Things have felt utterly deflating. The news out of Afghanistan yesterday is unbelievably devastating. This morning, hospitals reported that as soon as next week, they may be forced to turn people away for care if their chances of survival aren’t great. The news has not been uplifting, to say the least.
This felt like a real-life embodiment of this week’s parashah, Ki Tavo. The Torah this week sets up a stark dichotomy between blessing and curse. It states that the tribes will split up to stand on two different mountains, and on one the blessings will be declared and on the other, the curses. Then, the Torah spells out exactly what the curses are. It very clearly outlines behavior that leads to being cursed. We would expect that next, we’d see a parallel for the blessings. But we are left without that. The blessings are not outlined. While we are told that there are blessings and curses, the blessings are not enumerated.
It is increasingly easy to look out at our world and only see curses. The blessings feel more hidden, under the surface, needing us to spell them out and unearth them. It makes sense that we read this portion less than two weeks before Rosh Hashanah: the sobering reality of curse and blessing puts us in a certain mindset to pray for the year ahead. We hope to be partners in crafting the year ahead where the blessings are easier to see, where they are explicitly laid out in front of us.
And the Haftarah that we read this week (Isaiah 60) speaks to that sentiment. Known as the 6th Haftarah of Consolation, it is meant to offer us comfort, in part, because of the curses we read earlier in the service. Throughout the entire Haftarah, I notice imagery of light overtaking darkness:
“Arise, shine, for your light has dawned” (v.1) “Darkness will cover the earth...but on you God will shine and nations will walk by your light.” (v.2-3) “As you behold, you will glow.” (v.5) “No longer will you need the sun for light by day or the shining of the moon for radiance by night, for God will be your everlasting light.” (v. 19)
This imagery of light overtaking darkness is the antidote to the enumeration of curses in the Torah reading, and it’s what I need in this moment to feel that there can be brighter days. We begin our High Holiday season in earnest tomorrow night, with our Selichot service, and this imagery is inspiring my prayers this year. I hope that we will enter into a 5782 where we see more light than darkness, where we can be light for other people that are still in the dark, and I pray that we inhabit a world where the blessings are easier to identify than the curses.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Sarit
P.S. I hope you'll join for our Selichot program on Saturday night. We'll come together at 8:15 for Havdallah and a short learning program, followed by the Selichot service with Abe on guitar.
Please click here to join our Shabbat morning service, live-streamed from our sanctuary at 9:15AM on Shabbat morning, or join us in person in the Sanctuary by signing up here.
