Комментарий к Дварим 28:21

ידבק השם בך את הדבר, "G'd will make the pestilence adhere to you, etc." The penalties introduced with this verse through verse 44 ending with the words: "you will be the tail," refer to your failure to observe the negative commandments. This is the reason verse 45 concludes appropriately with: "because you have failed to hearken to the voice of your G'd to observe His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you." Any intelligent student will realise that all these terrible curses are the result of the commission of sins. The reason the Torah uses the simile "G'd will make the pestilence adhere to you," is because we know that if one commits only a single transgression the spiritually negative force one has created thereby attaches itself to the personality of the guilty person and eventually becomes part of his soul. This is the mystical dimension of mental illness. This evil part of man is called דבר, pestilence, as we have learned in Chabakuk 3,5: "pestilence walks ahead of Him." Satan, here called "pestilence," is described as preceding G'd. All the forces of evil are branches of Samael i.e. Satan, and are called by his name. All the various diseases and afflictions mentioned in our chapter are variations of the theme. When Rabbi Ami in Shabbat 55 claims that there is no death which is not due to sin and that there are no afflictions which are not the result of sin, he meant that sin "gives birth" to a variety of bodily afflictions. Jeremiah 2,12 speaks of the bodily afflictions being the result of Israel's wickedness.

ידבר ה' בך את הדבר עד כלותו אותך, “the Lord will make the pestilence adhere to you until it consumes you.” The word כלותו refers to the word הדבר, i.e. the pestilence, [the pestilence in its most violent form, Ed.] The word כלתו, usually understood to mean “it will totally consume,” is written defective, without the latter ו, to hint that the result will not be as terrible as we might think at first glance.

V. 21. ידבק ד׳ וגו׳. Es ist nicht unmöglich, dass die innere Unruhe und Vorwurfsqual die Wirkung selbst einer Pest erst zu verheerender Größe steigern, während Gemütsruhe und Gottvertrauen von innen heraus der Krankheit Widerstand zu leisten fähig sind.