Parshas Ki Savoh

All over the world Yidden on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur shed thousands of tears when we say the tefilah of “Unisaneh tokef”. If we think about it it seems as if we don’t understand what is the important part of the davening. All that tefilah is just a mussar shmooze, just telling us what happens on these exalted days. It’s not at that moment that we are being judged and it’s not the highlight of the tefilos. If anything we should be crying when we crown Hashem by saying Malchios, zichronos and shofros or when we blow the shofar. What is it about this small tefilah before Kedusha that became the highlight of our Mussaf?
Ezra implemented the reading of Parshas Ki Savoh- the Parsha that contains 98 curses, before Rosh Hashanah because “Tichlah shanah v’kililosehuh” the year and it’s curses shall come to an end. What does that mean just because we read the Parsha how does that translate into a year of blessing?
The Rma”z (one of the big chachmai kabola) writes that if one reads the curses with yiras shamaim it’s as if he lived through them. The Beer Moshe (Ozlevah Rebbah) explains, that the point of bad things befalling Klal Yisroel is that we should come to fear Hashem. To come to the realization that everything we get or don’t get, the good and the bad all come from our father in heaven. We say on Yom Kipper “Ki atah tzadik al kol haboh aleinu” For you are righteous on all that befalls us. We can translate this to mean that we put our full faith in Hashem that anything that will happen to us is coming from Hashem and is just. Standing less then two weeks away from the day of judgment, we read about curses and what can happen to us if we don’t listen to Hashem. What we have to believe is that the only thing that keeps us removed from all those terrible things stated in the Parsha, is Hashem’s loving kindness. That on our own standing we don’t deserve anything that we have or the good we ask Hashem to send us in the new year. “Whatever Hashem sends our way is righteous”. Ezra told us a deep secret, if we read the curses before Rosh Hashanah and picture ourselves going through all of it and then believing that Hashem is the one that’s saving us from every curse and in his infinite kindness gives us all the good, then there is no need to live through it.
This special gift of being able to come to Yiras Hashem just through visualizing the potential calamities was put into our Rosh Hashana mussaf by Reb. Amnon. When we say the beautiful yet frightening words of Unesanah Tokef the point is to experience the words “who will live and who will die,…who with water and who with fire….” To realize that on the day of judgment we stand there in front of Hashem deserving nothing and that anything we get is overflowing with his kindness.

Based on a shmooze given by, Reb Elyah Brudny Shlit"a.