Rav Chuna Halpern of Golders Green, London, told a well-known story about the Mittler Rebbe of Chabad, Rav Dov Ber.
One Shabbos Parshas Ki Savo, Rav Dov Ber’s father, Rav Shneur Zalman, the Ba’al HaTanya and Alter Rebbe of Chabad, was away. It was the custom that the Ba’al HaTanya himself was the Ba’al Koreh and he would lien the weekly parsha each Shabbos. Since this Shabbos he was away, however, a different Chassid read from the Torah. When they reached the portion in this week’s parsha called the tochecha (the rebuke), which contains harsh words, descriptions of tragedies and curses, Rav Dov Ber burst into tears and cried uncharacteristically. After the leining some puzzled Chassidim approached him and asked in bewilderment, “Why is it that you cried so much this year over the tochecha? You have never done so before.”
Rav Dov Ber answered them, “Every year my holy father [the Ba’al HaTanya] leins Parshas Ha’Tochecha and all I hear are berachos – so why should I cry? This year, for the first time, all I heard was the tochecha itself; how could I not cry?”
This story illustrates the Tzaddik’s approach to our parsha. The seforim teach us that the tochecha contains amazing berachos, shefa, and miracles – all in disguise. The Torah’s harsh words of rebuke, Hashem’s vengeance, the tragedies and curses, are all really berachos that the Tzaddikim were able to hear. Here are some of those special berachos they shared with us:
The pasuk tells us: “Your carcass shall be food for every bird of the heavens and beast of the earth, and none shall fear” (28:26). In Hebrew the word for “carcass” is neveila. Rav Meir of Premishlan said that neveila is related to the Hebrew words for the conceptually intertwined musical instruments violin and harp, nevel and kinor, hinting at the kol shofar, the sound of the shofar blasts that will consume the birds of the heavens. These birds, said Rav Meir, refer to the angels of prosecution and judgment. The shofar will rescind their decrees against us, in heaven and on earth; then none shall fear – we shall not fear them and they shall have no rule over us!
It is told (in the sefer Mevaser Tov) that when the holy Kozhnitzer Maggid heard the pasuk “Your carcass shall be food for every bird of the heavens and beast of the earth, and none shall fear” (28:26), he cried out loud and sighed longingly, “Ribbono Shel Olam – Master of the World! When – when will this pasuk finally be fulfilled?” Later during the tisch the Maggid explained why he so wished that this pasuk would be actualized:
Our tefillos must be recited with proper kavona – with love, awe and fear of Hashem. Then they are called kosher tefillos. A tefilla that lacks proper devotion is the opposite of kosher; it is a neveila – like a carcass. Hashem, however, is merciful, much more than we. He awakens us from On High with such a hisorerus that we daven properly. This proper devotional tefilla then gathers all the other improper tefillos previously left disgraced in some forgotten corner and brings them up together to the Heavenly Abode. These tefillos– together – crown Hashem.
This is what our pasuk means, “your carcass – nivlos’cha – your dead tefillos that lacked devotion, shall be as food for the birds of shomayim – they shall fly like birds, soaring up to the Heavens, because your proper tefilla will uplift them all together to where they belong. However, the pasuk warns us that if Ein Macharid – if none shall fear Hashem– then the tefillos will instead be given as fodder for the “beasts of the field”, alluding to the negative forces of the klippos.
