Summarized by Daniel Herman, Translated by David Strauss
The parashot that we have read over the last few weeks present the transition from Moshe Rabbeinu's speech about the commandments to the topic of the covenant between God and the people of Israel – i.e., preparations for the assembly that will be held when they cross into the Land of Israel, and the covenant in the plains of Moav. A significant part of the covenant is the account of the blessings and curses in the previous parasha, which to a large extent continues into this week's parasha.
There seems to be a fundamental difference between these curses and the curses that appear in Parashat Bechukotai: while the curses in Parashat Bechukotai present a people who suffer and are exiled but maintain their national identity, the curses in Parashat Ki Tavo seem to present a process of disintegration and dissolution of the people – the survivors of the destruction will not be able to maintain their identity, and will be assimilated among the nations. This description of a total dissolution of the people is very reminiscent of what happened to European Jewish communities, and especially in Hungary, after the Holocaust. Once the communities of the villages and suburbs had been destroyed, there was no point of support left for the Jews of the cities, most of whom succumbed to the "enlightenment" that pervaded their surroundings.
The Ramban, in accordance with his view that there is a deep connection between the Torah and the course of history, compares the events described in our parasha to the horrors that befell the Jewish people in the days of the Second Temple, and his words are indeed convincing. The descriptions of the destruction, the poverty, and the desolation are very reminiscent of the many attempted revolts of the Second Temple period; the enormous number of people killed, and the cruelty with which they were slaughtered, are as chilling as the reading of the curses.
This period, aside from the great slaughter at its end, presents us with some very impressive enterprises. From a simple observation of Herod's water works in Caesarea, one cannot help but be impressed by the high level of construction and the degree of planning invested there – for the sake of the king's splendor and comfort, but also in strict adherence to the rules of halakha. Great effort was expended to allow water to pass to the mikva'ot that surrounded the palace, in a way that would not cause it to be considered "drawn" and invalid. At the same time, we all know how those aqueducts and water channels were built – by the forced labor of the poorest and weakest members of society, who were enslaved to pay off heavy debts. It is no wonder that Jesus arose at that time, speaking as one of the prophets against the immorality of society and the gulf between their attitude toward God's commandments and their attitude toward their fellow men and brothers.
A hundred and fifty years ago, Mark Twain wrote his important book, Innocents Abroad, in which he describes his high expectations in anticipation of his encounter with the Holy Land, and his disappointment at the barren landscape that unfolded before his eyes. This description beautifully expresses what our parasha foretells:
And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick. Its whole land is brimstone, and salt, and a burning; it is not sown, and does not produce, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sedom and Amora, Adma and Tzevoyim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath. (Devarim 29:21-22)
In the light of such circumstances, Jesus and his disciples came out with their famous declaration that God had forsaken Israel and chosen for Himself a new Israel, a new people. The breach of the covenant which the Torah describes in our parasha was evident to them, and they did not hesitate for a moment to declare that God had abandoned His people.
However, it seems that their error lies in stopping at these verses. If we only continue a few verses further in our parasha, we will discover the astounding element that is being realized before our very eyes in our current generation:
And it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, that I have placed before you, and you will take [them] to heart, among all the nations where the Lord your God has dispersed you, and you will return to the Lord your God and obey Him, according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul – then the Lord your God will return your captivity and have compassion upon you, and He will return and gather you from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of yours who are dispersed are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will fetch you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you will possess it; and He will do you good, and multiply you above your fathers. (Devarim 30:1-5)
Logically and realistically, there is no doubt that Christianity was right: there was no chance that this despised and scattered people would ever return to being the Chosen People; the breach of the covenant was followed by the expected punishment, and God decided to renew His covenant with new messengers. But it is precisely here, in its illogicality and its power, that we perceive the greatness of the quality of repentance – as beautifully expressed in the words attributed to Adam in Midrash Rabba (Bereishit 22, 13), "How great is the power of repentance, and I did not know it."
Despite the sin, the exile, and the almost total disintegration, there is always a possibility of repair and growth out of the ruins. This truth is given added force and emphasis in the vision of the dry bones in the book of Yechezkel (chapter 37). This vision is customarily understood as a description of a miraculous and supernatural resurrection, but in my understanding, it is not so. Like most of Yechezkel's prophecies, the vision is a parable – in which a simple and reasonable act is described in order to make a more complex and difficult-to-accept message more palatable. It would seem that the description of the revivification of the dry bones serves as a parable for the far greater and more wondrous miracle of the resurrection of the Jewish people from the Diaspora and their return to their land.
In fact, to a great extent, the power of repentance is far greater and more ground breaking than the resurrection of the dead; the ability to change everything from the ground up, to rebuild the wasteland after everything has already been destroyed, can sound like sheer nonsense – far more so than the return of the world to the state it was in before sin, when there was no death.
Israel's return to their land shatters the entire theological doctrine of the Christian religion as they have seen it up to now. It is not for nothing that the Vatican has convened frequently in recent years to revise the tenets of their faith and to eliminate various perceptions concerning Israel. A century after Mark Twain's disappointment with a barren land, the young State of Israel defeated the Arab nations that had risen up to destroy it in six days; a century and a half after he saw the land as devoid of any hope of flourishing, the State of Israel is signing gas deals in the billions of dollars.
To conclude, I will cite the wonderful words of Rabbi Kook, who, in his wisdom, discerned the importance of repentance and saw in it the thread that weaves the history of the entire Jewish people:
And if a person should come to innovate lofty things in the matter of repentance in this time, and does not look to the matter of the revealed end and the shining light of salvation, he will not be able to direct anything to the truth of the Torah of truth. (Iggerot ha-Ra'aya 378)
[This sicha was delivered by Harav Yaakov Medan on Shabbat Parashat Nitzavim 5776.]
(Edited by Sarah Rudolph)
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