Embracing Blessing
Calamity. Panic. Frustration. Scorching heat. These are but a few of the words drawn from the curses in this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, that feel sharply present in our time as well.
Ki Tavo sets up parallel lists of blessings and curses as consequences for how well the Israelites fulfill God’s covenant. The blessings are lovely, but the curses seem to harness the full creative imagination of the Author with their terrifying and explicit depictions of all the things that can go wrong for the Israelites. In a similar passage earlier in the Torah (Vayikra 26) there is another list of blessings and curses, where it is even more obvious simply by counting them that there are way more curses (30 verses) than blessings (13 verses). Curses - whether in the Torah or in the news - draw our attention.
We live in a time where it often seems easier to identify the curses in our world than to be open to the blessings. We might ask if it is even appropriate to appreciate or seek blessing right now, when so many are suffering, when so many live in the shadow of violence, poverty, disease, and climate catastrophe. Everytime I feel lucky or successful, I quickly asterisk that thought with awareness of my privilege and what it implies for those who lack it. Everytime I feel sad, I get the urge to shush myself because others have it worse. Everytime I notice something I’m good at, a part of me tries to redirect my attention to my weak areas, my flaws and failings.
In some ways, these are appropriate strategies for moving through the High Holiday season of repentance and judgment. These are yamim nora’im, Days of Awe - or days where being afraid and focusing on the negative has become a time-worn tradition.
Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz (1875-1936), the Mashgiach (spiritual guide) of the Mir Yeshiva, once wrote: “Woe to a person who is unaware of their shortcomings, because they will not know what to work on.” Woe to anyone who walks through the world blissfully ignorant!
He isn’t finished though: “But even greater woe to a person who is unaware of their virtues, because they don’t even know what they have to work with.”
In other words, the ultimate curse is to overlook the blessings within us and all around us. In fact, our greatest tool for personal and collective improvement comes from noticing blessings, not doomscrolling through curses.
Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092-1167) comments on that lopsided list of curses and blessings: “The empty-headed have asserted that there are more curses than blessings, but that’s not true…” (Vayikra 26:14).
Of course, it isn’t easy to get into a state of mind where Ibn Ezra’s statement feels true. That’s where having a blessing practice comes in. In Judaism there are many blessings we can say, when we eat, use the bathroom, see a rainbow, wake up and go to sleep. (Here are some interesting ones.) The Talmud (Menachot 43b) insists that we are obligated to recite 100 blessings each day. Instead of focusing on what feels cursed, even instead of meditating on the blessings we hope to receive, we simply offer blessing wherever we can. Marcia Falk said in an interview about her wonderful The Book of Blessings, “The sacred is within us and within all of creation, and it is our task to bring it forward through our actions. Blessings don’t just acknowledge a sacred moment; they bring it about.”
For Falk, when we offer a blessing, we do more than notice what is good and beautiful and sacred, we help make it so.
Another remarkable source of contemporary blessings comes from John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us. In it, he writes:
“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing.”
Wherever you are, may you feel present and blessed, and in the words of one of the blessings in our Torah portion (Devarim 28:6):
בָּר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בְּבֹאֶ֑ךָ וּבָר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ׃
Baruch atah b’vo’echa u’varuch atah b’tzeitecha. May you be blessed and a blessing in your comings and may you be blessed and a blessing in your goings.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
