I thought this sugya about what is a blessing and what is a curse was interesting. The sugya begins with an assertion by Rav Yehudah that both cities mentioned in the proof-text in the Mishnah (from Amos 4:7) were actually under divine displeasure, although one might have thought that the city receiving the rain in that verse was actually been granted divine favor.
Almost as if to prove that Rav Yehudah is not simply an incurable pessimist, the Gemarrah goes on to site several places in which Rav Yehudah, either in his own voice or in the name of others, sees the blessing in what seems to be a curse. I love how "unclean," "widow," and "disgusting and humbled" become positive things. (Though that last one was surely a stretch.) Then, the section closes with a little bit of inclusio: Rav Yehudah (albeit quoting other authorities) finding a curse in the blessing of Bilam and a blessing in the curse of Achiya.
The message of the Rav Yehudah sugya could be: sometimes things are not what they appear as we attempt to discern divine favor or divine punishment. What looks like a blessing could be a curse, or a curse a blessing. Just as Rav Yehudah can see the one in the other and the other in the one, we should find a way to see more clearly the subtleties of the divine blessings/curses in our world.
Or perhaps a darker reading: God's blessings and God's curses are, in fact, not so easily distinguishable. Think about how God's chosen people have so often been chosen for curses.
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2 comments:
Right on. But I also think that this section teaches a lesson of perspective. Depending on where we stand in relation to an event impacts how we interpret. Rav Yehuda's sunny outlook is achieved by contextualizing the curses or blessings. Perhaps the message is that our perception of an event determines its meaning.
Right, but would that meaning be "incorrect" given our context, or are all events ultimately relative? Is every curese a blessing for someone or something else, or does every curse or blessing also contain its opposite for the people affected?
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