By Sara Zebovitz

This week’s parasha, Ki Tavo, is still in the book of Devarim, which mainly consists of Moshe talking to the Jews. This parasha specifically talks about laws with fruit, giving things to the poor, getting to Israel (wahoo!) and the importance of choosing God, like God has chosen us. There’s more in there, but I won’t get into it. For a more detailed summary, read here.

For this dvar, I will focus primarily on Chapter 27. In this chapter, Moshe instructs the Israelites to inscribe, on stones, the law (the Torah). He also talks a bit about sacrifice and otherwise. This chapter also consists of a repetitive “Curses on the person that does not follow X law.” It does not necessarily say what curses means, but one can assume that it can’t be good, or be anything that any person would ever wish on themselves. (I’m pretty sure it talks about illness, famine, exile…)

There are 11 laws that Moshe points out for the Levites to say to the Israelites when they get to Israel. That is, 11 things that Moshe calls out as being curse-worthy. They are: building idols; degrading one’s parents; stealing a neighbors land; misguiding a blind person; not showing justice to a stranger, orphan, or widow; sleeping with one’s father’s wife; sleeping with animals; sleeping with one’s sister or half-sister; sleeping with one’s mother-in-law; hitting a friend in secret; taking a bribe to kill an innocent person; and not fulfilling the words of the Torah (in general, I suppose). The mishna states that there was also a blessing to counter each curse, so it wasn’t too depressing.

These sound like pretty solid rules to follow, I’d say. I believe in justice, not stealing, being nice to people that raised you, and I hear sleeping with relatives is bad for the kids that come of that.

I want to narrow in on verse 18 which reads:

ארור משגה עור בדרך” " “Cursed is the one who misdirects a blind person.” That sounds pretty straightforward, and echoes a verse we read last week that said something along the lines of “don’t place a stumbling block in front of a blind person.” And I agree, it’s pretty rude to do that.

But I read another interpretation, by Josephus, that I want to share. He says that this phrase, cursed is the one who misdirects a blind person, refers to one’s responsibility to show the roads to one who does not know them. He also says it means to not make a game of directing someone the wrong way. (You can read the text here, verse 31). Now, writing this right now makes me think that he was literally talking about roads and giving someone directions. When I read it yesterday, however, I thought of it more in terms of teaching those who may not know what you know.

For example, the concept of mentoring. Those coming after us, that is, our followers or the future or the kvutza a few years younger than us, do not necessarily know what it means to be on tzevet or to engage with Judaism. With this interpretation of 27:18, we have the responsibility of helping those who are coming down the road after us.

It speaks to hadracha a bit, don’t you think? It requires us to lead our chanichim and each other the “right” way, following the values that we have inherited from our Judaism, our families, our machanot. It requires us to teach those who may be ignorant about subjects that we so clearly understand.

Maybe this verse literally just means don’t mislead a blind person, but either way, I think it’s a pretty cool interpretation to take to heart.