Posted on 09/12/25
The Baal HaTanya – Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the “Alter Rebbe” – was the regular Torah reader in the city of Liozna. One year, on Shabbos of Parshas Ki Savo, he was out of town and someone else read the Torah in his place. The Alter Rebbe’s son – DovBer, who would later become the “Mitteler Rebbe” – was at shul that week (he was almost bar mitzvah aged) and he began feeling anguish and pain due to the curses that were read in the Tochacha (section of admonition). His heartache was so strong that even a few weeks later, his father doubted that DovBer would be able to fast on Yom Kippur.
When they asked the Mitteler Rebbe, “Don’t you hear this parsha every year?” he replied: “When father reads, one hears no curses.” (Story brought in HaYom Yom, 17 Elul)
The Tochacha in Parshas Ki Savo is a section of the Torah that discusses 98 curses that can befall the Jewish people if they don’t listen to Hashem. People don’t get called up for that aliyah. It is said quickly, and in an undertone.
Yet, when the Alter Rebbe read it, no one heard curses!
This story touches on a deep secret, and I mean that quite literally. Think about a secret and the nature in which it is told over. A secret is a special piece of information that is shared to select people in an undertone. The great Reb Shlomo of Kshanov, a student of the holy Noam Elimelech, explains that just as secrets are recited in an undertone, that is precisely why we read the Tochacha in an undertone. Because it contains deep secrets. Beneath the surface of the curses and intense admonition, there are tremendous blessings. What may seem to be curses are really blessings.
Reb Nachum of Chernobyl once became ill with a serious sickness. He managed to get up from his bed and travel to his Rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov, on the Shabbos in which the Tochacha was read. The Baal Shem Tov arranged for his student to be called up to the Torah to receive the aliyah of the Tochacha, an aliya which people generally avoid. Incredibly, after each verse of the Tochacha was read, Reb Nachum felt that the sickness in his body was being healed. Finally, when Reb Nachum recited the brocha achrona on his aliyah, he was completely healed from his sickness.
This week, when we read the Tochacha, try to see beneath the surface. Try to read it like the Alter Rebbe, seeing blessings instead of curses. Try to read it like Reb Shlomo, hearing the undertone as a special secret. And maybe, just maybe, we too – like Reb Nachum – will become “healed” and experience the great blessings that Hashem has in store.
Good shabbos!