Kommentar zu Dewarim 28:47

מרב כל means: while you possessed all good things.

תחת אשר לא עבדת…בשמחה, "Because you did not serve…out of joy, etc." This punishment and what follows until verse 58 אם לא תשמר לעשות is for non-performance of the positive commandments of the Torah. The Torah repeats the same words in verse 58 to make certain that we appreciate which set of curses is in response to which set of sins. The reason the Torah speaks of our failure to perform the commandments out of joy is to contrast joyful מצה-performance with the absolute opposite, i.e. exile experienced amid the most depressing conditions. The Torah paints a picture of the punishment fitting the crime. The Jewish people who shook off the yoke of G'd's commandments will instead have to bear the far heavier burden of their captors' yoke around their necks.

תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה' אלוקיך בשמחה, “because you did not serve the Lord your G’d joyfully.” The Torah accuses people who do serve G’d not to have done so joyfully. A person is obligated not merely to carry out G’d’s instructions but to do so gladly, in a happy frame of mind. Joy when performing any of G’d’s commandments is considered as fulfillment of a commandment by itself, meriting additional reward. This is why one may be punished for failing to perform the commandments with a joyful heart. This is why the Torah requires that its commandments be performed with full intent and joyfully. Our sages in Midrash Ruth Rabbah 5,6 comment concerning this that if Reuven had been aware that G’d would write in the Torah concerning his attempts to save Joseph’s life from the hands of his other brothers (Genesis 37,21) that he would receive a reward not only for his deed but for the good intentions accompanying same, he would have carried Joseph on his shoulders and brought him back to his (their) father. The Torah also makes a point of underlining the joy in Aaron’s heart when he saw his brother Moses again after so many years. Had he known that his feelings would be commented upon favorably (Exodus 4,14), he would have gone out to meet his brother accompanied by an orchestra of many different musical instruments. Had Boaz known that his offering Ruth food and drink in abundance would be recorded for eternity as a good deed of his, he would have fed her the choicest parts of a fatted calf, instead of merely bread and vinegar (Ruth 2,14).

While you had every benefit. Rashi makes the מ"ם of מרוב as if it were a בי"ת, like the מ"ם in “מסיני בא (Adonoy came at Sinai) (below 55:2).” As if the verse said ברוב כל, meaning, “while still in abundant affluence,” i.e., while you still had every benefit.

VV. 47 u. 48. אשר ישלחנו ד׳ בך ,תחת וגו׳, den Gott wider dich schickt, oder vielmehr, wie שלח im Piel gewöhnlich, den Gott wider dich kommen lässt, ihn nicht an deiner Unterjochung hindert. So war der Untergang Israels durch die assyrisch-babylonische Macht ein ganz natürlicher Erfolg dieser welterobernden Gewalt Israels unkriegerischer Ohnmacht gegenüber, die der Übermacht verfallen war, sobald Gott seinen Schutz zurückzog, הסר משוכתו והיה לבער (Jesaias 5, 5).

אם לא תשמור לעשות, "if you will not be careful to carry out, etc." This verse reminds us that we will be punished for non-performance of positive commandments. The Torah includes all the positive commandments as designed to demonstrate our fear/reverence of the Lord. Fearing the Lord is itself one of the positive commandments as stated by Maimonides at the beginning of his Sefer Hamada, Hilchot Yesodey Ha-Torah chapter 2. We have already explained in connection with 27,26 why the Torah did not write the conditional "if you will not perform the commandments, etc." The reason is that many people will simply never be able to perform some of the positive commandments.

It is also possible that this verse intends to parallel what the Torah wrote in a parallel paragraph in Leviticus 26,23 "and if in spite of all these penalties you still refuse to be disciplined." Similarly, our verse may be an introduction to a renewed set of curses in the event the experience of what G'd brought upon the Jewish people still did not have the effect of making penitents out of them. The words תשמור לעשות may then refer to the violation of negative commandments plus the non-performance of the positive commandments. G'd warns that after all the curses He has already brought upon the recalcitrant Jewish people He has still more curses at His disposal to make them realise their mistakes. מכות גדולות ונאמנות וחלים רעים ונאמנים. "great and lasting blows, malignant and chronic illnesses." The Torah uses the expression נאמנים, normally translated as "faithful," to tell us that though there are well-known medications which usually cure these diseases, in this instance the illnesses will remain "faithful," i.e. they will not respond to treatment.

ונשארתם במתי מעט, "and you will remain few in numbers, etc." This is due to your "not listening to the voice of the Lord your G'd." The latter comment by the Torah refers to the Israelites failing to correct their neglect of Torah study. והיה כאשר שש ה׳ עליכם להיטיב אתכם, "And it will be just as the Lord enjoyed to grant you benefits, etc." The Torah reminds us that a person should not say that G'd's virtues include that He is so merciful and compassionate that it is imposssible to imagine that He would allow the misfortunes of the Jewish people to continue after the curses which the Torah has spelled out thus far have already been visited upon His people. This is why the Torah has to tell us that there are circumstamces when G'd has to feel joy in disciplining His people. According to this concept nature does not recoil from these kinds of joy. We have a statement in Proverbs 11,10 that "there is joy when the wicked perish." Our sages in Sanhedrin 39 interpret the verse (Kings I 22,36) ויעבר הרנה, "that a note of jubilation was heard throughout the country when people heard that Achav had fallen in battle." According to the Talmud that joy was heard in the celestial regions. Yonathan ben Uzziel translates the verse in question as "G'd will bring joy to the people because a king who had been rebellious against G'd perished." Nonetheless, the plain meaning of the verse is not uprooted by this translation and has been properly translated by Onkelos as: "a shout or proclamation went through the camp when the sun set: 'every man to his town, every man to his village.'"

We need to understand why the Torah does not include verses of comfort in the list of curses which are recorded here as it did in Leviticus chapter 26,42-44. Besides, why did Moses altogether repeat the curses already recorded by G'd in Leviticus?

I believe the reason Moses repeated the curses here is because in Leviticus they were all addressed to the people as a whole, not to each Israelite individually. Someone might have argued that if part of the nation would live their lives as Torah-observant people G'd would not be so particular about the part who did not. This is why Moses saw fit to write the curses in this chapter all in the singular so that every Israelite would understand that he personally was being addressed by the Torah. In order not to be misunderstood Moses uses a plural on occasion, such as when he speaks about "your skies turning to copper," seeing the individual Israelite does not each have his own sky. At the same time, Moses speaks about the sky being above the head of the individual Israelite, i.e. ראשך. On another occasion Moses says ישא ה׳ עליך גוי מרחוק, "G'd will bring up against you (pl) a nation from afar." Clearly, G'd would not command an entire nation to march against Israel because of an individual sinner; rather Moses speaks here about the possibility that part of the Israelites are disloyal to G'd. At any rate, in the main Moses uses the singular for the reasons that we have mentioned.

Now we can also understand why Moses did not see fit to include verses of comfort as did G'd in chapter 26 in Leviticus. G'd had to reassure the multitude that they would not be subject to total extinction; this is why we have verse 42-46 in Leviticus 26 affirming this. In our chapter, where the individual is addressed, such words of comfort would be counterproductive. If these individuals insist on their wayward behaviour G'd will most certainly destroy them. We have clear evidence of this in the legislation dealing with the עיר הנדחת, the city whose inhabitants became idolators (Deut. 13,14-19). There G'd had commanded to wipe out an entire Jewish city, lock stock and barrel. There certainly was no need either to tell us that a sinner will be brought to court and executed. In Parshat Nitzavim (29,19) the Torah deals with individuals or even a whole tribe becoming wicked and the fact that G'd will single them out for destruction at His hands. There too, the Torah does not bother to write lines of comfort and reassurance.

Do not raise the question that there are two or three instances in our chapter where the Torah addresses the multitude rather than the individual, such as the statement "you (pl) will remain few in numbers, or the words להאביד אתכם, "to destroy you" (pl). In each of those instances the Torah had already addressed the message of the paragraph to the individual Israelites first. Everybody understands that the individuals to whom the Torah speaks are part of a great multitude, i.e. of the same people.

You may counter: "why did the Torah not address the curses in Leviticus in the singular and then there would have been no need to repeat all these curses a second time in our chapter?" I would then have concluded that all these terrible punishments would be meted out only to individuals and not to the people as a body. Or, I would have reasoned that even though the Torah describes these sins as very major, the people as a whole would learn from what happened to sinful individuals and would mend their ways. By mentioning verses of comfort and referring to the continued validity of the covenant between G'd and the Patriarchs, the Torah made it plain that not only individuals but the whole people may become the target of these curses.

To sum up, we have found that G'd punishes us separately for neglect of Torah study, for violating the negative commandments as well as for failure to carry out the positive commandments. Although we have a statement in Menachot 41 that G'd does not mete out punishments for failure to carry out positive commandments unless He happens to be very angry at the time on account of some other sin, there are two positive commandments for which the Torah legislated the karet penalty as a matter of routine. Failure to be circumcised or to be included in the eating of the passover lamb are punishable by extinction from one's people. Furthermore, if a person deliberately decides not to carry out positive commandments written in the Torah, G'd will curse him and he is subject to all the disasters listed in our chapter.