Blessings and Curses, Sickness and Death, the Moon and the Stars, & Ki Tavo

A few days ago, I left the city to go up to visit a friend at her farm where we would camp out on the lawn by her barn. I was so looking forward to enjoying these days and nights in the country as the summer drew to an end—so needed after a hard summer.

But on the two nights we slept outdoors, the temperature dipped to an uncharacteristic 40 degrees Fahrenheit—meaning, we were freezing! Totally unprepared, we shivered in the night, got wet from the heavy dew on our tents, and got little sleep.

In those moments of misery, we might have felt cursed.

But the Elul moon was full and the sky was clear. The middle of the night afforded an awe and the unexpected magic of a bright night sky with easily recognizable constellations. A few days earlier or later, though warmer, it would have been rainy and cloudy.

It turned out to be a blessing.

This week in Torah, as the Israelites prepare to finally enter the Promised Land, they are reminded of the blessings that will be bestowed upon them if they follow God’s commandments, and also the curses—a long litany of horrors, of death, disease, and suffering—if they do not.

Thus, the Bible tells us we should live with “yir’ah,” a word which Rabbi Shai Held discusses in detail in his book, The Heart of Torah. He points out that this word “yir'ah” has at least two meanings: fear and awe (The Heart of Torah, Vol. 2, p. 265-269).

He explains: according to the Torah, though we are to live and act out of fear of God, we are also to live in awe. Our ancient rabbis say that these are two different levels in the spiritual realm; acting out of fear comes from a baser level, like a child who learns to obey. But the objective is to reach a higher spiritual realm, and act out of awe of a power so much greater than ourselves. It is awe that should guide our lives. Because awe takes us outside and beyond ourselves and our individual problems.

Awe gives us gratitude, and helps us enter a place where we understand that the mystery of life is beyond our personal control.

Right before I left for the country, I officiated at a funeral. It was a very sad and strange situation. The wife of the deceased, after almost fifty years of what seemed to be a good, supportive marriage, had been taking care of her husband for the past two years as he slowly got sicker. It took two weeks for the funeral to take place; she had been totally unprepared for his sudden, unexpected death.

Meanwhile, numerous phone calls and prods from the funeral home did not seem to hurry the process along. It was completely beyond their control.

At this simple graveside funeral, only five family members and no friends would be present. The woman’s son and his girlfriend showed up very late to the cemetery after being mostly incommunicado. The family was anxious, distracted, and unable to be fully present in the moment as we waited. I stalled. When he finally arrived, I could see deep grief and anger in him at the loss of his father, hard as he tried to bottle it up.

After shoveling dirt into the grave, we turned to go.

But we had forgotten something; a eulogy from the daughter.

In it, she evoked love, laughter, and pain.

As she read her beautiful piece, I saw, behind his dark glasses, that her brother began to weep and shake uncontrollably, despite his best efforts. After she finished reading, she walked over, embraced him, and told him she loved him. They cried together.

Perhaps a woman who worked so hard to keep her husband alive for two years might feel cursed at the way things ended up. Were they being punished? What had they done wrong, after all, to deserve this suffering? Yet, when we talked on the phone, and she recounted their trials and tribulations, she never once expressed frustration or a feeling of victimhood; what’s the use of complaining and crying, she’d said.

Yet she, along with her children, needed to be reminded that the life, disease, and death of her husband were beyond her control.

As I reflect on my experiences over the past week, I can’t help but think that all of life is filled with curses and blessings, all mixed up together in every moment.

I am in awe of the capacity this aging woman had to care for her husband, and the pain they both—and all of them as a family—withstood.

I am in awe of the capacity human beings have to care for one another, and how the pain and the love are intertwined. Tears and laughter can mean the same thing, just as fear and awe can be wrapped up in the same word.

I am in awe of the patience and the way this very soft-spoken, humble, kind-hearted sister was able to crack her brother’s heart open in a moment.

This unexpected blessing happened in the messiness of disease and death. What followed were relief, gratitude, and the beginning of healing and repair: of Tikkun.

As we come to the last week of the month of Elul, as we prepare for the Days of Awe, always seemingly totally unprepared for the unexpected and unknown, always somehow surprised by the messiness of life and what lies ahead, I bless us with entering this new year with living in greater and greater awe and gratitude, despite the trials and tribulations, and carrying with us the capacity to create Tikkun, healing, in the world.