What is a Curse?
See, this day I set before you blessing and curse.
But what is a curse, in the Torah?
If my father touches me, I shall appear to him as a trickster and bring upon myself a curse, not a blessing.” But his mother said to [Jacob], “Your curse, my son, be upon me! Just do as I say and go fetch them for me.”
Is it not interesting that Rivkah does not suggest that there would not be a curse?! That instead there surely would be a curse – but that she would pay the price instead of Jacob?
What does that tell us about what a curse might actually be about? In the case of Jacob, might the curse come about as the consequence of interfering with the relationship that Isaac had with Esau?
Is the Torah making an even bolder and more broad statement: that we, as people, are capable of creating a curse merely by interfering with the lives of others, with the relationships between other people, or the relationships between man and G-d?
There are many examples in the text of this word. The famous list in Devarim 27:
Cursed be:
Any party who makes a sculptured or molten image, abhorred by G-d, a craftsman’s handiwork, and sets it up in secret.
The one who insults father or mother
The one who moves a neighbor’s landmark
The one who misdirects a blind person who is on a path
The one who subverts the rights of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow
The one who lies with his father’s wife, for he has removed his father’s garment
The one who lies with any beast [devalues man, and real intimacy]
The [man] who lies with his sister, whether daughter of his father or of his mother
The [man] who lies with his mother-in-law
The one who strikes down a fellow in secret
The one who accepts a bribe in the case of the murder of an innocent person
Whoever will not uphold the words of this Torah and observe them
Is this not quite a remarkable list – both for what it includes and what it does not mention? This list is quite different, for example, from the Ten Commandments. There is no mention of the Sabbath, or being envious of others.
The question asks itself: what is special about this list? Why does it include these specific examples?
Might it be that every single item in the list is centered on the things that are most corrosive for relationships within marriages, families, and society?
Might this help explain why Judaism is so careful about loshon horah, gossip or slander or negative speech of all kinds? Doesn’t it tell us that getting between a father and son, or a husband and wife, or two brothers, is analogous to getting between someone and their connection to G-d? A religion that seeks to foster holy relationships of all kinds is naturally keenly interested in not obstructing those very same relationships!
Indeed, might understanding klalah as “curse” actually be a bit of a mistranslation? The first uses of this word in the Torah are:
Then [Noach] sent out the dove to see whether the waters had decreased [klal] from the surface of the ground.
And
He cohabited with Hagar and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was lowered [klal] in her esteem.
Might this be the same – or a different – facet of the same meaning? That interfering with someone else’s relationship is a way to lower that person, to diminish them in some way? Isn’t this exactly what loshon hora does?
Consider the list from Deut. 27: Are not each and every one of those curses for something that someone thought they could do, and get away with? They are all acts that undermine something or somebody: your parents, your neighbor, the blind man. These are not public acts but private ones. But as they are called out in the text as a broad, societal pact, is the text telling us us that our private acts have public ramifications?
These acts are also irrevocable. Murder ends a life. Incest cannot be undone. Every single named curse is for something that specifically undermines the possibility of redemptive growth. Is this is why they must be called out in public, and acknowledged by all?
Might this also explain why most commandments are omitted from this list? The list of kosher animals or a reminder to keep the Sabbath or even not being envious of others are all not included because, in contrast, they are all ways in which we can grow?!
But the items in this list are all there because they undermine and destroy the possibility of growth. In other words, most commandments are there to show us the way forward. But the curses in this list are for behavior that block the possibility of forward movement.
If this is true, then might the Torah be telling us a lesson that is extremely relevant today? After all, the world around us is full of people wrecking their lives, justifying acts that are cursed in the Torah. So perhaps these specific curses in the Torah are there to remind us that not everything can be fixed, and that certain behavior, even if we think what we have done is private, or that nobody else will ever know, is so evil that it irrevocably taints a person, their relationships and indeed the whole world?!
Blessings?
If a curse, a klalah, is diminishing others by negatively interfering in their relationships, then would not a blessing, a bracha, mean precisely the opposite?
The first use of bracha in the Torah:
I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing (bracha).
Is this not the mission of all of Avraham’s descendants? To connect the world with G-d and elevate it as a result?
Is this also not what a bracha is? Do we not praise G-d specifically to strengthen our relationship with Him, increasing His presence in our lives? And even make G-d greater in our minds, as we realize how important and critical He really is?
Is this then the choice that is offered in the first line of this parsha: We are offered the choice of growing upward or diminishing downward? Our relationship with G-d can grow or it can decrease, depending on the choices we make?