Rabbi Winston: Elul is for Teshuva – Parshat Ki Savo “A Taste of the Blessings and the Curses"

 …because you did not serve the G–D, your G–D, with happiness and with gladness of heart… (Devarim 28:47)

WHAT DOES G–D really want from us, in 250 words or less? Could you answer the question? Definitively? 

The truth is, we have a head-start. He gave us His Torah and said, “Here, do this. If you get it right, great. If not, you might want to review the 98 curses mentioned in this week’s parshah.” 

Fortunately, we read Parashas Ki Savo a couple of weeks in advance of Rosh Hashanah. It gives us time to review it and tweak our lives as we prepare for Yom HaDin. No sense leaving life and death issues to the last second.

But like a lot of things in Torah, the obvious is not so obvious. As mentioned in Parashas Shoftim, we were made to think, and G–D particularly likes it when we do. Torah is not superficial, and it is a mistake to act  as if it is.

Every verse in the Torah definitely deserves serious consideration, but these do especially in light of Rosh Hashanah:

All these curses will befall you, pursuing you and overtaking you to destroy you because you did not obey G–D, your G–D, to observe His commandments and statutes which He commanded you. And they will be as a sign and a wonder, upon you and your offspring, forever, because you did not serve the G–D, your G–D, with HAPPINESS and with GLADNESS OF HEART, when [you had an] abundance of everything. (Devarim 28:45-47)

We know what this means. We’ve seen it in action. There is a BIG difference between a happy camper and an unhappy one. Night and day. In a business, a happy employee is productive and loyal. An unhappy one is a minimalist, doing only that which is necessary to keep their job. Businesses built on the latter type of employee don’t excel.

And it bugs us. If we’re the employer, it irritates us to see people to whom we are paying a decent wage taking their jobs for granted. They make us feel as if they are doing us a favor by filling their position, while we, the employers, look at it in just the opposite way. 

The Torah is telling is the same thing about us and our relationship with G–D. We can choose to be unhappy campers when it comes to learning Torah and doing mitzvos, but that is only going to undermine the relationship between us and G–D. We may say, “Isn’t it enough that I learn Torah and do the mitzvos that come my way? Do I have to be happy about it as well?”

The underlying premise of that question is that we are doing it all for G–D. A person could never be more wrong. As we are taught, G–D is perfect and needs nothing from anyone. He gains nothing from anything we do. There is nothing we can add to His greatness and perfection.  It was always there! So, how can one think even for a moment that when we sacrifice ourselves to fulfill His will, it is really for Him and not ALL for us?

Although the rest of the universe does gain from the mitzvos we do, we certainly weren’t created only for that. That is a by-product of what we accomplish for good or for bad, to make us responsible for our actions. The spiritual direction of Creation as a whole, is dictated by the overall spiritual direction of mankind. 

That leaves only us. The only ones left to benefit from any self-sacrifice we make for good is us, ourselves. When we get up early in the morning to pray, it may be to G–D, but it is for us. When we eat kosher, it makes G–D happy, but it is for us. When we do the tough thing and stay moral, it may make G–D proud, but it is for us. We are the benefactors, the ONLY benefactors of our doing right, directly, indirectly, or both.

When it comes to education, we get that. When it comes to sports, we get it. When it comes to succeeding at business, we understand that…which is why we choose to do it. WE choose to do it, because we know that to get ahead in life, which is for us, we have to work hard. So we do it willingly, even if we complain, and stay with it.

Before we “got it,” our parents did it for us. They made decisions for us that we could not yet appreciate, for OUR good. We complained to them as if it was for THEIR good, but the smarter ones knew, somewhere, perhaps in the back of their minds, that it was for THEIR own good. They were lucky enough to have parents who cared about their good to “hassle” them to take school and their extra curricular activities seriously.

This is both only a little different and yet very different from our situation with which we began this discussion. It is similar inasmuch as G–D is a parent Who knows what is best for us, and compels us to stay with the program until we can understand for ourselves that it is for our good. If is very different inasmuch as we won’t really see that good until the next world, to which we have nothing to compare it to in the meantime. We only need to have to a LITTLE faith in our parents that they are acting for our good. We must have COMPLETE faith in G–D that this is the case.

G–D, of course, took all of this into account when He made man. He knew that we’d have a tough time with this, without any real sign of progress while still in this world. He doesn’t reward or punish us yet, as the Talmud says (Kiddushin 39b). For technical reasons, that has to wait until the next great stage of history.

Instead, G–D gives us a “taste” of both, and that is the blessings and curses listed in this week’s parshah. The blessings are only a very small fraction of the reward a person is destined to receive in the World-to-Come for their mitzvos, just like Shabbos is one-sixtieth of the World-to-Come (Brochos 57b). Likewise, the curses mentioned, as bad as they sound, are also only a fraction of what a person will undergo later in Gihennom. 

Having said that, a person should not only contemplate how bad it might be for them in this world if they stray from Torah, but how much worse it will be later in Gihennom. A person should certainly avoid incurring the curses mentioned in this week’s parshah at all cost, but they should avoid having to deal with the consequences of that straying from Torah after death even more so. 

The starting point is realizing that we put ourselves out for Torah and mitzvos for our own good, and that should make us VERY happy. It may be tiresome and even hurt sometimes, but at the end of the day, we have put ourselves out for ourselves, and “hurt” ourselves for our own benefit. And since that benefit will be far more than we could ever imagine, it can be assumed that when we receive it, we will be extremely joyful that G–D had us make the sacrifice when we did. 

But let’s not wait until then to feel that joy. Let’s feel it now. Because if we do, not only will we have that joy forever in the next world, we will have it there many times over. The joy in this world from serving G–D is finite. But the joy we will have in the World-to-Come will last forever, as incomprehensible as that may be.