Ki Savo - 6th Portion

Join me as we learn the sixth Torah reading for paraso chapter 28:7. This Torah reading commonly known as the which is the consequences and the punishments that are told to the Jewish people for not observing the commandments. When this is read in the shul, the Torah reader is the one that receives this Torah reading without calling any person in particular to receive this Torah reading. As well as it's read in a low tone and quickly. There are 98 different curses that are mentioned here, double the amount than the ones that are mentioned in the Torah reading of Kosi at the end of the book of Leviticus. This is also generally read either a week or two right before Rashashana. usually two weeks right before rashash shana as nitim is read usually the week before rashash shana and this is in a time of the month of el a time of introspection reflection and a time of repentance the difference as well is in this case in the book of Leviticus when the curses are mentioned and the consequences it says if you will not go with me and I will give you and these were written in third person that God will give you if you should not follow God's laws as well it is quite long as we go through of these 98 different consequences that God forbid would happen to the Jewish people and we begin with blessing and that's why the previous Torah reading we had some blessings we continue with those blessings and we also conclude with a blessing as well and in between are these consequences verse seven God will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be beaten by They will attack you from one direction and for seven directions they will free from they will flee from you. Why would they run in seven different ways? When somebody's all confused and being attacked, they don't know where they're going. So therefore, they run to every direction. Verse eight, God will command his blessing to accompany you in your graineries. In everything that you do and in all your endeavors and he will bless you in the land that God your God will give you. Verse 9, God will establish you as a holy people swore to you when you will safeguard God's commandments and you will walk in his ways and all the people of the earth will see will see that the name of God is upon you and they will fear you. As we know this refers to the mitzvah that when we wearin the nations of the world will fear us and that's why the reb is encouraged about mitzvah especially in the time and for the safety of the people of that when we wear fillin and encourage other people to put on fillin this instills a fear amongst the nations of the world for the Jewish people verse 11 and God will make you superior will God will then [clears throat] make you superior with the fruits of your womb and God will make you superior with the fruits of your womb and the fruits of your animals and the fruit of your livestock on this land that God has swore to give to your forefathers to give that he swore to to your forefathers to give to you. Verse 12. And God will open open his good treasury which is the heaven to give the rain on the earth in its proper time bless you in all your things you do and you will loan lend money to other nations but you will not need to borrow. God will make you as the head of the tail won't be on top won't be on the bottom. when you will follow and obey God's commandments of the I command you here today to safeguard philosophies and to do 14 you should not go astray not veer to any of the from the things that I command you today to the right or to the left to go and pursue other other gods other deities of them to serve and worshiping them. Verse 15, what if you don't obey God's commandments to safeguard his commandments and his statues that I command you today and all these curses that I'm about to say will come upon you and overtake you. Verse 16, you'll be cursed in the city. You'll be cursed in the field. You'll be cursed in your baskets and in your kneading bowl. You'll be cursed in the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your land, in their in the fruit of your in your livestock and your offspring and in the choice of your flocks. You'll be cursed when you come and you'll be cursed when you go when you leave it. God will send against you the shortages and the pandemonium and the self-rebuke in all your endeavors that you undertake that you will do until he will until you are destroyed until you are destroyed and you quickly vanish because of the evil that you have done that you have forsaken What does the word mean? Rashi explains meaning loss meaning something that makes you there's a curse of making sure that you lose money which is shortages like a leprosy which comes and takes away the person causes him to lose money which is pandemonium a noise of pandemonia that you don't know what's going on that's a sickness that his son become that his skin of the individual becomes weak and dry and all blown up. I'm sorry that's already frowning, too. We'll get to in a moment. God will strike you in consumption of diseases that have consum consumption and blisters. And is a regular fever is a high fever. An unquenchable thirst with the sword and with crop destroying east wind and with drought and they will pursue you until you perish that the person's skin becomes dry and blisters which is a fever. a high fever, even worse than a regular fever. And these are different kinds of illnesses. This is a thirst that comes a a illness that comes that warms up the entire body. And he's constantly thirsty for water. This is the same type of language that we find in that his bones were dry because of the heat. Or Jeremiah says that it was so hot like if you put it onto a fire that it becomes overheated will bring soldiers to try to kill you. This is a plague that will come in the field which will either come a drought or that they will not grow to ripen a strong wind and destroy them drying it out because since there is no water and therefore all the wheat becomes very white and lose their color and the color the green of it is lost from it until you're destroyed until you're going to destroy yourself you will always destroy on your own. Verse 20 three and the skies above you will be like copper and the earth below you will be dry like iron. What does this mean that they will be like copper? The curses that Mosha is saying now in the entire Torah reading, Moshe said them on his own. Meaning the content was said by God, but Moshe said them in his own language to the Jewish people. The we mentioned previously in the book of Leviticus, they were said directly dictate exactly the way God said it. Mashmon and therefore you according that's why you're going to see the difference between the way they're said in this Torah reading and the way they're said in Leviticus what we mentioned earlier and therefore as it says over here it says if you're not going to listen to me and if you're going to go astray with me over here the voice of God and he doesn't say my God that God will make this happen to you not I will do it God will curse Moshe because Moshe was able to say it the way he wishes because it was only told the content by God and over here he was putting it in his own words so to speak. So therefore Moshe made it more lenient where he tried to make it lighter not as tough and therefore he put it in a singular term. So to and all the different curses that are mentioned because in the previous ones in the book of Leviticus he says your skies your lands plural will be like iron or like copper that the heavens won't give any any water just like iron does not give off any moisture because of that it's going to be a drought world but the land can still a little bit wet just like copper. It gets a little bit wet. There's condensation on the outside. So, there's going to be enough little moist to be able to ruin the fruit, but not enough moist that they should be able to grow. However, over there he uses a plural plural terminology. But over here he says the opposite that the sky is going to be copper and that the land is going to be metal that the heaven's going to be moist. Meaning it's going to give a little bit of dew a little bit of water is going to come even though it's not going to be a lot of rain. Won't be complete disaster and destruction in the world. So to the land won't be as wet. It won't have the proper moisture just like iron doesn't get wet. So therefore that little bit of moisture we mentioned in the book of Leviticus that will ruin the fruits that you don't have over here at least they'll be able to stay dry and be able to use them that way in any way where whichever way you read it whether if that the sky is copper and that the that the heavens copper and the earth is metal or it's the other way around. Either way, [snorts] whether the earth is like uh copper or iron will not be able to bring up fruit or so too that the heavens will never be will not be able to give rain. Verse 24, God will turn the rain into your land to dust. The and will come down from heaven will come down on you until it will until you were destroyed. Rashi Not only will there not be any rain, but the buser, the wind that comes after the rain, you have the rain that comes, that means the damaging the the rain that comes and it's not enough rain. It's not enough to be able to make the earth, the soil wet. And then afterwards you have the wind come and it picks up all that mud that wasn't enough that it was to be able to be saturated with water. So therefore it's able to fly and then it covers the grass and the seedlings. They're still wet from the water becomes connected. It becomes like a cement and therefore destroys all the vegetation. Verse 25. God will cause you to be beaten by the enemy. You will attack them from one direction. In seven ways, you're going to run away from them. You will become a source of terror for all the kingdoms on the earth. What does the word mean? Says like a terror that all the people are going to be terrorized by hearing what's happening to the Jewish people. And they'll say, Oh boy, these terrible Jewish people. I hope this terrible things that are happening to them don't happen to us the way it happened to them. Verse 26. And therefore your corpse will be food for all the birds of the sky. The birds of the sky the animals of the land and no one will frighten them away from eating the corpse. Verse 27. God is going to strike you with the horrible boils of Egypt and with hemorrhoids and with oozing boils and with dry boils that will be unable to be healed from it. The boils of Egypt that its boils were really bad was moisture and there was pus on the outside and dry on the inside. It says intract that's a soft boil meaning on the outside and dry and and therefore the Torah mentions it a by the boils that they were in Egypt it mentions it by its name that it's known that's a boil that is hard I'm sorry that is dry like like uh clay [snorts] verse 29 verse 28 God will strike you with insanity ity with blindness and with bewilderment that your heart is blocked. You don't know what to do. You don't understand anything. You don't realize what's happening. Verse 29 and you will be you will feeling around in the midday like a blind person feels around tries to feel what's going on in the dark. you will not be successful in your ways and you're going to be uh constantly contested and robbed all the days and there will be no one to rescue you. The word means whatever you work somebody's going to say it's not yours. They're going to contest and complain. Verse 30. A woman will you will betray a woman, but another man will be with her. You will build a home, but you won't be able to live in it. You'll plant a vineyard, but you will not be able to redeem it. The word, we read it in an appropriate way. So we say, but comes from the word. The Torah uses the terminology like a plea. She will buy her, you choir. And the Torah uses it in a nice in a clean way. But it means is that they will be with her, lay with her. And this is a way that the uh scribes made it in a way that means the rabbis have written it in a way that it should be in a more respectful clean language. That means you'll not be able to redeem it in its fourth year to eat from its fruit. Verse 31. Your axe will be stored. It will be slaughtered before your eyes. You will not be able to eat it. Your dunkey will be robbed from you right before you will not be returned to you. Your sheep, your flock will be given over to your enemies. There will be nobody there to rescue for 32. Your sons and daughters will be given over to another people and your eyes, your own eyes will see it happen and long for them. but it will be powerless. You'll have you will not be able to help them. You're going to long to see them come back but they won't come back. This word is more of a metaphor that means any hope when a person's waiting for something like his eyes are like get tired from looking out and seeing if they're coming. Verse 33. All your work of your fruit of your soil and all your effort will be eaten by a nation that you don't even know. You'll be nothing but constantly contested and crushed all the days, the whole time. 34. You'll be going sane from the vision that you see. Ash that hope that happens before your eyes. 35. God will strike you on your knees and on your legs with a terrible skin eruption that will be no healing for that will from the from the sole of your foot until your head that will cover your entire body without any healing. God will lead you and the king that you will appoint over you to a nation that you don't know that's unknown. Not to you, not to your forefathers. And over there you will serve other deities made of wood and stone. You will become an object of astonishment and the archetype of unfortune by all and the topic of discussion by all the nations that people that God will lead you there like bewilderment whoever see will say how did this happen to these people when a terrible thing happens to a person they say explain oh it's like that disease that that person is they'll talk about be a story and to talk about verse 37 verse 38 you will plant a great deal of seed that will come out in the field but you're going to have very little to collect very little to gather because the locust finished it Verse will eat it, will consume it. Therefore, it's called there's a certain type of locust which is called because it consumes everything. Verse 39, you're going to plant vineyards. You'll work with them. You're not going to have any wine to drink and you will not be able to gather it because the worms will devour it. You'll have olive trees throughout all your boundaries, but you will not have any oil from it. You will not anoint any. You not use it to anoint any oil because your olive tree will drop. The word is it will throw off its roots like we learned previously when the iron falls off the wood. Verse 41 you'll have sons and daughters but you won't be able to remain yours because they'll take it into captivity. Your will your the locust will make your trees and all your fruit soil barren. What does it mean? Rashi says that the locust are going to make it rush weak and nothing and vacant a prior make the trees poor. Arab type of locust you cannot translate the word as inherit conquest. So not also means to chase away and therefore he translates it to be making it poor. Verse 43. The comfort amongst you, the resident alien who he's referring to, not a regular comfort, but the resident alien, the non-Jew accepted upon himself that no laws will be the one to be higher than you. Just get higher and higher, but you will descend lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. will be the head and you will be for the tail and all these curses will befall you and pursue you overtaking you until they will destroy you because you did not listen to the voice to the rules and the command that God gave you to safeguard his commandments and his ordinances that he commanded you. 46. They will serve as a sign of the marvel for your descendants forever. [snorts] And this is all because since you did not serve God your God with an abundance of joy, with a heart with joy and with heartfelt gladness when you had an abundance of everything. When you had all the good, you did not rejoice. You were not happy about it. You complained. And instead you will serve your enemies whom God will send against you. You will serve them when you are in hunger and in thirst and nakedness and lacking everything. And you will then the enemy will place an iron yoke upon your neck until he has destroyed you. God will bring upon you a nation from afar from the other end of the earth which you will which will conquer you unexpectedly unexpectedly just like a vulture swoops out when the way a griffin vulture swoops down upon its prey the nation whose language you will not understand. Rashi suddenly like successfully just goes without anybody holding back. Just takes what he wants. And it will make its horses will be like very quick like uh like these birds like the um like the vulture that swoops everything up. You won't know the language. So like they hear a dream that like we find the same idea means to understand like they hear a dream to understand a dream to be able to interpret it because Yseph understood it. Verse 50. a brazen nation who neither respects the elderly nor shows favor to the young. and they will devour the your animals and the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your soil. destroy um your the choice of your um the your offspring of your cattle and the choice of your flock. I'm sorry they destroy they will not leave anything for you. not grain wine oil the the offspring of your cattle choice of your flock until you're completely annihilated. Verse 52. They will beseech you in all your cities until your cities and fortified walls come down the high ones and the fortified ones that you trust that you which you put trust in all your lands and they will besiege you in all your cities and all your lands that God has given you control and conquer. and you will eat the fruit of your womb which means your children the flesh of your sons and your daughters that God has given you. Why? Why will you be eating them? cause on the account of the siege and the oppression because of the famine to which your enemies will subject you because your enemies will because your enemies will be besieging your cities going to be such a desperation meaning such a terrible hunger that you're going to have to eat your own children's flesh. The most tender and delicate man among you will begrudge his own brother and the wife of his embrace and the rest of children who remain rashi. What does this mean? These are two things that they actually mean the same thing. a person who is usually um very refined, very tender, very delicate. He's not used to difficult and hard times that even though he's a delicate individual more refined and he gets he's very so delicate that just a little thing that can bother him, he already gets upset by him. He will already get sweetened. It means he'll be able to satiate his hunger by eating eating the flesh of his sons and daughters to the extent that he won't even feel bad about that he won't feel bad so to speak to even take from his leftover children to give them to one of his children to eat them as well from the flesh of their brothers that the father is eating. Meaning that even a person who's so delicate and so refined and usually gets disgusted by the smallest of things will be so succumb to this idea that he will have to eat the his own children. Another explanation means a person who's merciful who has a soft heart is because he's so hungry. Even the people who are usually merciful and look out for each other and empathetic is they will become mean. They won't even give from the flesh of their children that they slaughter to the other children to eat because they're going to take it all to themselves because they're so hungry. of giving away any of them away of the flesh of his children of the flesh of his children that he was eating without having anything left over. Nothing will remain for him because of the siege and the um and the oppression that God will oppress you with your enemies will oppress you and subject you in all your cities. Verse 56. Similarly, the tender and the most delicate of women amongst you, who would not even venture out to set her foot upon the ground. That means she's always wearing something on her feet. She wouldn't even work barefoot. Means out of delicateness and tenderness. She will also begrudge the husband of her embrace, her own grown son and her own grown daughter. 56 Rashi meaning her older children. 57. Even the newborn infants who emerge from between her legs are tail and the children and her own small children whom she will be. She will eat them out of absolute utter destitution in a she will eat them in secret because of the siege and the oppression that your enemies will subject you in your cities. to her young children. She's going to be um she's going to make sure that she's gonna make sure that she's the one that happened. She's going to be worried and concerned that she's going to eat one to give it to the other child from that flesh of the child that she's killing. She's going to only want to eat it for herself. Verse 58. You're not going to keep to follow all the words of the Torah that are written in this book to fear God. The glorious and awesome name is God your God. and God will intensify the plagues upon you and upon your offsprings terrible unyielding plagues and evil and unyielding and and unyielding and terrible sicknesses. meaning way beyond natural means in this way it's going to be looked and you're going to be different than all the nations of the world over here means the word is they're going to be faithful that they're going to bring you back that they're going to fulfill their mission verse 60 in addition God will bring back every disease and plague that it was written in the Torah and he'll bring back the disease of Egypt that you dreaded when you were in Egypt and they will stick to you, cleave to you that you were um that you dreaded because of these plagues that were coming on the Egyptians because when the Jewish people saw the great plagues and these weird out unbelievable plagues that were happening upon the Egyptians, they were afraid of them, they shouldn't come upon them as well. Where do we know this from? Because tada, as it says in the book of Exodus, will follow all the sicknesses that have placed upon the Egyptians I won't put on you generally you don't threaten somebody something only with something they're afraid of why would God say I won't put the sicknesses that means they were afraid of those sicknesses that the Egyptians were getting 61 as an addition God will bring upon every disease and every plague that is not written in the scroll of of the Torah, God will uh he will um he will bring he will remain God will bring them upon you until in order to destroy you. He will bring them upon you. 62 you will remain few in number instead of you being like you once were like numerous like the stars in the heaven because you did not listen to the voice of God your God that you could be small minority instead of majority instead of a lot instead of what you should have been verse 63 just as God rejoiced to do good for you to do good for you and to increase you. God will rejoice to destroy you to annihilate you and you'll be uprooted from the land that you entering in order to possess meaning that he will rejoice. What does it mean that God will rejoice with the loss of the Jewish people? God forbid. That means that we rejoice about the enemies that they will rejoice about that they have the fact that they can hurt you. But God himself anus, God forbid, is God rejoice that from here we learn that God does not rejoice with the falling or with the downfall of evil people because of here it says that others will rejoice not that God forbid God will rejoice himself. However, when it comes to doing good for the righteous, then God is very happy and God does rejoice himself. However, when he has to punish, he does not rejoice about it. But other people rejoice that these people are being punished. The word the house of those that are egotistic, God will uproot as is mentioned in 64. And God will scatter you amongst all the nations from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. And you will serve the other deities that you did not know. You and your forefathers at heaven made of stone, wood and stone. Not that you're going to actually serve them, but you're going to have to pay taxes to their idolatries, to their priests, because they're going to be the ones in charge. 65. You will not find respit amongst those nations. You will not find your foot will not find any rest there. And God will give you there a frightening and trembling heart dashed hopes and a depressed soul. You're not going to be consoled or comforted. You can always be trembling, worried brings many different verses where the word means to fear, to tremble, to be concerned. You're looking, waiting, you're waiting for help, salvation, but it won't be coming. Verse 66. Your life will hang in suspense before you. And you're going to be afraid by day and by night. You will not believe in your own life. Anytime there's something in doubt, it's considered hanging. And what are you afraid of? Am I going to die with the with the killing that's happening? The rabbis explain this is a person who may buy wheat for the year but being though that he may not be in danger but he's not sure will this will it survive will I have money for the year to come or not this is somebody who relies on the baker that he doesn't have money to buy wheat. So therefore when he's buying his bread today he does not know am I going to be able to get bread tomorrow. As he says in the next verse in the morning you will say in the morning you're going to say if there was only yesterday and you will say in the morning if only it were yesterday evening and in the evening you will say if only this were this morning. Meaning because of the fear of your heart and you will experience over the future and because of the sight you will behold. You're going to say let it only be the way it was yesterday that now he's saying it's so bad. If only was the way it was it would have been better. It's better than it is now. And in the morning and in the morning you're going to say, "Oh, if it was only the way it was yesterday, because every single hour it seems like it's getting worse and I will re bring you back in ships and slave ships and the path which I said to you will never see again. You will never see again. And you will be sold. You'll be sell yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves slaves and for maid servants but there will be no buyers in boats in captivity you'll be want to be sold as slaves and made servants but nobody's going to want to buy you they're going to just want to kill you and that's all they're interested in the word of isam comes from the word will be sold. It doesn't mean that you will be sold because right afterwards it says there's no buyer that you will want to be sold but not that you would actually be sold. Verse 69. These are the words of the covenant that Moshe commanded that God commanded Moshe to make a covenant to bind to to make a covenant with the Jewish people in the land of Moab. This is an addition to the covenant of the blessings and the consequences and the curses that he made with them on Mount Siashi that they should accept the Torah with a curse and with an oath those that are curses that are mentioned already in the book of Leviticus that they were said on Mount Si. This concludes the sixth tow reading of Paris.