class of 2025

Moshe declares that there are two possible futures for the Jewish people: one of blessings and one of curses. If we follow mitzvot, we will be rewarded with material abundance and sovereignty in our land. If we fail to obey G-d’s word, we will be cursed with plague, pestilence, and exile. After prophesying these different paths, Moshe tells B’nei Yisrael the choice is theirs — they can choose whether the blessing or the curse will come to pass. He says:

Yet, we read a few psukim earlier:

The writer and critic Adam Kirsch notes in his book on modern Jewish literature, appropriately called The Blessing and the Curse, that it seems both parts of the prophecy, both the blessing and the curse, are destined to be fulfilled. Kirsch uses this pasuk to describe the whole of Jewish history, that we encounter eras of blessing and prosperity as well as eras of disposession and terror. Moshe’s charge to choose life isn’t so simple. Perhaps this choice between life and death, blessings and curses, isn’t actually a choice at all, but both are in our future.

Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz assumes a different position, that we do have a choice. He asks: do we see our Judaism as a blessing or a curse? Are we grateful to be Jewish, or is it simply a burden to bear?

The poet Heinrich Heine took a strong stance on this question. He described Judaism as “not a religion, but a curse.” It is no surprise, then, that Heine chose to be baptized, not out of a conviction that Christianity held any deep truth for him, but because he faced limitations and discrimination as a Jew in 19th century Germany. Rav Steinsaltz writes in his book Talks on the Parsha, “One may perceive one’s Judaism as a kind of curse: Against one’s will one lives, against one’s will one dies, and against one’s will one is a Jew.” Ol malchut shamayim, the yoke of heaven, is too heavy to bear. The Torah is an inherited burden.

We may occasionally feel the yoke is too heavy, perhaps when we look longingly at a non-kosher restaurant’s menu — and prices — or we may find our usual Shabbos routine stale. It’s unrealistic to be content and to love our Jewish practice always, but once we start to see it as a weighty load, we risk adopting a similar attitude as Heine, that Judaism itself is a curse.

This time of year can feel like a particularly heavy burden. Rather than celebrating the new year with drinking and carousing, we’re forced to confront deep faults in ourselves and reflect on how we can be better people. It’s difficult work. It would be far more pleasant to hide our flaws rather than face them head on. But, as in so many other cases, this burden is for our own good: we must go against our natural inclinations and do what is necessary for self-improvement.

Elul, this month we’re currently in, is an acronym for many things. One that is particularly resonant is ארון לוחות ושברי לוחות: the Ark, the tablets, and the broken tablets. The Talmud in Bava Batra 14b tells us the broken luchot were placed in the Aron alongside the whole ones. In the holiest of places, we face our mistakes. In fact, the broken luchot symbolize the greatest sin of all: idolatry.

This is one of the blessings of Judaism, that every year we are given a chance to begin anew and improve ourselves. Of course, this can happen any day, but we need an annual reminder because we, as humans, are forgetful and constantly risk falling into negative cycles. The shofar forces us to wake up and remember that we can always be doing better.

In Shemot Rabbah (46:1), we see a conversation between G-d and Moshe after Moshe breaks the luchot. He expresses sadness that he did so, but G-d comforts him by saying: No, the first set of luchot only contained the Aseret HaDibrot, the Ten Commandments, but this second set will contain halacha, midrash, aggadah — the whole of the Jewish canon. The Torah, then, was actually expanded by Moshe breaking the luchot. Through our mistakes, we received more. Though sometimes we may wish we still had the first luchot, and that we only need to follow the Aseret HaDibrot and nothing more, the richness of Jewish tradition is a blessing. Even if at times it feels overwhelming, let us remember that Judaism is a bracha.