27 Aug RE’EH: THE BLESSING OF FAILURE

Parashat Re’eh begins
with Moshe Rabbenu
telling the people, “See
that I give you this day a
blessing and a curse.” He
then explains that if we
follow the mitzvot, we earn
blessing, and if we don’t, then we receive
the opposite, G-d forbid
The Kedushat Levi raises the question
of why Moshe first says he is presenting
bracha v’klalah, a blessing and a curse,
and then goes back to explain the bracha
and the k’lalah. Seemingly, it would have
made more sense for him to say, “I am
presenting to you a bracha, if you follow
the mitzvot, and a k’lalah if you do
not.” Why was it important for Moshe to
first mention the words bracha and
k’lalah together?
The Gemara (Berachot 40a) says that
human beings have the quality of “an
empty vessel contains, a full vessel
cannot contain.” Meaning, if a utensil is
full, it cannot contain anymore, but if it is
empty, more can be added to it. The Noam
Elimelech explains what this means that

how this applies to people. We can be
“filled,” we can grow, only if we
recognize that we are “empty,” that we
are incomplete, that we have a lot more to
learn and we have much to improve. If a
person feels he is full, that he is already
complete, that he is already the person he
is supposed to be, then he cannot be
“filled” anymore, he will never grow. We
can grow and change only when we
recognize that we need to grow and
change.
So many have us have bad habits that
we know we should change, but we
don’t. People have bad eating habits, bad
sleeping habits, and so on. We tell
ourselves that we need to change, but we
don’t, because we’ve managed ok until
now. A person knows he goes to sleep too
late, but then he stays up late again
because he got through that day, and the
day before, and the day before, despite
going to sleep late, so he’ll get through
tomorrow, too.
Sadly, this is why people fall into
addictions. They know they need to stop,
but they see that they’ve managed

somehow despite the
addiction, so they
continue. When does
an addict realize he
needs help, that he
can’t continue? When
he hits rock
bottom. When his
wife threatens to leave
him, when he loses his
job, when his life is
about to unravel.
Failure can be the
greatest blessing,
because it is a powerful motivator to
change. When a person fails, he becomes
an empty vessel, which can be
filled. Failure facilitates growth like
nothing else. So often, it is specifically
when a person fails miserably that he
begins the road that leads to greatness
and success.
This is why Moshe Rabbenu told the
people that he is presenting with them
“with a blessing and a curse,”
together. Because very often, they are
one and the same – the curse turns out to

be a blessing. When we experience a
k’lalah, when we fail terribly, we
recognize our “emptiness,” and this
recognition allows the growth process to
begin, bringing us the bracha.
Let us all have the strength, the courage,
the honesty and the humility to
acknowledge our “emptiness,” to realize
that we need to change, and to then make
those changes. Let us not wait until we
hit rock bottom. If there’s any area in our
lives that we know requires fixing – let’s
pick ourselves and get to work fixing it,
so that our lives will be filled with bracha
in every way.