The Weekly Sedra – Parshas Nitzavim

The Rebbe says:

1. It says in this week’s Torah portion, “What will happen is, when all these things come upon you…the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, you will take it to your heart, and you will return to G-d, your G-d, with all your heart and with all your soul…Then, G-d, your
G-d, will return your captives from exile…and He will bring you to the land which your forefathers possessed…”.

2. The Rebbe asks a question on this:

The basic point of these verses is that every Jew will return to Hashem (G-d) because of the things which will happen to them. If so, why does the Torah include the word, “the blessing”, into this equation? Isn’t the person’s Teshuvah (repentance) solely because of his broken heart which was an effect of “the curse” which befell him?

Moreover, Rashi (an acronym for Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki), who always explains “simple” issues that a “five year old student” cannot understand from the text, does not comment or explain anything here. This therefore proves to us that the solution and explanation to our problem must be so simple that Rashi did not see a reason to explain it. Let us try and understand why the Torah says that blessings can be a part of a person’s repentance.

3. The Rebbe now suggests an answer but then rejects it:

We might want to answer (as the Ramban does) that the Torah is prophesizing and telling us what is going to happen when the Jewish people enter the Land of Israel; first there will be goodness and blessing, but then the Jewish people will stray from the path of Hashem and curses will befall them.

However this explanation does not suffice because, firstly, the Torah’s description of what will happen when the Jewish people enter the Land of Israel is in the next portion- Parshas Vayeilech- and not this portion, and secondly, when the Torah does clearly describe what will happen when the Jewish people enter the Land of Israel in the next portion, it does not say anything about blessings and curses befalling them. Finally, it does not make sense that the Torah would tell us as a prophecy about our rewards and blessings, because this depends on our free choice and good deeds, as it says at the end of this week’s Torah portion, “See! I have given you today life and good…Choose life!”.

Therefore, unable to answer our question, we are still wondering how blessings can be a part of the road to repentance.

4. The Rebbe answers the question:

This week’s Torah portion explains, as we said earlier, that experiencing pain from “the curse” arouses us to repent and come closer to Hashem, as these verses say, “…and you will return to G-d, your G-d, with all your heart and with all your soul”. Moreover, notice that the Torah does not suffice with saying, “and you will return to G-d, your G-d”, but adds that this repentance will be so powerful that it will be, “with all your heart and all your soul”.

The underlying principal here is that pain causes repentance. Therefore, logic dictates that the more pain there is, the deeper the repentance will be. Consequently, in our case, where the Torah says that the person will have such a deep repentance that it will be with “all his heart and all his soul”, there must be very deep pain.

This is indeed what the Torah is telling us here when it says, “when all these things come upon you…the blessing and the curse”: As we learnt earlier in Rashi, when a person has riches and then looses it and becomes a pauper, this hurts him much more than a person who was always poor. In other words, when there are blessings before there are curses, the curses are more blatant and are felt more deeply. Therefore, here, when the Torah is telling us how a man can be aroused to such a deep repentance that it will completely take over his heart and soul, the Torah tells us that there is first a blessing and than a curse because this makes the pain all that more hurtful.

5. The Rebbe points out an issue that arises from this explanation:

The goal of these verses is to tell us that by causing things to happen Hashem will make sure every single Jew repents. However, based on the above explanation we run into a problem: If the Torah is telling us that complete repentance only comes if a Jew first has a blessing and than a curse, as we explained earlier, then the Torah is negating those Jews who do not first have a blessing. If so, the Torah is not fulfilling its goal of saying that every single Jew will be brought to repentance! How can we reconcile this?

6. The Rebbe explains:

A few portions ago in the Torah, the Torah said, “See! I am giving you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing is being given on the basis that you will listen to the commandments of
G-d…”. Instead, the Torah could have written, “See! I am giving you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing will be given if you will listen to the commandments of G-d…”.

The difference between, “on the basis”, and “if”, is simple: “If you do this I will give you that” means that the person receiving something must do a certain thing before he gets his reward. However, “I am giving you this on the basis that you do that” means that the person giving is already handing it to you and now you must fulfill a certain request to complete the deal.

So too here, Hashem says that He is giving us goodness and blessing, and now to complete the deal we must fulfill His commandments. In other words, the blessing is already in our hands, however if we don’t fulfill our end of the deal the blessing will turn into a curse.

According to this it comes out that every single Jew has the blessing, even someone who sins, the only thing is that some might now choose to sin and their blessing will turn into a curse.

Therefore, our question is answered: When the Torah tells us that deep repentance happens when there is first a blessing and then a curse, it is not negating any Jew because every single Jew does indeed receive the blessing first!

7. The Rebbe now finishes off with a blessing:

From all of the above we see an amazing thing: Hashem promises to give blessings to every single Jew without exception (the only thing is that one must keep his end of the deal to keep these blessings).

The reason for this is easily understood: Being that we are children of Avraham (Abraham), Yitzchak (Isaac), and Yaakov (Jacob), and we are referred to as “the children of kings”, or even more so, “kings” themselves, we are surely most fitting and deserving to receive everything in its complete fashion. As the Talmud says, “Rabbi Yochanan ben Masya said to his son, ‘My son, even if you prepare for them (Jewish laborers) a meal like King Solomon’s banquet in his heyday, you will not have discharged your duty towards them for they are the children of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov’”.

Surely everyone will keep their end of the deal and therefore keep their blessing.

Translated and adapted by Shalom Goldberg. Taken from Likutei Sichos volume fourteen, third Sicha.