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This Shabbat with be the 18th of Ellul; celebrating the birthdays of the Baal Shem Tov the founder of Chassidut and, after him, Rebbe Shneur Zalman the author of the Tanya (Baal HaTanya). Very happy and positive days.
On the other hand, the Torah reading this Shabbat contains 98 curses; terrible misfortunes and catastrophes that await Jews who don’t HAPPILY obey the Torah (28:37). Not a very positive message.
Now, according to the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov nothing occurs by accident; everything is a lesson from G-d. So what is the message here when the birthdays of these Tzadikim (holy Jews) coincide with such terrible curses?
Also, these curses; punishments for not serving G-d in Joy, seem to be self-fulfilling. It is very difficult to be happy with such catastrophes hanging over our heads!
And why so many curses?

Here is a story that occurred some 25 years ago to help us understand.

After seventeen years of marriage Rabbi Yossi Mutzkin and his wife Sari had no children.
It didn’t make sense. They were observant Jews, helped others, gave charity, did everything they could to be good people, were active in the Montreal community where they lived. But the thing they really wanted and prayed for constantly; the most precious gift of all, a child, was lacking.
G-d is almighty, for Him to send a child is certainly no problem. The world is filled with billions of them! But not for the Mutzkins.
But they kept hoping and praying and not only for themselves. Sari Mutzkin prayed for others as well. She taught in a Jewish girls’ school and every day she led her class to say psalms for a long list of needy people that needed blessings and prayers.
One day after the Psalms session, one of her pupils, a girl from a non-observant family, requested with tears in her eyes that the class add a prayer for her grandmother who had undergone a serious operation several months ago, never regained consciousness and was now in intensive care with the doctors saying it was hopeless.
The class prayed and Mrs. Mutzkin even suggested she would call the girl’s mother to see if there was anything she could do for her grandmother.
That very evening she kept her promise. The girl’s mother was very grateful and said.
“My daughter told me that you taught her how we are now entering the Jewish month of Iyar (the month after Passover) whose initials stand for ‘I am G-d your doctor’, right? And that now is a good time for healing.
“You don’t know how depressed we were till we heard those words….. Do you really think that this month my mother will be better?”
Mrs. Mutzkin held back her own tears and answered “With G-d’s help anything can happen”.
That evening at home she had an idea; to give her a ‘Rebbe dollar. For several years every Sunday morning the Lubavitcher Rebbe had handed out one-dollar bills to tens of thousands of Jews (to encourage people to give charity) and she had a lot of these dollars. She would give one to the girl for her grandmother!!
She searched through her collection of dollars until she found one that she had received in the month of Iyar (21st of Iyar to be exact) over fifteen years ago. The next day in school she gave the girl the dollar together with a picture of the Rebbe and added.
“Give this money to your mother and tell her to put it under your grandmother’s pillow and whisper in her ear ‘it’s a gift from the Lubavitcher Rebbe’.” Then she added without knowing why, “I’m sure that by the 21st of Iyar she will be well.”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she regretted it. Where did she get the brazenness to make such a prophesy?! How could she have promised such a thing? She was ashamed of herself.
But the girl’s mother took it seriously. That evening she visited her unconscious mother, did what Mrs. Mutzkin said, put the dollar under her pillow, whispered in her ear, gave her a kiss on the forehead and went home.
The next afternoon when the relatives were again in the hospital standing around her bed, the grandmother opened her eyes for the first time since the operation, lifted her head a bit, looked around at the amazed faces and asked,
“Where is the money?”.

Everyone there almost fainted. The doctors were called in and they couldn’t explain it.
As if that wasn’t enough, she recovered and miraculously got released from the hospital two weeks later – on the 21st of Iyar!!
The girl’s mother decided to take her Judaism more seriously…. or rather more joyously.

But that isn’t the end of the story.

Mrs. Mutzkin wrote a letter of thanks to the Rebbe (Tzadikim never really die) for the amazing miracle of his dollar, inserted randomly in one of the 26 volumes of ‘Egrot Kodesh’ (volumes of ‘Holy Letters’ the Rebbe wrote in reply to questions) and then opened to see what was written.
The answer (vol.18 pg 377 written in Iyar) said,
“Trust only in G-d, He is the miraculous healer of all flesh. May your medical treatment be a success with good news and joy.”
At first Sari didn’t understand what connection it had to her letter of thanks for what already happened, but suddenly it dawned on her. The Rebbe was writing to her about her own problem! He was advising her to trust in G-d and continue taking treatments for fertility.
This was not exactly what she wanted to hear.
After years of expensive, time-consuming, heartbreaking disappointments she and her husband had decided years ago – no more! All the various methods failed and all the doctors said there was no hope.
But against all odds they decided that maybe now, with the Rebbe’s answer it would be different.
They found a good doctor, one of the best, who looked at Sari’s records and tests, admitted there was little chance for success but agreed to give it a try with a new method.
They were optimistic.
But after a few treatments, the doctor invited them into his office, closed the door, sat them down and told them that his personal advice was that they should save their time, money and nerves and just adopt a child. It was hopeless.
Sari went home and wrote again to the Rebbe.
This time the answer came out in book 10 page 88.
“Thank you for the news of the birth of your son and his brit mila (circumcision). Remember the importance of ignoring pessimism and always being in joy. Especially after seeing such great miracles.”
The next morning, full of certainty, they returned to the doctor and joyously announced that despite his advice Sari wanted to continue; the answer of the Rebbe gave them new hope. Now they were sure of a miracle.
But there was none.
In fact, after a few more treatments the doctor again invited them to his office, pulled out the results and sadly announced that, as he had suspected, there was no progress. He tried a few words of consolation and bade them good luck.
But they did not lose spirit. The Rebbe’s words stood before their eyes; “joy even in the face of pessimism.”
Late that night their phone rang ominously; it was the doctor. “Excuse the hour but I have something more to say. Today when we spoke, there was one last test result that hadn’t yet returned from the laboratory and I was certain that it would be like all the others but….
“I was wrong! Mrs. Mutzkin you have received a gift from G-d!”
Nine months later she gave birth to a boy and at the Brit they named him Menachem Mendel after the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

This answers our questions about the curses. The purpose of Judaism and of the Jews is to transform curses to blessings, misery to joy and ignorance to certainty.
This will be accomplished in a big and total way by Moshiach who fill the world with the knowledge of G-d’s oneness and miraculously transform all suffering (until even the dead will rise!).
But until then, because each Jew is, ‘part’ of the Creator: the source of all blessings, above the tribulations of creation; time, place, sickness, even death. Each Jew, especially the Tzadikim, has power to improve at least their immediate surroundings.
Like the Rebbe’s dollar and letter in our story transformed bad to good.
That is why 98 curses coincide with the birth of these Tzadikim.
Because Tzadikim awaken the power in every Jew to TRANSFORM these curses to blessings.
The Chassidic teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, especially as they are in Chabad, are called ‘Torat HaMoshiach, and are designed to bring out this potential in each Jew to be a Tzadik.
“Even a little light can transform much darkness.”
Today we are standing on the shoulders of thousands of years of Jewish suffering, prayers and self-sacrifice. Now it could be that just one more good deed, word or even thought can bring the Geula …… Wishing all our readers a Ktiva V’Chatima Tova! A Happy healthy successful sweet NEW year with …..
Moshiach NOW!!

Rabbi Tuvia Bolton
Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim
Kfar Chabad, Israel

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