Congregation B nai Torah Olympia D var Torah Parashat Ki Tavo

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Lawrence Norman
6 years ago
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1 Lately I have been focusing a lot on Theodicy. Over the last several years, I have experienced a number of health issues that left me on total disability. In Parashat Eikev, we are told that if we follow God s Torah, God will remove all sickness from you. (D varim 7:15) God states further I am your Healer. (Sh mot 15:26) So naturally I ask myself the question, If I m suffering all these things, am I being punished, and given the suffering of others, are they being punished? Have we not followed Torah and Halakha sufficiently? Our Parasha, Ki Tavo, When you enter the Land, is noted for the Tokheḥot, the warnings and curses, if we don t follow Torah. In it we find (D varim 28:27-8) Yak kha H bishḥin Mitzrayim uvat ḥorim uvagarav uveḥeres asher lo tukhal l heirafei. Yak kha H b shiga on u v ivaron u v timhon leivav. God will strike you with Egyptian boils, hemorrhoids, scabs, and eruptive itches from which you will not heal. God will strike you with madness, blindness and stupefaction. I don t think anyone who suffers experiences this entire list. Yet this hits close to home. These curses, as with the majority of curses in Torah, are based on abandonment of God, of idolatry, and of neglecting the needs of the less fortunate. I try to follow Torah, and help others in need, and I m certainly am not an Rabbi Jaron Matlow, MAJEd/JS, MEM

2 idolater. If so, why do I and all others in our world suffer such illness and misery? Our Parasha this year is bracketed by September 11 one week before and Rosh HaShannah two weeks hence. As we contemplate our lives during the past year, and where we want to be in the coming year, this hits home. Our process of Ḥeshbon HaNefesh, of introspection and examination leads us to wondering, why, if we have done a pretty good job, are we suffering so much? Sure, we aren t perfect, but we certainly have not dropped to the level depravity detailed in the Tanakh. The Ḥafetz Ḥayim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan writes, in his introduction to Sh mirat HaLashon, Guarding our Speech, In the end of the days of the Second Temple, senseless hatred and evil speech overcame us, in our great sins. Because of this, the Temple was destroyed and we were exiled from our Land. Surely we haven t been that evil. Yet we suffer! Another approach to this set of curses comes from The Sforno, R Ovadiah Sforno of 15 th century Italy; He states 1 Cursed be the man Behold, all the curses were preceded with the language of blessed be, as we have received in our tradition. Therefore it says These shall stand to bless the people (v. 12). 1 translation from Artscroll Sforno Rabbi Jaron Matlow, MAJEd/JS, MEM

3 However, the Torah only mentions the language of curse, because the main purpose of these imprecations was to curse those who transgressed these laws so that they alone should bear the consequences of their wicked acts, but the rest of the people would not be responsible for them. The reason for this is that these sins, in the majority of cases, were committed by the leaders of the people, and the common people had no power to protest, as Ezekiel attests, saying, ה נ ה נ ש יא י י ש ר א ל א י ש ל ז רע ו ה י ו ב ך ל מ ע ן ש פ ך-ד ם: ז אב ו א ם ה ק ל ו ב ך... The princes of Israel, every man for his own power were they within you, for the sake of bloodshed. Father and Mother have been slighted within you (Ezekiel 22:6-7). Now, in that chapter the prophet mentions most, if not all, of these maledictions. He adds that these wicked acts were performed in Jerusalem, not that the entire city sinned but that those who transgressed were the princes. So are the curses to us or to the leaders? I would argue that no matter how bad our leadership is, we still bear our own responsibility. But, if our course in this world is tied to our own actions and we make our own fortunes, how can we understand sickness and suffering in our world as punishment for sin? How Rabbi Jaron Matlow, MAJEd/JS, MEM

4 do we find comfort from the losses that we mourn every year, and those new ones that we suffer? My personal theology is that God does not directly control the world, the way the Biblical God does. Rather God manifests through opportunity. We are given free will, to choose to do good or evil. We must force ourselves to take the opportunities to do the right thing, whether it be a ritual law or a social issue. By choosing to effect this Tikkun, this repairing of the damage, we are accepting our responsibility to God and to humankind we ARE accepting Jewish law on a voluntary basis. At the same time, we come to understand that sickness and suffering are not Divine punishment, but simply the course of human nature. So, if all this suffering is just the course of human nature, how do we find God in this? Dr. David Hartman, of the Shalom Hartman Institute, writes, I therefore do not accept that all of history embodies an inscrutable form of divine justice. The tragic is present in human life because contingency and the possibility of suffering are intrinsic to it. 2 He continues, observing that Not everything that occurs in human history and in nature expresses the moral judgment of a personal god. In other words, God is there, but God is not causing our suffering directly. Nonetheless, we need to take responsibility for 2 Hartman, D. A Living Covenant. Woodstock VT: Jewish Lights Publishing p Rabbi Jaron Matlow, MAJEd/JS, MEM

5 our actions. This leads back to Ḥeshbon HaNefesh, as we go through this Penitential Season. What does Ḥeshbon HaNefesh really mean, if we are making our own way? While the course of nature is not directly orchestrated by God, God is still there. If God wasn t, why would we be here at CBT today? We know God is there. We need to make our way to God, and help others find their way back to God. That is what the month of Elul is all about. Shabbat shalom Rabbi Jaron Matlow, MAJEd/JS, MEM

ALEPH-TAU Hebrew School Lesson 204 (Nouns & Verbs-Masculine)

ALEPH-TAU Hebrew School Lesson 204 (Nouns & Verbs-Masculine) Each chapter from now on includes a vocabulary list. Each word in the vocabulary lists has been selected because it appears frequently in the Bible. Memorize the vocabulary words. Vocabulary * 1 ז כ ר