Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Academy

“I see… the blessing that you will hear the commandment of the Lord your God that I command you this day. And the curse, if you do not hear the commandment of the Lord your God, and you stray from the path that I command you today, to follow other gods whom you do not know.”

The interpreters ask:

1) Why does he say in the blessing, “that you will hear,” and in the curse he said, “if you do not hear”? Why does he not say “If you hear” also in the blessing?

2) Why does he separate in the curse between the “the commandment of the Lord your God, and you stray from the path that I the Lord command you today,” and in the blessing, immediately following “the Lord your God” comes “that I command you today”?

We should say in the manner of intimation, concerning the verse, “the blessing,” that he interprets the blessing, that you will hear the commandment of the Lord your God, which I command you today. Concerning the curse, he interprets the curse, if you do not hear the commandment of the Lord your God. He interprets what will happen—that you will “stray from the path that I command you today,” and all that you will have is to “follow other gods whom you do not know.”

We should ask the following:

1) Why did he say “that” in regard to the blessing, and “if you hear” in regard to the curse? Why does he not say “if you hear” concerning the blessing, too? It seems to imply that it is a condition: If you hear, you will receive a blessing.

2) Why, with the curse does he separate between “your gods” and says that you will “stray from the path that I command you today”? Also, why does he not say in the blessing, too, “and you will walk on the path that I command you today,” but rather said, “that you will hear… your gods, which I command you today”?

3) What is the meaning of the words “that you will hear”? What if you do not hear? Is this a matter of hearing? Why does He not say, “If you walk or do in My laws”? What does the word, “hearing” mean?

The thing is that at the time of the reception of the Torah, Israel said, “We will do and we will hear.” Hence, all that it talks about here is doing, and the Creator interprets the reward called “hearing.”

Hence, He made the blessing so you would hear, and the curse, when do you know that you have a curse? When you do not hear. Then you will know that your work is inappropriate. This is why they said, “you shall stray,” etc., “to walk,” which is “doing.” But if the doing is fine, there should be hearing.