The Blessings of Behavior Modification
From our youngest moments—and then certainly when we become parents—we experience and utilize behavior modification. We reward good behavior and seek to extinguish bad behavior. And we share much of this dynamic with the larger animal world.
In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, we encounter the iconic prescriptions of the Book of Deuteronomy: Blessings for fidelity to the commandments, and curses for departure. And these blessings and their converse encompass the most essential elements of survival, especially in the ancient world: abundance, fertility, and security.
On one level, God seems to be appealing to a one-dimensional and fundamental formula for faith which seems increasingly shallow and binary for the modern world. But perhaps just as small children need a more basic cause-and-consequence approach to safety (don’t cross the street; don’t touch the stove) due to their youth and inexperience, so too did the young nation of Israelites require a simpler calculus of faith before they could appreciate the subtler but significant benefits of the commandments.
Our hope is that today, as we can now, perhaps, be considered adolescents in our faithful covenant with God (with all the attendant rebellion and impulse), we’ve learned that the pursuit of good and avoidance of evil is less about immediate and tangible rewards and punishments, and more about how our actions and aspirations enable us to create for ourselves a world that we want to inhabit, and one that God wants us to live in.
Rabbi Daniel Weiner