The Torah reading this week, Ki Tavo/“When you enter,” continues to lay out laws to be fulfilled when the Israelites enter the land toward which they have headed for forty years. It is hard to imagine a journey of this length, with its births and deaths, the multiple milestones in every life. And maybe just as hard to imagine living in an extended familial community that, despite disagreements, functions and moves from place to place together.
When they enter the land, they are to perform a dramatic ritual, enumerating the curses and blessings that are promised depending on the fulfillment of the mitzvot or the failure to fulfill them. There are several sections of laws, curses and blessings, some that apply to individuals based on particular actions, and others that are clearly addressed to the community and are based on an overall communal adherence (or lack therof) to the full covenant of laws.
So too, in a short time from now, Jewish communities will gather to consider our relationships to our individual and shared commitments. We will celebrate and also reflect on mistakes and challenges. We will support each other and ask for support. We will catch up with people we have missed and connect with people we have not yet met. And as we look both behind and ahead, may we also look around to see who we are traveling with, what they might need and how they might enlighten us, that we might enter the next stage of our individual and communal lives more connected and thus more ready to enact the sacred commitments we share.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Julie
Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8) Torah Reading for Shabbat, September 13, 2025: Covenant of Community
September 9, 2025 by Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller • Uncategorized
The Torah reading this week, Ki Tavo/“When you enter,” continues to lay out laws to be fulfilled when the Israelites enter the land toward which they have headed for forty years. It is hard to imagine a journey of this length, with its births and deaths, the multiple milestones in every life. And maybe just as hard to imagine living in an extended familial community that, despite disagreements, functions and moves from place to place together.
When they enter the land, they are to perform a dramatic ritual, enumerating the curses and blessings that are promised depending on the fulfillment of the mitzvot or the failure to fulfill them. There are several sections of laws, curses and blessings, some that apply to individuals based on particular actions, and others that are clearly addressed to the community and are based on an overall communal adherence (or lack therof) to the full covenant of laws.
So too, in a short time from now, Jewish communities will gather to consider our relationships to our individual and shared commitments. We will celebrate and also reflect on mistakes and challenges. We will support each other and ask for support. We will catch up with people we have missed and connect with people we have not yet met. And as we look both behind and ahead, may we also look around to see who we are traveling with, what they might need and how they might enlighten us, that we might enter the next stage of our individual and communal lives more connected and thus more ready to enact the sacred commitments we share.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Julie