At the funeral of the richest man in town, a stranger saw a man crying very loudly. The stranger said, “Are you a relative of the deceased?”
“No.” “Then why are you crying?” “That’s why!”
See, I am placing before you today the blessing and the curse.
Blessing, if you obey the commandments of G-d that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey….
This is the dramatic opening of the weekly Torah portion, Re’eh. But what is exactly this blessing and this curse that G-d is placing before us?
One approach to understanding the Torah's conception of "the blessing and the curse" is to see how this verse is rendered by the great translators of the Torah.
Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel's translation just wanted to avoid using a negative expression, he wrote "the blessing and its exchange". The Aramaic word he uses, "exchange," “conversion,” implying that "the curse" is something that devolves from the blessing and is thus an alternate form of the same essence; it is an exchange for the blessing.
This is strange. A curse is not an exchange for a blessing; it is the OPPOSITE of a blessing! We exchange one painting for another one; and one car for another one. I may exchange one item you purchased in
my store with another one. But you do not exchange a gift for hurting the other person! You do not EXCHANGE a blessing with a curse.
There is a general distinction that characterizes the above two translations.
Another translator of the Torah, Onkelos' is a more "literal" translation. Its purpose is to provide the student with the most
rudimentary meaning of the verse. The verse, in Hebrew, says "the blessing and the curse," and Onkelos' translation renders it as such in the Aramaic. In contrast, the translation of Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel provides a more esoteric interpretation of the Torah, incorporating many Midrashic and Talmudic insights. So instead of simply calling "the curse" a curse, it alludes to the true significance of what we experience as adversity and pain in our lives. And it is a very deep and sensitive idea.
This loaded phrase “the blessing and the curse” includes all of life. All experiences, all phenomena, all events, all human activity, and every moment of the day are subject to categorization by these two most basic definers of reality. An occurrence is either fortunate or tragic, development is either positive or negative, and an act is either virtuous or iniquitous. Your life is either a blessing or a curse.
So, Moses is telling the people it is all a matter of perspective. “See I place before you today the blessing and the curse.” This duality is something I am placing before you. You are the one who will have to choose. I am giving you love and blessings—all the time. But you might “exchange” it and define it in your mind as a curse.
You are the one who must choose if your life, and every experience of it, is a blessing or a course. In the words of the prophet Jeremiah, "From the Supernal One's word/ there will not emerge/ evil and good." It is you who decide that.
Dr. Edith Eiger, the fames Auschwitz survivor, puts it: “Suffering is universal; victimhood is optional.”
You can see yourself as a blessing or as a course. You can see your marriage, your children, your
vocation, and your experiences, as a blessing or a curse. You can look at your childhood—or every other aspect of your life—and choose to see it as a blessing or a curse.
In essence, Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel is telling us, that what G-d gives is good, but G-d has granted us the ability to choose how to experience our lives. G-d is always blessing me, G-d is always showering me with infinite love, but the blessing can come in two different forms: as an open blessing, or as a hidden opportunity. My life is not divided between blessings and curses; my life is divided between blessings and exchanges of those very blessings—blessings which come in a DIFFERENT form, but still the same Divine love and blessings.
Whenever G-d gives you something good – an event we refer to as a blessing – it often comes wrapped up in something that looks very much like a curse. No aspect of your life is ever a stark choice of blessing or curse, rather it’s a choice of how to define it.
This is not an easy concept. Nor can you preach this to someone else, without profound empathy, sensitivity, and compassion. This also does not negate grief work on shattered dreams and hopes. Some of us have endured traumas; some of us have witnessed profound pain. This is an invitation to open ourselves ups to another story, to help heal ourselves and our
loved ones.
Sometimes the deepest good comes out in the form of adversity. Because this goodness is infinite, and our finite structures can’t make space for it; hence it shatters us and overwhelms our systems. But if we can allow our egos and fears to crumble and open ourselves up to the life and love G-d is offering us, we may find an entirely new gift being given to us far beyond our imagination and mindset.
This is deep work. It takes a lot of courage, resolve, and trust. But it is the invitation, Moses is inviting us into.
The 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is widely regarded as one the most successful U.S. presidents of all time. During his twelve years in office, FDR propelled his beleaguered country out of the Great Depression and then turned it into an economic and military superpower. There is, to be sure, a great stain on his presidency. His refusal to formally
acknowledge the horrors of the Holocaust as it was happening, and to do anything that might have saved its victims will live in infamy, yet he is nonetheless credited for ensuring U.S.
support for military efforts against the Axis powers, support that resulted in the victory for the Allies in the Second World War.
Many books have been written about FDR trying to figure out his astonishing success as president. He certainly had a winning personality as well as a sharp intellect, but according to his wife, there was one event in his life that was responsible for his success.
While at Harvard University, in 1902, FDR applied to join The Porcellian an exclusive student club dating back to 1791, to which both his father and cousin President Teddy Roosevelt, had
belonged. It was considered the most prestigious club in Harvard, and it was the dream of every student to become a member of it.
But much to FDR’s dismay, he was blackballed, and it was a slight he never forgot. Years later he told his relative, W. Sheffield Cowles, that his rejection by Porcellian had been “the greatest disappointment in my life.”
FDR’s wife Eleanor, never sparing with her candid views, believed that her husband’s rejection by Porcellian had given him an “inferiority complex,” but she also thought that it was precisely this failure – and his rejection generally by the cliquey Bostonians who dominated Harvard – that had strengthened his character and turned him into the incredibly resilient politician and statesman he later became.
It was his unique capacity for rising above adversity that gave him his
edge, putting his head and shoulders above any of the many great leaders who have led countries and nations throughout history.
This experience also helped him in his refusal to be cowed by polio after he was diagnosed with the disease in 1921.
And yet, if someone had told FDR on the day, he was turned down for membership of Porcellian, that one day he would be America’s most successful and revered president, admired by friend and foe alike, and that this adulation and his attainments would be a direct result of the rejection he had just been handed – he would have thought it utterly crazy.
But this was precisely Eleanor’s verdict, and it is also the verdict of numerous historians and biographers. This pampered child of a privileged family took a thorn and turned it into a rose, rising above every challenge he would ever face in the future by never forgetting the disappointment of that day.
The different perspectives on the nature of evil expressed by these two Aramaic translations of the Torah reflect the spiritual-historical circumstances under which they were compiled.
The translation by Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel, also called the "Jerusalem Translation," was compiled in the Holy Land in the generation before the Temple's destruction. The very fact that its authorship was necessary—the fact that for many Jews the language of the Torah was no longer their mother tongue, and the word of G-d was accessible only through the medium of a
vernacular—bespeaks the encroaching exile. The "concealed good" was already being experienced as something other than an expression of G-d's loving relationship with us. Still, in Rabbi Yonatan's day, the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem. The descending veil of galut was translucent still, allowing the recognition, if not the experience, of the true nature of reality. One was aware that what one perceived as negative in one's life was an exchange.
The Onkelus Translation was compiled a generation later by the nephew of the Roman Emperor who destroyed the Holy Temple and drove the people of Israel into exile. In Onkelus’ day, the galut had intensified to the point that the prevalent reality was that of a world dichotomized by good and evil, a world in which the "concealed good" is regarded as simply "the curse."
It is a daily challenge and opportunity for each of us—to evolve from the galut lenses to the geulah lenses; from an exile consciousness to a geula consciousness in which I look at my life and all I see is love and blessings, sometimes I can just see the love easily and vividly, and sometimes I see it garbed in a challenge, but a challenge that was designated to allow me to experience yet deeper and everlasting love.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
Mavis Wanczyk wrote...