By Rabbi Elyssa Joy Austerklein
Parashat Ki Tavo
A beautiful Jewish legend teaches that the first set of Tablets which Moses brought down from Mount Sinai and smashed into pieces were placed alongside the second set of Tablets in the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites carried in their travels.
We can learn from this teaching that just as the whole set is regarded as holy, the broken pieces are still cherished. In fact, the meaning and beauty of the whole pieces might be dependent on a relationship with the broken ones. For it is in our brokenness and vulnerability that we can seek a more profound wholeness.
If we turn this story around and think about each individual as having whole and broken pieces, then we come to see that God accepts and elevates all parts of us. And this, too, is very much what deep relationships are about, taking the entire person — the whole pieces together with the broken pieces — and elevating and caring for them.
As we read this week’s parasha, we are also in the month of Elul and in preparation for the fast-approaching High Holy Days. We search our souls — we reflect on the broken pieces of ourselves and how some of them may be repaired into wholeness.
This is why Elul is considered a month of love. It is with generosity, forgiveness and compassion that we come to learn and explore all the many parts of ourselves and handle them with compassion and loving-kindness. It is God’s job to venture into the side of judgment, which God also does through the lens of compassion.
Parashat Ki Tavo is concerned with what we are supposed to do when we enter the Land of Israel. Like Elul, it is also a time of preparation. The essential piece, as Moses tells the people, is that after everything we receive and everything we are, we must turn to gratitude.
Unfortunately, it is human nature that when we sit comfortably with everything we desire, we forget the Source of it all. But we can’t afford to do that.
The danger of forgetting or turning away from God in our parasha is a long list of curses (the Tochecha). Traditionally, the Torah reader in synagogue will rush through these verses in a hushed voice. We certainly don’t want to invite the evil eye, nor the turmoil of these terrible curses. On the other hand, we can’t ignore the fact that there are consequences for our actions.
If you are asking for forgiveness on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur and you haven’t spent the time over this month of Elul evaluating what needs to change and improve, how you can be better and what you can commit to in the year ahead, then you have missed out. No one changes overnight. Like the Israelites preparing to enter the Land, you are about to enter a new year. Do not wait to seek out the Holy One, dive deeper into yourself and be present with the ones you love. As it says: dirshu hashem b’himatz’o, k’ra’uhu bihyoto karov — “Seek the LORD while He can be found, call to Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).
For the Holy Ark has space for both the broken pieces and the whole ones, and there is a community of people who will help carry the load.
Rabbi Elyssa Austerklein is an artist, yogi, musician and founding director of Ivrim Jews Without Borders. She is a member of the Rabbinic Association of Greater Dallas.