The Sin Was the Strategy - Ki Tesse

The Sin Was the Strategy

This morning’s Breakfast & Class begins with a troubling question in Parashat Ki

Tetze. Why does the Torah judge Ammon and Moav so harshly? Their crime was not simply that they failed to offer bread and water, nor even that they hired

Bilaam. Rabbi Yissocher Frand, drawing on the Dubno Maggid, the Kli Yakar and

the Tolner Rebbe, points us toward something deeper: they strategized.

They studied our vulnerabilities, created the circumstances in which we might

fall, and deliberately planned a spiritual trap.

But in Elul, that frightening idea can become an extraordinarily hopeful one. If so

much evil can come from planning how someone might fall, imagine the power of sitting down and planning how we might rise. Together with an insight from

Rabbi Yehonasan Gefen, and the remarkable Talmudic story of Rav Amram Ḥasida shouting “Fire!” before temptation could overcome him, we ask a very practical Elul question: Instead of simply promising ourselves that this year will be

different, what can we actually change in the architecture of our lives to make it easier to become the people we want to be?