Ki Tavo and the coming year

[muman613]

Shalom,

I would like to share this article with Jews and non-Jews alike... Of course I will be starting my video study for the portion of the week thread in the Torah section this evening, but I thought this article by a great rabbi I have met and his posts appear weekly on IsraelNationalNews would provide some insight and motivation for all of us.



http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15640#.VBCsSHXhNoU

Judaism: The week the Torah reader was away – Parshat Ki Tavo

A lesson about blessings and curses for the coming year.
Published: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 9:55 PM

Rabbi Shneur Zalman, was certainly famous and renowned for many accomplishments and great deeds. No less was his skill that he performed each week as the Torah reader for his congregation in Liozna. And although he read the Torah portion to his followers every week, all year, each year - one time he was away and another performed the sacred task.

That Shabbat happened to be the chanting of the portion Ki Tavo, two weeks before Rosh Hashanah.

This specific reading, that the substitute Torah reader recited, contains a multitude of curses called the "Tochacha"; they are basically the consequences if the Jewish people were not to follow Torah, its commandments and covenants. Some readers even lower their voice during the pronouncement of the curses and there is also discussion on who should receive the aliyah honor during this tenuous section.

When the son of Rabbi Shneur Zalman, a young boy named Dov Ber, heard the curses being chanted that Shabbat – he became gravely upset. And even though he had heard these curses chanted other years, his anguish extended for weeks, to the point that it almost impinged on his capacity to fast on Yom Kippur.

How could it be that he was so affected by the reading of the curses this specific year? The young Dov Ber explained: “When my father reads it, they do not sound like curses.”

Indeed, dreadful chants from the mouth of a dear cherished loved one, only sound like a mere irritation in our ears or perhaps even resonate as sweet music. We somehow know that the bad news is being delivered with love. And therein lies a tremendous lesson before Rosh Hashanah.

Our personal and global world is filled with much distress. Our home and our homeland experience turmoil. We question our leaders, ourselves, and yes, our Holy Creator of our world,Avinu  Shebashamayim, our Heavenly Father. For some there is a great tendency, G-d forbid, to even erase our Father from the entire equation. But when we send Him away, we hear the curses from a strange different voice. We become even more disaccorded, disconnected and discontented.

There is definitely comfort in knowing that G-d is intimately involved in even our troubles. We want to recognize that His voice is the one chanting and whispering while we meet our challenges. We come to understand that deep inside the low notes of despair and within the difficult lyrics, there is love. It is the type of love song that a father sings to his child.

Within the haunting, chaotic, ominous, frightening blares of the shofar, there is also holiness. That holy G-dly sound is the part we are attracted to. Our Father’s voice bellows to us from the Tikeya; and every Jew knows that there is comfort and reassurance when we hear that blast.

And so Rabbi Shneur Zalman returned to Liozna and continued to read Torah; and his son Dov Ber, did fast on that Yom Kippur. Later, Rabbi Dov Ber would meet many more difficulties in his life including imprisonment by the Czarist government for teaching Torah. He approached all his challenges with the inclusion of his father’s teachings and G-d’s voice. And when his father died in 1812, he assumed the leadership of his father’s congregation. One year later Rabbi Dov Ber Schneerson and his community settled in the town of Lubavitch, which served as the headquarters of his father’s movement for the next 102 years.

The train whistle is sounding and the New Year is pulling into the station. Some passengers will board all alone and feel every foreign bump and complex curve as each New Year is inevitably laden with some cantillation of curses; but the blessings of the difficult voyage are most appreciated, when during the journey we are accompanied by our Father’s voice. “When my father reads it, they do not sound like curses.”


Rabbi Dr. David Nesenoff is an internationally renowned speaker and writer on Israel, anti-Semitism, Judaism, Chasidut, and media. His video interview exposing and expelling Helen Thomas from the Washington Press Corps went viral and became global news.  [email protected]