T orah P ortion
Blessing and Curse: Reward and
Punishment BY RABBI TSURAH AUGUST
Parshat Ki Tavo
IN A WEAK VOICE that
touched my soul, the weeping
woman asked: “Why am I
being punished, rabbi? I have
been a good person. Why am I
cursed? What did I do?”
I, a student chaplain, stood at
her bedside, unable to think of
what I could say to comfort her.

I didn’t know her, but I could
feel her pain and wanted to help.

But what could I possibly do
to help ameliorate her torment
and not increase her suffering?
Fast-forward 20-plus years.

I have heard this plea many
times, from patients struggling
with pain and fear of dying and not
able to comprehend from where
their suffering has come. Looking
for reasons, blaming themselves,
the doctors, God. Entering a new
land, fearful of what is coming
and tired of the pain of living.

Now, I still don’t have
adequate answers. I do know
that this is not a time for
reasons. And, just as many times,
perhaps more often, I have
heard from patients — “Rabbi,
I am ready. I have had a good
Lovy Continued from Page 18
and antisemitic hate speech. You
just know it when you feel it.

Ultimately, Jews are gaslighted
with the phrase “Criticism of
Israel is not antisemitism,” which
creates a nonexistent caricature
of a Jew who takes offense at
every criticism of Israel.

What got me into the whole
mess, and sent me down a
path I continue to this day,
was a story I wrote about a
pamphlet. Earlier in ’85, the
director of the campus Hillel
approached me at the Wayne
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7:10 p.m.

beloved, knowing they have
shown their love and respect.

So why do I bring this into
Ki Tavo?
“When you enter the land
that the LORD your God is
giving you as a heritage, and
you possess it and settle in it,
you shall take some of every
first fruit of the soil, which you
harvest from the land that the
LORD your God is giving you,
put it in a basket and go to
the place where the LORD your
God will choose to establish His
name” (Devarim 26 1-2).

What a moment! When you
enter the land that the LORD
your God is giving you as a
heritage ...

We have finally entered
the land! We have settled it.

We have harvested the first
crops from our land. We must
do something to mark this
moment. And what we are
asked to do is very simple, and
very difficult. These crops were
hard-won — the history of our
lives, from slavery, through
exodus, to this moment, are
in these fruits. And now we
are commanded to take these
precious fruits and offer them,
give them away, we commit to
living a generous life, beyond
our personal needs, to attend
to the needs of others.

Giving these fruits, ritualizes
in community, our commit-
ment of living in relationship
with the Divine One, the source,
Adonai — with all creation, with
gratitude. The ritual creates a
communal focus, memory and
intention. Much as the Viddui
ritual does at the final moments
of harvest of our lives.

As we enter the Land of 5782,
may we all find the ways to
nourish us, guide us and inspire
us to live a life of blessing,
generosity and gratitude. l
The Viddui is the Jewish
end-of-life ritual, done when
death is imminent.

In its most basic form, it is a
prayer that can be recited by the
dying person, a rabbi or another
person. It invokes the ancestors,
affirms one’s gratitude for having
lived their life, asks for and offers
forgiveness, asks for lovingkind-
ness for family — and ends with
a recitation of the Shema.

Simply chanted, it has
great resonance because of the
language, especially if in Hebrew;
the cadence of the chant; the
connection with a long line
of ancestors — and the other
elements of gratitude, forgive-
ness and hopes for family. And,
saying or hearing the Shema, our
affirmation of Divine Oneness,
can stir the heart, soothe the
mind and bring peace.

When the Viddui is incor-
porated into a ritual that the
family can participate in,
it becomes the center of a
shared experience of sharing
love and memories, through
stories, songs, touch tears, even
laughter. I have found this ritual is
a potent response to a dying
person’s experience, increasing
the sense of blessing and
diminishing the fear of punish-
ment. And it is a powerful
way of saying goodbye for the
family, leaving positive images
emblazoned on their minds, to
remember and comfort them
as they mourn the loss of their
State Student Center. He tossed
a book near my lunch tray and
asked, “Guess what I found the
Muslim Students Association
selling at Manoogian Hall?”
It was “The Protocols of the
Learned Elders of Zion,” the
infamous czarist-era Russian
forgery that sets out the Jewish
plan for world domination. The
Hillel director knew I wrote about
Jewish issues, so he challenged
me to write a story about this.

“It doesn’t matter if the
‘Protocols’ are fiction. Maybe
they are, maybe they aren’t,”
the head of the Muslim Student
Association told me in an inter-
view at the time. “But you cannot
deny that many of the prophe-
cies in this book have come true.

Jews run the financial systems.”
This student became my
nemesis. Every time I’d write
anything in The South End,
there he was to refute it. Not
only that, but it became a
campaign. The Muslim Student
Association began tracking
everything I wrote. Once I
ran into one of its members
while shopping at Detroit’s
Eastern Market. I heard him
say “Zionist” as I walked by.

OK. Yes. That was, and is,
true. I am a Zionist. So how do
you describe to non-Jews that
for anti-Zionists, “Zionist” is
the equivalent of saying “dirty
Jew”? How do you tell people
that this was not “just criti-
cizing Israel” when it’s part
of a coordinated campaign to
attack everything a Jew writes
and, ultimately, prevent him
from attaining the editor’s
position? I was alone in 1985, but
today, Jewish students can find
solace in online communities.

Of course, none of those
things were available to me in
1985, so I did the next best
thing: I interned for the Detroit
Jewish News. This unexpect-
edly led to my career as a
“Jewish journalist.”
Today my college experi-
ence is wrapped into a lifetime
of experiences in recognizing
the various shades of antisem-
itism. It is difficult, I know,
for college students. But I
am also optimistic that even
though it may look worse than
it was “in my day,” young Jews
are working together to help
define and fight the problem of
campus antisemitism. l
life; I have been blessed.” They
are ready to leave the land of
the living, but not quite ready
to enter the new land.

If they are fortunate to
have family members at their
bedside, there is a poignant
moment when they need to
find a way to say goodbye.

Feeling cursed or blessed,
moments of great transition
need to be honored. It is a time
to call upon the rituals that our
tradition has bequeathed to us.

Why a ritual? And what has
this to do with our parsha,
Ki Tavo?
First, why a ritual? Let’s
look at the elements of a ritual:
• It creates a safe “container”
for expressing thoughts and
feelings. • It provides a common focus
for the participants.

• It connects the participants
via a shared experience.

• It engages body/mind/spirit.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Rabbi Tsurah August is the in-
house chaplain for Jewish Family
and Children’s Service of Greater
Philadelphia, providing spiritual
and emotional support for people
facing challenges of loss and
illness. The Board of Rabbis of
Greater Philadelphia is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on
Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. The opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own
and do not reflect the view of the
Board of Rabbis.

Howard Lovy is an editor and writer
based in Traverse City, Michigan.

He is the former managing editor
of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

This article first appeared in the
Detroit Jewish News.

AUGUST 26, 2021
33