The Rebbe shares a beautiful story in Hayom Yom about Rabbi DovBer, the second Chabad Rebbe, also known as the Mitteler Rebbe. One year, his father, Rabbi Shneur Zalman, founder of Chabad, known as the Alter Rebbe, who was the designated Torah reader in his synagogue in Lyozna, was out of town during the reading of the portion of Ki Tavo, so a substitute reader took his place.
Rabbi DovBer, still a young boy of 10 or 11 at the time, heard the section of the curses and became ill. In fact, he was so sick that a few weeks later, when Yom Kippur came around, he didn’t have the strength to fast as he normally would. The chassidim asked the young DovBer, “You hear this portion every year and are fine. Why did you suddenly become sick from hearing it?” Rabbi DovBer explained:
“When my father reads, there are no curses. I hear only blessings!” These verses, which appear as curses on the surface, have a deeper meaning; on that level, they are blessings. When the Alter Rebbe read them, his son would hear those blessings. From our human perspective, they appear to be curses, but from G‑d’s perspective, which we cannot see, even curses can be blessings.
On its surface, however, the Rebuke predicts difficult times and events that will befall the Jewish people, which, unfortunately, we have seen fulfilled many times. In recent times, we witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust and the atrocities of Islamic terrorism, may G‑d avenge all of the innocent Jewish blood that has been spilled throughout the ages.
