Lives Full of Hopes and Dreams

וְהַקְּלָלָ֗ה אִם־לֹ֤א תִשְׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל־מִצְוֺת֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֔ם וְסַרְתֶּ֣ם מִן־הַדֶּ֔רֶךְ אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם לָלֶ֗כֶת אַחֲרֵ֛י אֱלֹהִ֥ים אֲחֵרִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יְדַעְתֶּֽם
אֶֽת־הַבְּרָכָ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּשְׁמְע֗וּ אֶל־מִצְוֺת֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם הַיּֽוֹם׃
רְאֵ֗ה אָנֹכִ֛י נֹתֵ֥ן לִפְנֵיכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם בְּרָכָ֖ה וּקְלָלָֽה׃

See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of the ETERNAL your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the ETERNAL your God, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon you this day and follow other gods, whom you have not experienced. (Devarim 1:26-28)

What does it mean to be blessed or to be cursed?

We don’t take the idea of being blessed or cursed as seriously as it was taken in the Biblical world. We say “Bless You,” when someone sneezes out of a forgotten superstition turned to politeness. When we think of a curse we think of Snidely Whiplash, “Curses! Foiled again.” Blessings and curses are feelings ex-post facto, grim or joyous emotional rides that we take in the wake of the events of our lives.

We think less of the harrowing despair of Esau on learning that Jacob had, through trickery gotten the blessing meant for him, “And Esau said to his father, ‘Have you but one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!’ And Esau wept aloud.” The Biblical view of Esau is complex and the Rabbis demonize him, but in that moment we look past judgment and see only a deep humanity. Blessing is a life-cycle event like birth, death and marriage. So for blessing and so for curse.

All of the patriarchs bless their sons (almost). When we look at Isaac’s blessing of Esau, a consoling blessing, we see that blessings are not all unalloyed good. Isaac offers,

“See, your abode shall enjoy the fat of the earth
 And the dew of heaven above.
Yet by your sword you shall live,
 And you shall serve your brother;
 But when you grow restive,
 You shall break his yoke from your neck.”

Is it any surprise that Esau’s thoughts turn to revenge as soon as he is carrying this blessing? Would you want Joseph’s blessing of Dan?

“Dan shall be a serpent by the road,
 A viper by the path,
 That bites the horse’s heels
 So that his rider is thrown backward.”

The blessings and curses that we read this week have a different quality. On one side are detailed descriptions of fertility, in every sense of the word, comfort and peace. On the other side horrifying poverty, loss, torment and exile. Exile is important to mention, because all of this is connected to the conditions that God has put onto the arrangement with the People Israel by which God fulfills the promises made to our forefathers. God’s commandments, the Mitzvot, are an obligation for all time, but the many laws that appear in this week’s parshah relate to how the Israelites were to relate to God and the land once they were living in it. Some of the commandments can only be observed in the Land of Israel. Others, like those related to Kashrut can be observed outside the land.

For our people, this moment of entering the Land was like a national lifecycle event:

“You shall pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal.— Both are on the other side of the Jordan, beyond the west road that is in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah—near Gilgal, by the terebinths of Moreh. For you are about to cross the Jordan to enter and possess the land that the ETERNAL your God is assigning to you. When you have occupied it and are settled in it, take care to observe all the laws and rules that I have set before you this day.”

The blessings and curses that God puts onto the people of Israel they then place upon themselves. Rather than acting as a parent and trying to determine the lives of one’s children through the act of blessing, God places that decision in our hands. True to life, the Israelites choices are delimited by their “family history,” but beyond that, their choices and the consequences of them will bring blessing or curse upon them. Blessing and curse will be theirs, measure for measure, based on their own choices free of parental bias.

So much about our lives feels random or, where purposeful, unfair. In a world where a parent’s blessing would seem to determine the shape of one’s life and that blessing would be tied to birth-order, life seemed less random. However, it also seemed less free. Living lives full of hopes and dreams isn’t a way of life we just came up with. It is the essence of the human experience. If we can find something we think we can rely on that will help us fulfill those hopes and dreams, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if we try hard to hold onto it. But that level of certainty is elusive. It means a lot to us to have agency. We want to be able to act in order to get the results we want. When the car is headed for a tree we want to be able to turn the wheel and get back on the road. That is a freedom that we expect.

This moment when God puts before Israel both blessing and curse is an absolute theology: we get the fate that we have worked for. If we suffer it is for our own sins. The world inside of this theology is “fair.” It is better than a theology that says we are in the hands of fate. If the world is unjust, tough. The problem with the theology of the blessings in curses is that, what seems to be (and is easiest for us moderns to read as) a theology for individuals is actually a philosophy for society as a whole. It is an all or nothing for the people in the Land. It is a theology that can seem false if we expect it to work for us as individuals. The truth is that the world can’t supply the hopes and dreams of every person at the same time. There are too many conflicting hopes and dreams out there. As difficult as it is to live with the many inevitable disappointments in life we will experience, we need to make peace with the way they are baked into real life.

Instead of learning that we are all free to determine every detail of our lives, the blessings and curses teach us that we are all free to do our part towards creating a world of blessing for all of us. When, as a whole, we make the wrong choices the truth of this theology becomes quite evident. For me, global warming is a perfect example of what happens when we fail. It can be frustrating when we do the right things, but others don’t and still we end up with the bill. The hidden lesson in the blessings and curses is that doing good on our own is enough. We need to do good, teach good and show others that doing good is worthwhile. All of it. Blessings and curses are very real, but they are not placed upon us, they are us. May we be strong and do our part in creating a world of blessing for ourselves, our descendants and all creatures. Shabbat Shalom.

(This Torah commentary is dedicated to my ex-wife z”l, who fought for justice and her children each in fair measure. As Pirke Avot asks of us, although she could not finish the work, she did not desist from it.)