Mitzvah d'var

If what I read sounded pleasing to you - don’t be disappointed when I tell you that I was actually saying that God told Moses to tell the Israelites that they will be struck with consumption, fever and inflammation with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, they shall be hounded until they perished,” Nice right?  Why would G-d  say such things?  Why would a G-d who we think of as worthy of respect, who is kind, who gives opportunities to the Israelites to become a great nation - use such threats.  Why would G-d place curses on the Israelites? 

While you are thinking about this question  let me backtrack a little and tell you that the Torah, from which I read today, is also called the 5 Books of Moses. In the Jewish religion, we read the Torah over the course of the Jewish year; starting with Genesis and moving on through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and ending with Deuteronomy. My Torah portion is from Deuteronomy, which is the last book of the Torah.  Deutoronomy is basically one long speech given by Moses to the Israelites  that repeats, explains, and adds on to the Ten Commandments to establish a law code for the Israelites who are about to enter into the promised land.

My portion, or Parshah, is called  “Ki Tavo”, which means “when you come,” which refers to when the Israelites finally entered into the free land of Israel. In this portion, Moses delivers a series of speeches that include the BLESSINGS the Isrealites will enjoy ONLY IF they follow G-d’s laws which he delivers to half of the tribes of Israel on top of Mt. Gezerim. And then Moses gives to the other half of the tribes a long, harsh account of the BAD THINGS or CURSES such as —illness, famine, poverty and exile—that shall befall them if they abandon God’s commandments. While the blessings are very general and describe what good things will happen like the numbers of children, quantity of food and safe passage, the CURSES are very specific about what what behaviors will cause one to be cursed such as if you have sexual relations with in-laws OR WITH animals! I know!  accepting bribes or not upholding the many laws of the Torah– and describe in great detail all the terrible things that will happen to the Israelites if they don’t follow G-ds commandments- starting with “Cursed be the one who. . . .” The curses, or what the Rabbis call the tochacha, are what the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says are, “If much of Deuteronomy is a prophetic vision or dream, the tochacha, or the series of curses is the nightmare.” In essence, Moses is delivering to them a blessing sandwich in which the curses are the bread.

Some Rabbis felt that Moses wanted to motivate the Israelites to follow g-d’s commandments because in doing so - to avoid the negative consequences, they would do the right thing.  He tells them they will be blessed if they follow the laws and then mentions all the terrible things that will happen to them if they don’t.  In fact in this portion there are 14 dedicated verses to blessings and a whopping 54 verses dedicated to curses!

Perhaps G-d sent the curses to ensure that the Isrealites would know what was at stake if they didn’t follow the commandments. Maybe G-d thought that the people would remember the curses more than they would recall the blessings and then they would be motivated to act according to the laws. Maybe G-d wanted to scare the people into following the laws. According to Rabbi Amy Elberg, who doesn’t believe that G-d wanted to terrify the Israelites into obedience, “the predominance of curses over blessings in this text is an expression of how human beings actually experience our lives.”  In psychology it is called the negativity bias and psychologists have been studying this for a long time. 

According to Caroline Moore in her article, “What Is Negativity Bias and How Can It Be Overcome” The negativity bias refers to our “proclivity to “attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information.  It seems like this may always have been true of human beings.

I think it's about motivation - 

How are you motivated - by a desire to do something right or good? Or are you more motivated by the threat of what could happen to you if you don’t complete a task or action? I think people are more motivated by the threat of the negative than the reward of the good and I think Moses might have felt that way too.  

As a personal example, do I study at school to learn? or do I study to avoid being yelled at or getting in trouble for doing poorly? During last year’s history class, I worked extra hard for Mrs. Ball, my teacher. I would often be pushed to work really hard so I wouldn’t get in trouble. In the end, I felt I learned so much because I was pushed. So, it depends.. . .We are pushed by both blessings of hard work and learning and by the fear of curses in order to succeed. 

As a global example, we really don’t have to look any further than our own country where candidates warn voters not to vote for their opponent because if they do, terrible things will happen.It seems like it's a curse driven strategy of leadership instead of a blessing driven one based on what good things would happen if you voted for them. This is an example of how many more curses there are in politics than blessings.  

Again, why did G-d, through Moses, feel the need to position the curses next to the blessings and why did G-d need to include curses at all? This question is especially  interesting and relevant now. Curses, such as climate change, racism, hunger or inequality are really just consequences of  our own poor actions. We brought these curses on by our actions, not those of G-D. 

So it’s not really about what G-d is going to do. It’s about the universal nature of actions… how morality, our understanding of right and wrong, wins out over evil actions. 

Shabbat Shalom