Parashat Re’eh begins with Moshe Rabbenu telling the people, ראה אנוכי נותן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה – “See that I give you this day a blessing and a curse.” He then explains that if we follow the mitzvot, we earn blessing, and if we don’t, then we receive the opposite, G-d forbid.
The Kedushat Levi raises the question of why Moshe first says he is presenting ברכה וקללה, a blessing and a curse, and then goes back to explain the ברכה and the קללה. Seemingly, it would have made more sense for him to say, “I am presenting to you a ברכה, if you follow the mitzvot, and a קללה if you do not.” Why was it important for Moshe to first mention the words ברכה and קללה together?
The Gemara (Berachot 40a) says that human beings have the quality of כלי ריקן מחזיק מלא אינו מחזיק – “an empty vessel contains, a full vessel cannot contain.” Meaning, if a utensil is full, it cannot contain anymore, but if it is empty, more can be added to it. The Noam Elimelech explains what this means that how this applies to people. We can be “filled,” we can grow, only if we recognize that we are “empty,” that we are incomplete, that we have a lot more to learn and we have much to improve. If a person feels he is מלא, that he is already complete, that he is already the person he is supposed to be, then אינו מחזיק – he cannot be “filled” anymore, he will never grow. We can grow and change only when we recognize that we need to grow and change.
So many have us have bad habits that we know we should change, but we don’t. People have bad eating habits, bad sleeping habits, and so on. We tell ourselves that we need to change, but we don’t, because we’ve managed ok until now. A person knows he goes to sleep too late, but then he stays up late again because he got through that day, and the day before, and the day before, despite going to sleep late, so he’ll get through tomorrow, too.
Sadly, this is why people fall into addictions. They know they need to stop, but they see that they’ve managed somehow despite the addiction, so they continue. When does an addict realize he needs help, that he can’t continue? When he hits rock bottom. When his wife threatens to leave him, when he loses his job, when his life is about to unravel.
Failure can be the greatest blessing, because it is a powerful motivator to change. When a person fails, he becomes a כלי ריקן, an empty vessel, which can be filled. Failure facilitates growth like nothing else. So often, it is specifically when a person fails miserably that he begins the road that leads to greatness and success.
This is why Moshe Rabbenu told the people, אנוכי נותן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה – that he is presenting with them “with a blessing and a curse,” together. Because very often, they are one and the same – the curse turns out to be a blessing. When we experience a קללה, when we fail terribly, we recognize our “emptiness,” and this recognition allows the growth process to begin, bringing us the ברכה.
Let us all have the strength, the courage, the honesty and the humility to acknowledge our “emptiness,” to realize that we need to change, and to then make those changes. Let us not wait until we hit rock bottom. If there’s any area in our lives that we know requires fixing – let’s pick ourselves and get to work fixing it, so that our lives will be filled with ברכה in every way.