TORAH SPARKS

Parashat Ki Tavo

September 17, 2022 | 21 Elul 5782

Torah: Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8; Triennial 27:11-29:8

Haftarah: Isaiah 60:1-22

Secret Sins

Ilana Kurshan

In this week s parashah Moshe charges the people to renew the terms of their covenant with God once they cross the Jordan and enter the promised land. This renewal will take the form of a theatrical ceremony in which half of the tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim, half will stand on Mount Eval, and the priests and Levites will stand in the valley below, where they will proclaim in a loud voice (27:14) a series of twelve curses. Eleven of these curses are directed at one who violates a specific commandment, and the twelfth curse is directed more generally at one who fails to uphold the terms of this Torah (27:26). The Mishnah (Sotah

7:5) dramatizes this event, describing the Levites encircling the priests who in turn encircle the ark, with the Levites turning their heads toward Mount Eval each time they recite another curse, and the people atop both mountains crying out Amen.

This ceremony is a one-time-only event, but it raises questions that continue to reverberate. Why was it necessary to renew the covenant right when the Israelites entered the promised land? Why these curses specifically, and what do they have in common? Why are they proclaimed so loudly and publicly? A close look at the nature of these curses and

their placement in the Torah offers a lesson in the relationship between individual sin and communal responsibility, both in biblical times and in our own day.

At first glance, the renewal of the covenant seems superfluous. All the curses recited at the foot of the mountain reiterate commandments that were stated earlier in the Torah. Some overlap with the Ten Commandments, like the prohibition on idolatry and on cursing one s parents. Others hearken back to the holiness code in Leviticus, like the prohibition on causing harm to a blind person or a stranger, widow or orphan, and the prohibitions on incestuous relationships. But as several medieval commentators noticed including the Rashbam and Ibn Ezra the prohibitions appear with a slightly different twist here, because they all relate to sins committed in secret.

Unlike the second commandment s prohibition on graven images, the Levites on the mountain say cursed be anyone who makes a sculptured or molten image, abhorred by the Lord, a craftsman s handiwork, and sets it up in secret (27:15). It is not the run-of-the-mill idolator who is publicly cursed, but the one who worships idols in secret. Likewise, it is not the ordinary murderer who is cursed here, but he who strikes down his fellow countryman in secret (27:24), when no one else is watching. Rabbi Yehuda Brandes adds that even those curses that do not explicitly refer to acts committed in secret are nonetheless secretive acts (see Torat Imecha, vol. 2, p. 512, untranslated). For instance, those who commit incest are sinning in the private sphere of the family, removed from the public eye. Even if these illicit sexual relations come to light, there is often an attempt to cover them up so as not to sully the family s reputation. Likewise, several of the sins refer to taking advantage of those in society who are inherently disadvantaged, like the blind person and the widow. These individuals are often unable to cry out for justice, and thus any sin against them constitutes a sin committed in secret. Taken together, this list of curses indicates that it is the sins committed in secret and the sins least likely to receive legal redress that are loudly and publicly proclaimed by the Levites in the valley.

Just two chapters later in Deuteronomy, toward the conclusion of his address to the people of Israel, Moshe will speak to the difference between sins committed in secret and those committed publicly: The hidden things are for the Lord our God but the revealed things are for us and our children forever to do all of the words of this Torah (Deuteronomy

29:28). Rashi explains that human beings cannot punish one another for sins that no one knows about; only God can know about the sins committed in secret, when no one else is watching. And thus the hidden things the sins committed in secret are left to God to punish, while human beings must adjudicate matters that are publicly known. The curses recited on the mountain relate to the hidden things as a way of warning the people that they cannot escape sins committed in secret. Even those matters about which no human judge can ever know will be redressed nonetheless.

But why is it specifically at that moment when the Israelites enter the land that they need to be reminded about the curses inflicted on those who sin in secret? The Talmud, amidst its discussion of capital punishment, quotes Rabbi Yehuda s opinion that God did not punish for the hidden things until the Israelites crossed the Jordan (Sanhedrin 43b). Only once the Israelites entered the promised land did the secret matters become subject to divine recrimination. Indeed, perhaps the notion of a secret sin did not make sense when the Israelites were traveling through the wilderness, living in close quarters in encampments that afforded little privacy. Even if their windows were arranged such that they could not see into one another s tents, they were constantly accompanied by the Tabernacle and the pillars of fire and cloud, which surely lent the people the sense that God was always amidst them. As Moshe tells the people explicitly, Since the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you, let your camp be holy; let Him not find anything unseemly among you (Deuteronomy 23:15). The people felt God s presence in their midst, like students in an afterschool detention room scrutinized by an eagle-eyed disciplinarian. They did not need to be

reminded not to sin in secret when it seemed impossible to escape God s watch.

On the other hand, once the Israelites cross the Jordan, they will spread out into their tribal lands and build family homes with fields and vineyards separating neighbors from one another. God will no longer hover over them and provide manna for them to eat every morning. Thus the people have to be warned not to forget God s continued involvement in their lives: When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses to live in beware lest you grow haughty and forget the Lord your God Remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to get wealth Deuteronomy 8:12-18). They have to realize that God ultimately continues to provide for them, and that God remains aware of what takes place in the secret chambers of their hearts.

Rashi, in commenting on Rabbi Yehuda s statement in the Talmud about God punishing for secret things (Sanhedrin 37a), notes that once the people crossed the Jordan, they heard and accepted upon themselves the blessings and curses at Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval and became responsible for one another. Rashi is invoking the well-known rabbinic principle that All of Israel are responsible for one another (Sanhedrin 27b). As a community and as a nation, the fate of one person is bound up in the fate of all others. When one person sins even if that sin is committed in secret, and no one else knows that sin serves to further distance God, rendering the collective less holy. We are expected not just to administer justice against those sins which we can know about, but also to build a holy society in which people feel so responsible for one another that they do not sin in secret either. Each time we embrace this sense of communal responsibility, the cries of amen recited by the people in unison continue to reverberate from the mountaintops.

This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land

Vered Hollander-Goldfarb

Text: Devarim 26:1-10

1And it shall be, when you come into the land which the LORD your

God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and dwell in it,

2 that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring from your land that the LORD your God is giving you, and put it in a basket and go to the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. 3And you shall go to the one who is kohen in those days, and say to him, I declare today to the LORD your God that I have come to the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us. 4Then the kohen shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God. 5And you shall answer and say before the LORD your God: My father was an Aramian , and he went down to Egypt and dwelt there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

6But the Egyptians mistreated us 7Then we cried out to the LORD God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and looked on our affliction… 8So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. 9He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; 10and now, behold, I have brought the first-fruits of the land which you have given me, O LORD.

● Based on the declaration that a person declares when bringing the first fruits, what is our relationship to the land? Whose land is it? What purpose does bringing the first fruit serve?

● Is I declare in v. 3 referring to the moment that the person holds the basket of the fruit of his land? If so, how is this a declaration? Could it be referring to the lengthy spoken declaration in vs. 5-10? When, in this ceremony, do you think that the history-ladened declaration in vs.5-10 was recited?

Commentar y: Seforno Devarim 26:3

I declare today Through these actions I have let it be known to all

● According to Seforno, how does one declare coming to the land in v. 3?

● Starting in v. 5 we encounter a spoken declaration. Which form of telling do you think is more effective, this or the verbal one? Why? For whom?

Commentar y: Rashi Devarim 26:5

Shall answer – is an expression for raising one’s voice.

● The root in Hebrew for answer can also be used for singing/declaring. What stage directions is Rashi giving for the ceremony? Why does he not understand it to mean answering ?

Got Milk?

Bex Stern Rosenblatt

During the seven haftarot of consolation, we return again and again to the idea of our nation, Jerusalem, being reunited with her children, once again able to care for them. It is an undoing of the damage described in Lamentation. Over the course of these haftarot and this transformation, we learn to suckle at a number of different breasts, each providing a slightly different method of consolation.

We start in Isaiah 49, the haftarah for Eikev. We read, as translated by Alter, And kings shall be your attendants and princesses your wet nurses. Face to the ground they shall bow to you and lick the dust of your feet. And you shall know that I am the LORD, all who hope for Me shall not be shamed. In this verse, we are suckling from the breasts of foreign princesses. However, the emphasis is not on what we receive from them, but rather on degrading them by putting them in this position. Our nation is elevated and the rulers of foreign nations are fit only to be our servants. The humiliation we imagine here for female rulers is to turn them into our milk providers.

However, the following week, the idea of being a provider of milk is turned on its head. We are returned from suckling at the breast of a wetnurse to suckling at the breast of Jerusalem. In Isaiah 66, the haftarah for Re eh, we read, as translated by Alter, Rejoice with Jerusalem and all who love her exult in her. Be glad with her in gladness, all who mourn for her, that you suck and be sated from her comforting breast, that you drink deep and know pleasure from her glorious teat. This image begs the question of who personified

Jerusalem is. She seems to represent all of us, the addressees of

Isaiah, and yet is also more than our sum as individuals. Here in Isaiah

66, we are calling her back into existence by rejoicing with her, and even more so, by needing her. It is our suckling that created her ability to give forth comfort, that gives purpose back to her existence.

This week, in the sixth of seven haftarot of consolation, the image is taken even further. We read, as translated by Robert Alter, And you shall suckle the milk of nations, royal breasts you shall suckle, and you shall know I am the LORD your Rescuer, and your Redeemer, Jacob s Mighty One. Here, we are combining the force of the past two images. Once again, the source of our sustenance is foreign nations. However, here we have developed more confidence. We do not seek to shame the other nations by forcing them to be our wetnurses. Rather, we are bestowing our favor on those nations by allowing them to serve us. Just as our suckling from Jerusalem brought Jerusalem fully into existence, so too does our suckling from the nations create them in the best possible image.

The evolution of our role as people who suckle emphasizes the vital importance of children to the narrative of consolation. The consolation is children, is the next generation, the promise of a future after a broken past. Jerusalem may have been broken, but it is by mirroring herself in her children that she is able to heal herself. It is through the process of self-reflection and production that she is able to move forward.