Secrets Are Said in a Whisper - Rabbi Ori Strum

Rebbe Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Rebbe and founder of Chabad, known as the Alter Rebbe, he served as the personal baal koreh of his shul in Lyozna. One year during the week of Parshas Ki Savo, which lists the many curses, [music] he was away for that Shabbos, so somebody else read the parsha in his place. The Alter Rebbe's son, Dovber, who would later become the Mitteler Rebbe, was in shul that week, and upon hearing the curses that week in shul, he became extremely weak, and he was bedridden for a considerable amount of time afterwards. And when they asked the Mitteler Rebbe, "Don't you hear this parsha every single year?" The Mitteler Rebbe told them, "Yes, but when my father reads it, no one hears the curses." It's true, at first glance, the tochacha appears to be [music] curses, but the Degel Machaneh Ephraim brings from the Zohar that really kulah brachos, it's really all [music] blessings. And that's why the curses begins with the word Vehaya, which is a word that's used to describe a level of joy and happiness. The Alter Rebbe was on such a high spiritual level that when he read the tochacha, nobody heard curses, it was all blessings. Reb one of the disciples of the Noam Elimelech, notes that we specifically read the tochacha in an undertone, in a whisper. And that's because secrets are said in an undertone, and the tochacha is the greatest secret. It's filled with blessings and goodness. And if you think about it, what else is said in an undertone, in a whisper? The shofar. It's regarding the sound of the shofar that we say kol demamah dakah yishama, a small, subtle voice, a whisper. Maybe then it's not a coincidence that there are 100 kolos of the shofar and 100 klalos in the tochacha. On one hand, the 100 blasts from the shofar represent a level of protection against the 100 curses, but on a deeper level, the 100 whispers of the shofar correspond to the 100 whispers of the tochacha. And it's that voice that's said in an undertone that's whispering in our ear, a special secret, that every single thing that we encounter and experience in life, in truth, at its core, is actually the greatest blessing in the world.