Earlier this week I found myself on the phone with a temple member who had suffered a fairly serious accident. Through no fault of their own, they were laid up and their plans for an active summer were sidelined for the foreseeable future. I commiserated and expressed hope that they would soon be back out and about.
Then they said something that really surprised me. “You know what rabbi, it could have been a lot worse. I could have broken a hip, an arm, or even suffered a concussion. As things go, it was the best outcome of a bad situation.”
Now, I have been on too many calls with folks who have been injured or hurt but very rarely have I heard someone take such a situation so calmly and reasonably. Not only that, they were able to find a positive side to a situation that would leave many frustrated, angry and bitter.
It was a short conversation but it raises a question posed by this week’s portion: what is a curse and what is a blessing?
This Shabbos, we find ourselves in the Book of Deuteronomy, standing with the Israelites on the east bank of the Jordan. Before they cross over with Joshua to fight for and possess their sacred inheritance, Moses recounts their 40 year journey and imparts his final words of wisdom. His words echo down to us today:
“See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse:” (Deut. 11: 26)
Our sages teach that these were the same blessings and curses that would later be shouted from the valley between Mount Gerizin and Mount Ebal in a renewal of the covenant the people originally made on Mount Sinai. But there is another way to look at the blessing — the bracha, and the curse — the k’lalah.
What exactly is a blessing? What is a curse? The Renaissance commentator Sforno notes that this pronouncement does not provide for any middle ground. The blessing and the curse are extremes, complete opposites. “The ברכה is an extreme in that it provides you with more than you need, whereas the קללה is another extreme, making sure that you have less than your basic needs. You have the choice of both before you; all you have to do is make a choice.”
A blessing is water irrigating a field after a dry spell. A blessing is laughing so hard you end up crying. A blessing is a full pantry, a hug from a loved one that lasts. A blessing is muchness, a surfeit of riches. Anything in life that is more than we need is called a blessing, be it love, kindness, patience, parnassa or health.
In contrast, a curse is where we feel a lack. For Sforno, a curse is not a magical hex that comes from a witch or wizard. You don’t need an eye of newt. It’s simply negative space, a vacuum. It’s what happens when God’s presence and abundance draws back. We’ve run out of time, energy, or drive. We can’t make ends meet. Affection and care are missing from our lives. When we are getting less than what we need in this life, we feel anxiety and fear. That is a curse.
Like the Israelites standing between two mountains, deciding which direction to take, our lives are also made of choices. These choices compound over the years. Remember, free will, bechirah, is an essential belief of our people. In every moment we can choose how we act and respond. We are not marionettes being manipulated by a divine power. As Sarah Connor, the heroine of the Terminator series taught, “No fate but what we make.”
The 17th century “Women’s Bible” known as the Tz’enah Ur’enah (Come and See) explains this concept further:
If the Holy One in heaven had commanded that the person should be pious or evil, then the person would have no transgression when he was evil, since God had decreed that he must be evil. Similarly, if the Holy One had decreed upon the person that he must be pious, it would be no novelty that the person is pious. Therefore, this cannot be, but the person has the ability to be good or bad. The person must know this and should always have before him that he can do what he wants.
Our wise choices compound as do our unfortunate ones. Rabbah Arlene Berger notes, “We know blessings and curses exist in the world beyond our control, yet we live daily surrounded by their impact. It is within the gift of being human that allows us to in fact take back some control and choose.”
We may not choose what befalls us but we can choose how we face what happens. When faced with adversity no matter how big or small, we choose how we react. Panic, fear, anger, these are reactions, but do they serve you or hinder you? Courage, confidence, clarity, these are reactions when maybe you’re hurt but you can see how things could have been much worse.
I know what you’re thinking. “I didn’t choose to get ill.” “I didn’t choose to lose my house.” “I didn’t choose to suffer a tragedy.” No, you didn’t. And God does not cause pain or suffering. In the words of the Baal Shem Tov, “The entire Torah and the entire world contain nothing but the light of the Infinite One, blessed be Adonai, concealed within them. Having no divine source, evil does not come down from heaven.”
Know this, nothing evil, malign or negative can come from the Holy One of Blessing. Traditional Judaism does not believe that God is malicious or careless. Since we stood together at Sinai, we have proclaimed that Adonai is good, does good, and will continue to do good. If that is the case, where do these curses come from?
Imagine the world is sustained by streams of downward water, streams of light and energy. It’s called shefa, divine flow. This shefa flows from an infinite source, but as it reaches our world it goes through various permutations and arrangements until it trickles down into our material world. This flowing life-energy is the source of all blessing.
But here’s the thing. Most of us have egos, bad habits, some negative traits. We’re only human. We’re not tzaddikim. When we act in prideful, hurtful, and impious ways, impurities enter the streams. They are called chitzonim, outside forces or klippot, husks. They attach to the pure shefa and defile it. They are silt and debris. The flow is stopped up.
For the Kabbalists and the Chassidim who build on its teachings, intention matters. Even a holy mitzvah done with coarseness or haughtiness will create impurities and block blessings. But when we act with intention — rightly, modestly and humbly — the streams are unsullied and blessings can pour freely into our world. We choose our attitude. We choose our intent. We make our fate.
To illustrate this, a famous Talmudic story about Rabbi Akiva.
One day, Rabbi Akiva arrived at a walled city looking for a place to spend the night. But they turned him away. “Did you not understand the point of the wall, sir?” No room. No hospitality. So Akiva shrugged and said, “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good,” and made camp outside the city.
He had three companions: a donkey, a rooster, and a lamp.
During the night, a lion came and killed the donkey. “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good.”
Then a cat snatched the rooster. “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good.”
Then a strong wind blew out his lamp.
At this point, most of us would be saying, “Seriously? Are you kidding me, God?”
But once again, Rabbi Akiva said, “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good.”
The next morning, he awoke to find that a band of marauders had attacked the city during the night. Had he been in the city, he would likely have been killed. Had his donkey brayed, his rooster crowed, or his lamp remained lit, the attackers might have found him in the field.
Only in the morning could Rabbi Akiva see what he couldn’t have seen in the darkness. What looked like a string of disasters had actually been a series of rescues. Only by the grace of God, what seemed like adversity saved his life.
This is one of the hardest lessons of faith. Often, we don’t understand God’s providence in the middle of the story. Sometimes, we can only recognize the blessing in hindsight. A job we weren’t offered that would have been a disaster. A call that wasn’t returned led to a new relationship. A hope that was deferred brought us to another path with a new goal. These are considered by our sages to be “concealed” acts of goodness that reveal themselves over time. Like Rabbi Avika, we can only see them in the clear light of morning.
“See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse:”
“You know what rabbi? It could have been worse.” Such a small way to reframe an accident. What a lesson of emunah, of faith. What an incredible way to choose blessing. Not panic but patience, not fear but resolve.
The medieval commentary Da’at Zekenim teaches that in this lower world there exists a mixture of blessing and curse; but in the world after the arrival of the Messiah there will be only blessing.
May we all know only blessings in this world now, today. May we look back with wisdom and recognize blessings in retrospect. And may we face adversity with calm and courage as we await that final day of endless light and blessing.