Reaffirmation

 Ki Tavo

Deut. 26:1-29:8

 

Précis: The parasha contains numerous religious mandates regarding the formation of a civil and moral community (including tithes of first fruits and tithes to support the Levites). The People are promised that if they follow God’s instructions, they will be transformed into a “holy people.” They are further instructed that they have a choice of their own destiny: there are blessings and curses (the “Admonition”), and they must choose between the two, and take the consequences. The parasha ends with Moses reminding the People about all that God had done for them in bringing them from Egypt, providing sustenance, defeating their foes, and giving them the Land.

 

Deut. 28:69 “These are the terms of the covenant which the Eternal commanded Moses to conclude with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb.”

As noted by Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi (Ten Minutes of Torah, 8/27/18), relationships—even sacred relationships—are not static. People change, and the best relationships evolve. 

            The verse cited above includes a demand by Moses to establish a Covenant. Having been at Sinai, why was a new Covenant needed? Beit-Halachmi notes that the Talmud sages (Shabbat 88a) saw that the Sinai Covenant was executed under extreme circumstances, including one commentator who suggested that God held Mount Sinai over the People’s heads, and threatened to drop it unless they agreed! Other commentators offer less extreme circumstances, but continue to note that the scene at Sinai was not one in which consent could be freely given: thunder, lighting, smoke, etc.

            In this week’s parasha, the people are split between two mountains, and Moses reminds them to observe the Covenant. Their acceptance (by uttering “Amen”) can be viewed as a new acceptance of the mutual accountability between God and Israel.

            But more importantly, this acceptance demands that they and we be mindful of each other.  We are not only individuals, and our future depends on our ability to live together. Peoplehood may have begun with the Exodus and was reframed at Sinai, but it was only upon the entrance into the Land that the future of the Israelites clearly called for mutual dependability.  

            Here is a reminder to the Jews of Israel and of the Diaspora: the Covenant between us must be continually reexamined, reconstituted, and reaffirmed.