This is the Parsha of the blessings and the curses. Moshe is nearly finished with his speech. The contract is nearly signed, but not before the terms of the contract are stated. This statement includes a reading of the curses, should the rules not be obeyed and the blessings, if the people hold up their end of the deal.
Blessings and curses are the conditions of being the chosen. I wondered a lot this week how blessings and curses could occupy the same physical space on a page/scroll. What you find below is a short story exploring the idea of these blessings and curses having to share one space.
I write this post with the hope that all of us are thinking about our deeds as we approach Rosh Hashannah. In this time of such unrest, such tumult, let us hear good news soon. May curses disappear and blessings reign.
Shabbat Shalom,
Leann
On the Same Page
One day, in a place we can never know, both The Blessings and The Curses were created by The Author. On that day, which was like an ocean tide as it brimmed with light and emptied into darkness, The Author wrote them both, as The Author alternatively smiled and wept. The letters dripped onto the page; the blessings slowly and deliberately, like honey, and the curses, hastily, like the winds of a hurricane.
From across the page, which looked like a battlefield in miniature, The Blessings and The Curses glared at one another. They shared the same alphabet, the same Author, but they couldn’t be more different.
The blessings hoped for goodness, for health ame plenty and the curses; well, we won’t even say what the curses predicted.
The words glared at each other across the parchment, while the ink still shimmered shiny wet on the page. The letters swelled with anger.
“There’s not enough room for both of us on this page,” raged the Blessings to the Curses. They pushed and
shoved at each other. They called each other names. The alephs were bent, the bets were squashed, the reyshes were smudged. The Blessings nearly pushed the Curses off the page.
“We didn’t choose this existence, sobbed the Curses to the Blessings. Why are you so cruel? Are you not a blessing?” The Blessings paused. They were tired of fighting. The Curses could not help being curses just as the Blessings could not change who they are.
The Author looked down at the page far below as The Blessings and Curses stared at each other across the expanse of mistrust and rage. The Author had always known that one page would never be wide enough for both The Blessings and The Curses ; even a page as large as a land, as wide as a continent.
The Author knew that some things can never be fixed, no matter how one tries to fix them, yet The Author still placed the Blessings and The Curses on the same page, leading to a shared fate. It mattered not how the Blessings or The Curses felt; they were destined to share the same page, no matter how narrow, no matter how wide. The Blessings and Curses could not live without one another.
The Author finished writing the page, gently blew the ink dry. The Blessings and The Curses were complete and The Author stared at the page.
Other posts from Words Have Wings on Parshat KI Tavo.
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