Deuteronomy Cycle Seven Ki Thavo

 Ki Thavo

The thing about Ki Thavo is this: If you can get through it you can get through anything.  For a small review: This is the parasha that blesses us with great bounty and then slams us with the most outrageous curses in Torah.  It’s all based on if we don’t follow God in His ways. What is expected is that the perspective of Moses is correct. The way we are to follow God as outlined by Moses is seen as valid and not to be questioned.

There’s something highly…almost insanely….logical about the curses. They are delivered as a practical expose, in an organized manner. This contrast between vocal delivery and subject matter creates such a wide dichotomy that there is a breach of reality. It doesn’t feel human in terms of what we (today) deem normal. And there isn’t any reason to believe that the ancient peoples would have thought otherwise.

To expand on this a bit: Think of the women in films by Ingmar Bergman. They manage to say the

 most devastating things with the softest voices. Think of other films with characters who make

 outrageous threats. A very organized monologue spitting out vivid and gripping threats is

much more powerful than chaotic emotional expression. The dichotomy between the meaning and the

expression is what slams us the hardest.

And so it is with this monologue of Moses. The restraint that he shows is prophetic (see Maimonides,

Guide to the Perplexed, II, 41)  while a similar restraint on the part of a non-prophetic person would 

be yes…insane.

The first is true because one is transmitting a message from God and therefore we would hope it

would somehow be infused into the behavior of the God-like person. The second is true because the

 transmission of seeming God-like messages from prophet-pretenders of today without some

 acceptance of our humanity is beyond the boundaries of sanity.

What I’m leading up to once again is perspective. The problem in today’s world is that too many

 want to be the prophet but aren’t.  People slam each other all the time given only their personal

 perspective on a certain subject. They slam each other with calm voices, with authoritative tones,

 the use of authority, with the use of manipulation. People will do what they can (at times) to enforce

 perspectives they think are holy and in doing so in a calm manner only exhibit an odd and dark

 misconception of reality. If we, the Other, who listens to this, yearns for a prophet we are in trouble. 

 In fact, just like if we take Ki Thavo as literal, if we take even a weaker declaration as truth, we will

 find ourselves crawling on the ground with all fours and begging the imposter for forgiveness. We will

 be incapable of reaching for God because  our hands will have been cut and we will be incapable of 

praying in our hearts because our hearts will be stone. We will chase ourselves with scratching

 fingernails and we will curse our culture and our God for our fate.

If we allow others to castrate our autonomy, creativity and independence we will become the nefesh

 behama of Tanya and those with mind-forged manacles as per the poetry of William Blake. We will

 be our own miserable prisoner.

The message is this: Belief. Believe in God and therefore believe in self. Or if we can’t believe in both

 then believe in self and be kind to others. Belief in God will come in time.

Those who want to destroy us will receive only our handshake and our gratitude in the end.

 Because we were tested. And we came out whole. At that point (and we have all walked out of that

 office shaking our heads in relief)  we are one step closer to being the prophet ourselves.