Rabbi's Message

The full moon is out, which means we are halfway through the month of Elul.  As we approach the end of the year, I keep thinking about a phrase from the Talmud.  In a discussion about the reading of the curses, known as the tokheha, in this week’s parashah, Ki Tavo, the Talmud says that the Torah reading schedule was set so that this portion is always read before Rosh Hashanah.  The reason:  k’day she’tikhleh shanah v’kil’loteha – “so that the year ends with its curses.”  In other words, when the year ends, its curses end with it. If only it were that easy.  When we turn the page on the calendar, the challenges of the past year don’t just disappear.

Some might take a break for the celebration of the holidays, but they will still exist once our celebrations end.  So what does the Talmud mean?  How can curses cease when the year ends?  We could read this statement as aspirational.  It is a prayer of hope that with the end of the year comes the end of its curses.  We could also see this trying to help us find order when chaotic things happen.  Marking years, decades, and centuries gives us perspective.  It creates historical markers that help us demarcate events and experiences that define us.  This explanation, however, makes sense when we are looking back.  But what about when we are living it?  What about when the attacks on Israel and Jews around the world occur daily, with much of the world looking on or even excusing them?  Perhaps there is something more to this teaching from the Talmud.  Maybe it is also a commentary about how we move through challenging times and grow into a new year.  Curses, violence, hatred, injustice, and other maladies don’t magically end when the calendar turns.  What the end of a year does offer, however, is an opportunity for us to reconsider how we are living through them and how we are responding.  It gives us the opportunity to step back and check in with ourselves.  To ask questions such as:  How are we doing?  How are we helping?  With what do we need help?  If we use this opportunity of the end of the year to seriously consider these questions, then in the new year we can feel more ready to respond.  We can’t solve all of these curses on our own, but we can do our part to alleviate some of the pain, some of the loneliness, and some of the loss that so many people are feeling right now.  There is a piyyut, a liturgical poem, that is particularly popular in Sephardic congregations on Rosh Hashanah called “Ahot Ketanah.”  It references Ki Tavo’s curses and amends this statement from the Talmud to read: “May the year end with its curses, and may the new year begin with its blessings.”  Curses don’t just end with the past year, and blessings don’t just begin with the new one.  We must be the blessings that will make it a good new year.