 | We humans are meaning makers: our spirituality concerns not only what happens but also what we make of what happens. Every day of our lives, usually just below the surface of our awareness, we decide what matters most and what our choices say about us and our lives. This sacred season rivets our focus on this often unconscious inner process – and how it utterly depends on what we say and do together. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Ki Tavo 5784 (2024)
Click here for last year's Dvar Torah on this portion, "The Superpower of Renewing Together"
Are we blessed or are we cursed? Is our world abundant and full of potential, or is it lean and mean? Are we potent or paralyzed? Is something good or bad? Can better days be ahead or is it downhill from here?
We make our lives amidst not only what happens, but also the meaning we make of what happens. Whatever one's faith or culture, humans are wired to be meaning makers. Like a sunflower turning toward the sun as it moves across the sky, we naturally turn toward the meaning we attribute to people, choices, things, times and our very existence.
Our own hand in making meaning is one reason why even a "successful" and "blessed" person still might live miserably, without joy or peace. And it's why the even most seemingly "plagued" person sill might live more content and "blessed" than circumstances suggest.
Meaning is partly about attitudes, values, priorities, skills and discipline – but not only as individuals. This time of year, and this week's Torah portion, show that the meaning we make is as much collective as personal. What we say in community is one of the most potent drivers of what we make of community – and how we each make meaning in our lives.
In this week's Torah portion, our spiritual ancestors stand at the cusp of the Land, much as we now stand at the cusp of a new year. Moses tells the people that immediately after they cross the Jordan River, half of them will ascend Mount Gerizim to affirm "blessings," and half will ascend Mount Ebal to affirm "curses" (Deut. 27:1-26). Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal are real places: each is a 3,000-foot hill a bit northeast of Jerusalem, with an east-west valley between them – a literal entranceway from the desert into the Land, from the past into the future.
Ki Tavo 5784 (2024)
Click here for last year's Dvar Torah on this portion, "The Superpower of Renewing Together"
Are we blessed or are we cursed? Is our world abundant and full of potential, or is it lean and mean? Are we potent or paralyzed? Is something good or bad? Can better days be ahead or is it downhill from here?
We make our lives amidst not only what happens, but also the meaning we make of what happens. Whatever one's faith or culture, humans are wired to be meaning makers. Like a sunflower turning toward the sun as it moves across the sky, we naturally turn toward the meaning we attribute to people, choices, things, times and our very existence.
Our own hand in making meaning is one reason why even a "successful" and "blessed" person still might live miserably, without joy or peace. And it's why the even most seemingly "plagued" person sill might live more content and "blessed" than circumstances suggest.
Meaning is partly about attitudes, values, priorities, skills and discipline – but not only as individuals. This time of year, and this week's Torah portion, show that the meaning we make is as much collective as personal. What we say in community is one of the most potent drivers of what we make of community – and how we each make meaning in our lives.
In this week's Torah portion, our spiritual ancestors stand at the cusp of the Land, much as we now stand at the cusp of a new year. Moses tells the people that immediately after they cross the Jordan River, half of them will ascend Mount Gerizim to affirm "blessings," and half will ascend Mount Ebal to affirm "curses" (Deut. 27:1-26). Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal are real places: each is a 3,000-foot hill a bit northeast of Jerusalem, with an east-west valley between them – a literal entranceway from the desert into the Land, from the past into the future.
Many read this elaborate ritual's pomp and circumstance as reinforcing compliance with God's will: obey to receive "blessings," disobey to receive "curses." But leaving aside modern thinking and the lived reality that "bad things happen to good people," there's something odd afoot in Torah's ritual. Torah is chock full of commandment and consequence, but only this week's portion prescribes fixed words for people to say.
And more than once, too. Also from this week's Torah portion come core words of the Passover Haggadah, which our spiritual ancestors (and we ourselves) are directed to speak in commemoration of ancestry and the blessings of spring (Deut. 26:5-8):
And more than once, too. Also from this week's Torah portion come core words of the Passover Haggadah, which our spiritual ancestors (and we ourselves) are directed to speak in commemoration of ancestry and the blessings of spring (Deut. 26:5-8):
My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt and dwelled there, few in number. There he became a great, mighty and populous nation. But the Egyptians dealt ill with us, afflicted us, and laid on us hard bondage. Then we cried out to YHVH, God of our ancestors. YHVH heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. Then YHVH led us out of Egypt – with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with awesome power, with signs and wonders! Therefore YHVH brought us into this Land....
Why all of these required words spoken aloud, and why uniquely in this week's Torah portion?
As Ibn Ezra wrote nearly 1,000 years ago, tradition calls us to speak these words because we are shaped by what we say and what we hear. Children learn gratitude when they hear adults express gratitude. Adults learn to keep promises when they hear gratitude for promises kept. Communities learn what's possible, and what's most important, by speaking and hearing together words of meaning.
And the opposite also is true. We learn to fear or hate when we hear fear or hate normalized. We learn speak ill of others, or attribute worst intention, when we experience others doing so.
Subliminally, our hearts and minds are more connected than we imagine. Modern liberalism may claim rugged individualism, but in truth we are connected, porous and malleable. What we say and do affects others, what others say and do affects us, and both affect the meaning we make of things.
We learn that meaning is something we make together, and something we choose to make. Whether something is a "blessing" or "curse," in our ancestors' words, depends on the meaning we create for it.
These truths are pivotal now. Next week is Selihot: we'll gather on the final Saturday night of the outgoing spiritual year for a final Havdalah, then use liturgy and music to open the gates of the new year just ahead. In just two weeks, together we'll enter through those gates. We'll gather for Rosh Hashanah, begin a new year, enter its new Land, face truths about ourselves and stark choices about life, and together say many things about both.
What we'll say together will shape the meaning we make as we enter the year ahead. Is this world lovely or loveless? Can we truly help heal or are we stuck in brokenness? What are we to feel, do and be amidst political strife and surging antisemitism? Will we enter the new year in dread or enthusiasm, with negativity or positivity? Will we, in Torah's words, "say in the morning 'If only it were evening!' and in the evening say 'If only it were morning' because of what [our] heart will dread and [our] eyes will see" (Deut. 28:67)? Or will we feel "blessed in the Land [of this upcoming year] that YHVH [our] God gives [us], and established as a holy people of God" (Deut. 28:8-9)? Will we ourselves be blessings or curses, and maybe an even more heretical question: in these tumultuous times, do we hold our Judaism itself as a "blessing" or "curse"?
These questions aren't hypothetical, and I didn't make them up. I've heard each of them just within our community during the last few weeks. My clergy colleagues report hearing them, too. We know that what we say in the weeks ahead will matter greatly. Please know that what you say in the weeks ahead will matter greatly, too: you will hear it, and so will others.
"Blessing" and "curse" depend vitally on the meaning we make together. We teach each other what to make of what happens, and how to do and be in our lives in relationship with the meaning we make of our world. All of us now are like children, carefully watching and listening for how to be in this topsy-turvy moment of meaning and consequence.
We need to be carefully taught, and we need to be careful teachers.
As Ibn Ezra wrote nearly 1,000 years ago, tradition calls us to speak these words because we are shaped by what we say and what we hear. Children learn gratitude when they hear adults express gratitude. Adults learn to keep promises when they hear gratitude for promises kept. Communities learn what's possible, and what's most important, by speaking and hearing together words of meaning.
And the opposite also is true. We learn to fear or hate when we hear fear or hate normalized. We learn speak ill of others, or attribute worst intention, when we experience others doing so.
Subliminally, our hearts and minds are more connected than we imagine. Modern liberalism may claim rugged individualism, but in truth we are connected, porous and malleable. What we say and do affects others, what others say and do affects us, and both affect the meaning we make of things.
We learn that meaning is something we make together, and something we choose to make. Whether something is a "blessing" or "curse," in our ancestors' words, depends on the meaning we create for it.
These truths are pivotal now. Next week is Selihot: we'll gather on the final Saturday night of the outgoing spiritual year for a final Havdalah, then use liturgy and music to open the gates of the new year just ahead. In just two weeks, together we'll enter through those gates. We'll gather for Rosh Hashanah, begin a new year, enter its new Land, face truths about ourselves and stark choices about life, and together say many things about both.
What we'll say together will shape the meaning we make as we enter the year ahead. Is this world lovely or loveless? Can we truly help heal or are we stuck in brokenness? What are we to feel, do and be amidst political strife and surging antisemitism? Will we enter the new year in dread or enthusiasm, with negativity or positivity? Will we, in Torah's words, "say in the morning 'If only it were evening!' and in the evening say 'If only it were morning' because of what [our] heart will dread and [our] eyes will see" (Deut. 28:67)? Or will we feel "blessed in the Land [of this upcoming year] that YHVH [our] God gives [us], and established as a holy people of God" (Deut. 28:8-9)? Will we ourselves be blessings or curses, and maybe an even more heretical question: in these tumultuous times, do we hold our Judaism itself as a "blessing" or "curse"?
These questions aren't hypothetical, and I didn't make them up. I've heard each of them just within our community during the last few weeks. My clergy colleagues report hearing them, too. We know that what we say in the weeks ahead will matter greatly. Please know that what you say in the weeks ahead will matter greatly, too: you will hear it, and so will others.
"Blessing" and "curse" depend vitally on the meaning we make together. We teach each other what to make of what happens, and how to do and be in our lives in relationship with the meaning we make of our world. All of us now are like children, carefully watching and listening for how to be in this topsy-turvy moment of meaning and consequence.
We need to be carefully taught, and we need to be careful teachers.
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