The first time God appears to Abraham, he says to him (Genesis 12:2-3): “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse.”
A few weeks ago, we read the Tokheiha or section of Rebuke (Deut. 28). It contains a list of blessings which the Jewish people will receive if they listen to God and observe His commandments, and a list of curses which will befall them if they do not.
But the theme of blessings and curses is not limited to the Bible. It is very much with us throughout the High Holy Days.
A piyyut or liturgical poem called "Ahot Ketana", is recited by many Jews on the first night of Rosh Hashanah. It contains the refrain: “Tikhle shanah v’killeloteha, tahel shanah uvirkhoteha, "May the old year end with its curses... May the new year begin with its blessings."
The potential blessings and curses of the New Year find their ultimate expression in the U'netaneh Tokef prayer, the central piyyut of the Musaf service:
"On New Year's Day the decree is inscribed and on the Day of Atonement it is sealed… who shall live and who shall die… who by fire and who by water… who by earthquake and who by plague… who shall be tranquil and who shall be disturbed… who shall be brought low and who shall be exalted."
We are not God. We do not know who will live and who will die in the year ahead; who by earthquake or who by plague, who shall be tranquil or who shall be disturbed.
Jewish tradition gives us the ability to deal with whatever curses may lie ahead by turning our curses into blessings. We can learn this lesson from the story of Balaam (Numbers 22-24). Three times did Balaam attempt to curse the Children of Israel, and three times did he fail. Each time his curse turned into a blessing.
Why? Was it Balaam’s decision or God’s doing? According to the Book of Deuteronomy (23:4-6): “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord... because they hired Balaam son of Beor... to curse you. But the Lord your God refused to heed Balaam; instead, the Lord God turned the curse into a blessing for you, for the Lord your God loves you.”
This idea is reiterated in the midrash: “When Balaam came to curse Israel, God twisted his tongue around and he began to bless instead” (Numbers Rabbah 20:21).
A number of other midrashim paint a different scenario.
When Israel was cursed and then blessed
THEY MAINTAIN that Balaam did indeed intend to curse the Children of Israel, but when he saw their exemplary behavior, he changed his mind and blessed them instead.
As we read in the Talmud (Bava Batra 60a): “‘And Balaam looked up and he saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe’ (Numbers 24:2). What did he see? [Rabbi Yohanan said:] He saw that the openings of their tents did not face each other. He said: This people is worthy of having God’s presence rest upon them!”
And the Rashbam adds (ad loc.): That is why Balaam said a few verses later (24:5): “How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwellings O Israel!”
In other words, Balaam did not turn his curses into blessings because of some miraculous intervention by God, but, rather, because he was so favorably impressed by the behavior of people.
THE MESSAGE hidden in these midrashim is that all people, everywhere, have the ability to turn curses into blessings. We can, by our actions, snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and turn adversity into triumph. As Shakespeare so aptly stated in As You Like It (II, i), “Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
Let’s examine three classic examples of this phenomenon in Jewish history.
What could be a bigger curse than our slavery in the land of Egypt? Others might have become embittered and taken revenge, yet we turned that experience into a blessing.
Time after time, the Torah commands us not to oppress the stranger, the widow, and the orphan, because we were strangers in the land of Egypt: “You shall neither wrong nor oppress a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20); “And you shall love the stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). Thus, the curse of slavery led to the blessing of social justice, which has persisted in Judaism for over 3,000 years.
What could be a bigger curse than the destruction of the Second Temple? In the year 70 CE, the Temple was destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed or exiled. Yet our Sages transformed that curse into a series of blessings: They replaced the Temple with the synagogue, and the sacrificial system with prayer. They replaced the inherited privileges of the priesthood with the meritocracy of the rabbinate.
They created the Mishna, which became the basis for the Talmud and all subsequent Jewish law. Thus, they turned a terrible curse into wonderful blessings which have lasted for 2,000 years.
The last example happened in recent times. What could be a bigger curse than the Holocaust? One-third of the Jewish people was brutally murdered, thousands of Jewish communities were entirely wiped out, and the survivors had nowhere to go and no families to which they could return.
And yet, between 1945 and 1948, the Jewish people rose from the ashes. Many of the survivors made their way to Israel. They fought for the Land and settled it, built cities and planted crops, and created the State of Israel, which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. In short, they turned a terrible curse into a wonderful blessing.
UNFORTUNATELY, since January 2023, the State of Israel has been suffering from a curse – the curse of disunity. The Talmud teaches us (Shabbat 10b) that the senseless hatred between Joseph and his brothers led to hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. Similarly, according to the Talmud (Yoma 9b), the Second Temple – where people engaged in Torah study and mitzvot and deeds of lovingkindness – was destroyed because of sinat hinam (senseless hatred).
Our current curse did not land in Israel from outer space, nor did it come from our usual enemies. It came from within. The current government wants to totally change the Israeli system of governance without the consent of the opposition. To this we can only say in the words of Ahad Ha’am – lo zo haderekh, this is not the way! Polls show that most Israelis agree that there is a need for judicial reform, but it can only be achieved by compromise and consensus.
“All the good of Israel and their survival hangs on their being unified together.”
Rabbi Yitzhak Abarbanel
My hope and prayer for this Yom Kippur is that we find a way to turn this curse of disunity into the blessing of unity. For as Rabbi Yitzhak Abarbanel wrote in the 15th century: “All the good of Israel and their survival hangs on their being unified together.” It is up to us.
The writer, a rabbi and professor, is the president of The Schechter Institutes, Jerusalem.