There is a moment before every catastrophe when evil still appears negotiable.

It has not yet revealed its full face. It arrives dressed in promises: order, security, national greatness, historical justice. It asks only for a little silence, one small compromise, one group of people to be sacrificed for the supposed good of everyone else.

Later, when the prisons are full and the graves have opened, people look toward Heaven and ask: How could God have allowed this?

Parashat Ki Tavo offers an unsettling response: before asking why Heaven permitted evil, we must ask when human beings welcomed it.

Between Blessing and Curse

Ki Tavo is often remembered for the tokhechah, the terrifying catalogue of calamities that may befall Israel. Yet the parashah begins elsewhere—with first fruits, gratitude, memory, and a covenant renewed between two mountains.

After entering the Promised Land, Israel must gather between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. One mountain represents blessing; the other, curse. The people stand between them, inside the geography of moral choice.

This is more than an ancient ceremony. It is a map of human existence.

Every generation stands between Gerizim and Ebal. Every society must decide whether power will protect the vulnerable or prey upon them; whether prosperity will produce gratitude or arrogance; whether people will defend truth or exchange it for comfort.

The blessings and curses of Ki Tavo are not arbitrary rewards and punishments descending from an unpredictable Heaven. They reveal the moral architecture of the world. Human choices create conditions in which blessing can dwell—or conditions in which society begins to consume itself.

Among the declarations proclaimed at Mount Ebal is this warning:

“Cursed is the one who distorts the justice due to the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.” —Deuteronomy 27:19

The Torah identifies those who possess the least power and the fewest defenders. The stranger lacks belonging. The orphan lacks protection. The widow, in the society of that time, lacks political and economic power.

They can be harmed quietly.

An influential person may protest when mistreated. His friends may defend him, and his position may protect him. But when the powerless are abused, the oppressor assumes that no one will speak.

The Torah answers with a curse—and the entire nation must say, “Amen.”

Why must everyone answer?

Because justice cannot be outsourced entirely to judges, politicians, or courts. By answering “Amen,” the people acknowledge that the treatment of the vulnerable concerns the whole community. No one may say, “I did not issue the ruling. I did not strike the victim. This has nothing to do with me.”

The covenant turns private conscience into public responsibility.

When the Judges Are Judged

This brings Ki Tavo into direct conversation with Psalm 82, a psalm of Asaph that opens in a mysterious courtroom:

“God stands in the divine assembly; among the judges He renders judgment.”

The judges enter the courtroom believing that they will judge others. Suddenly, they discover that they themselves are standing trial.

“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the poor and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

The connection to Ki Tavo is unmistakable. The Torah pronounces a curse upon those who pervert the justice of the stranger, orphan, and widow. Psalm 82 summons the authorities before the heavenly Court for committing precisely that betrayal.

The judges are not condemned only because they may have personally........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)