Unlike Parashat Ki Tetzeh, which has an abundance of laws, Parashat Ki Tavo contains few halakhot. Instead, Parashat Ki Tavo is replete with curses. The Talmud teaches that at Gerizim and Ebal, both curses and mirrored blessings were pronounced (Sota 32a), yet the Torah records only the curses in detail. This is puzzling, since the Torah usually favors positive, even circumlocutory language to avoid coarseness (Pesaĥim 3a), raising the question of why the blessings remain merely implied.

The answer, it seems, is that this harshness is necessary. It is genuinely difficult to be a Jew, and the curses in this parasha only underscore that difficulty. We may understand intellectually the need for both carrot and stick intellectually, yet accepting this reality remains a real challenge.

Consider the yeshiva: beyond Torah study for its own sake, one of its purposes is to prepare students for life. Yet a yeshiva is also a sheltered environment. A student there struggles mainly with subtleties of faith, facing far fewer real temptations than exist in the outside world. This makes leaving the shelter difficult. When students are eventually forced to leave, it can become a moment of genuine crisis.

There was once a view among psychologists that children should be shielded from frightening stories. Today the opposite is understood: a child who never hears of life's dark side grows up with a distorted picture of the world, and struggles when reality intrudes. Some societies, like the kibbutzim of the past, distanced children even from death itself, attempting to push away something that simply exists. But a person raised without exposure to hardship, deceit, or loss will struggle far more when reality finally arrives.

However, the Torah insists, "It is not in heaven... it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it" (Deut. 30:12–14), meaning that its demands are within human reach. But reachable is not the same as easy, for we live among people, not in a sheltered world free of the evil inclination. The curses, then, are not meant to frighten us, but to prepare us honestly: the deeper our engagement with the world, the greater the challenge and one we must meet without fear, alongside the blessings that accompany it.

Questions to Contemplate

Where in my own life do I focus more readily on what's forbidden or lacking than on naming the blessing that stands quietly beside it?

Take a deep dive into the Parasha on our Portal or download the Steinsaltz Daily Study App