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Ki Tavo –
Struggling with Our Blessings When I was younger I saw a movie with Jonathan Silverman called Brighton Beach Memoirs. In the movie Eugene Morris Jerome, played by Silverman explained about an aunt who every time they mentioned a disease – whispered it. For example… So and so has (in a whisper) cancer. While it was used as a punch-line in the movie, the concept is based on this week’s parsha. In the Parsha, Moshe instructs the Jewish people that after they cross the Jordan River, half of the tribes (six) were to stand on Mt. Gerizim and the other half were to stand on Mt. Eval, where they would shout blessings and curses to each other. In our synagogues today, the Baal Koreh (Torah Reader) whispers the curses, so we do not emphasize them in our lives. In our lives we would rather focus on blessings, yet all too often there are those of us who dwell on the curses. It’s the glass half empty – half full mentality and we use it with our children as well. Many of us see parenting as a struggle (I chose to avoid using the word curse here for obvious reasons). Whether it’s a struggle in motivating our children or in keeping up with their busy schedules and/or homework – we often see it as a burden, when we should see it as a blessing. We must re-focus our attention on the blessing of having children and value the time that we have with them. While we speak of the curses, we use them as a warning, a reminder that we must live our lives and see our children as a blessing.
AS A FAMILY: Go to a park or a playground to enjoy some
play-time.
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