Parashat Ki Tavo - English

Devarim - Deuteronomy 26:1 - 19:8
Rabbi Daniela Szuster
B´nei Brith Congregation
Costa Rica

Stones as obstacles or facilitators of light, birth, life and dreams

      In this week’s parashah, Moses and the elders order the people to erect large stones and write on them all the words of the Torah, at the moment of entering the land of Israel (Deut. 27:1-3).  We can find the special value granted to stones in different sources of the Torah, and in other classical Jewish texts.  It is an object used in multiple ways and with several symbolisms.  Let us see some examples:

    

  The first example comes from the Talmud.  According to a Midrash, after God created the world and at the end of the first Shabbat, the first man grabbed some stones on Saturday night and kindled the fire with them.  The man blessed it, as we bless it on every Havdalah ceremony at the end of the Sabbath.

      Adam was able to light a fire with pebbles, symbolizing the first work and human creativity.  This was the first action performed by man starting from the nature created by God.  From such a simple and unattractive element, fire can emerge, giving us light and warmth.

      We can find the second example in the book of Bereshit:  “And Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon the place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed…” (Genesis 28:10-12).  Jacob took some stones and dreamed.  Stones are hard and nothing similar to our comfortable pillows, but God brought Jacob’s dream through them.

      The third example appears in the book of Shemot:  “and [the king of Egypt] said: 'When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, ye shall look upon the birthstool: if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live'” (Exodus 1:16).

      The Hebrew text does not say “birthstool” but rather Albanim, which is literally translated as stones.  Those stones supported the mothers who were giving birth.  We could say, then, that stones also enable the birth of new life.

      The fourth and last example is from the tablets of the law.  It is written in the Torah:  “And the Lord said unto Moses: 'Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou didst break’” (Exodus 34:1).  The tablets of the law, which God Himself wrote, were done in stone, such a lifeless and unattractive material.  The golden calf was built from the gold belonging to the people; the tablets of the law, on the other hand, were not made out of gold or other precious stone, but with simple and ordinary stone.  Perhaps to show the people that the tablets were valuable for their message, and not for the matter with which they were built.

      It is interesting that an element often described as an obstacle or pitfall, which appears in our path causing us to stumble, and sometimes to fall, can be transformed into creativity and light, as was done by the first man; into dreams, as was done by Jacob; into birth, as was done by midwives and women in labor; and into message of life, as was done by Moses.

      May God grant us that this new year, which will start in a few weeks, we can transform our stones, those stones that stand in our way, into creativity, light, dreams, birth and Torah, as our tradition teaches us.

 Shabbat Shalom!