Ra'anana Community Kollel - Parshat Ki Tavo

                                 Once Upon an Elul

                                                Rabbi Binyomin Lipson

During the month of Elul it was the custom of R’ Yisrael Salanter to travel from town to town delivering his classic ethical discourses. One Shabbos morning R’ Yisrael found himself in a small shul of one of the nearby villages. The parsha was Ki Tavo, which contains a detailed account of the terrible rebuke or tochachah which the Jewish people can suffer if they do not diligently adhere to the Torah’s commands. This message is especially relevant less than two weeks before Rosh Hashanah as a call to repentance and self-contemplation.

Due to the fact that a member of the congregation may take offense at being called up for an aliyah which such a frightening message, the general custom is to give it to the gabbai, shammas, or the ba’al korei himself. In a rare digression from the halachic content usually found in the Biur Halachah the Chofetz Chaim (O.C. 428:6) strongly condemns those communities in which the section of the rebuke is not read properly according the laws of kriat HaTorah with the hope that this will shield them from its possible fulfillment. He explains that such a custom is similar to a man whose friends warn him that there are deep pits on the path on which he intends to travel and he arrogantly responds, “Why should I be afraid? I have a thick covering over my eyes that prevents me from seeing any danger which lies in my way. If by chance I do fall in, no one will blame me as they know that I cannot see where I am going!”

“Is there anything more foolish than this?”, continues the Chofetz Chaim. “On the contrary, the tighter one’s eyes are shut, the more likely it is that he will stumble on his path in life. If a person omits the section of the rebuke from the Shabbat Torah reading is he then protected from it happening to him?”

As the alyiot were being handed out and the section of the rebuke was drawing near, R’ Yisrael saw that the gabbai was motioning to a lowly beggar who was present in the shul indicating that he was planning to call him up for the tochachah. As soon as the alyiah which proceeds the tochachah was completed and before anyone knew what had happened, R’ Yisrael went up to the Torah and recited the blessing for the tochachah himself.

The ba’al korei, who was wary of reading the section of such harsh rebuke for R’ Yisrael himself, would not continue. Realizing that he was not going to get any help from the ba’al korei, R’ Yisrael proceeded to read the entire parshah himself! Afterwards, he chastised the gabbai saying, “If you are afraid to have the tochachah read in your immediate presence, how much more so should you shudder at the thought of embarrassing a destitute man by calling him up for that particular alyiah which has far more severe consequences by far!