By Rabbi Adam Frankenberg

Our Parashah this week is Parashat Ki Tavo, which means ‘When you enter the land’. In Deuteronomy 27, Moses instructs the People concerning how half the tribes were to stand on Mt. Gerizim, which was the mountain of blessings and the other half were to stand on Mt. Eival, which was the mountain of curses. As recorded in the Torah, Moses gives instructions that there should be an equal number of tribes on each mountain: those standing on the Mountain of Blessings, Mt.Gerizim were: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin. Notice how Joseph is here counted as a tribe rather than his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Elsewhere they are considered to be tribes in their own right.

Those standing on Mt.Eival, the Mountain of Curses were: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naftali.

It is at once noticeable that those tribes who are standing on the Mountain of Curses, with the exception of Reuben are all lower status tribes, that is to say the descendants of the sons of Jacob’s handmaids. Indeed from elsewhere in the Torah I think you can argue that there is even a status division between the descendants of the handmaids, with those of Rachel’s handmaid having a higher status than those of Leah’s.

So only Reuben is really noticeable by being on the the wrong side of the division. This might well be because Jacob never forgave Reuben for sleeping with Rachel’s maid after her death, to force Jacob to pick up his marital duties with Leah (Genesis 35:22). However according to later Jewish tradition all he did was move his father’s bed into his mother’s tent. Nevertheless the verse ‘Cursed be he who sleeps with his mother-in-law’ (Deuteronomy 27:23) might be applied to Reuben and explain why his descendants are standing on the Mountain of Curses. As the firstborn one would have thought that this tribe would be about the least likely to be there.

Whereas poor old Naftali and his tribe just seemed to have drawn the short straw.

Divisions between the tribes very much led to conflict and division in the ancient family of Israel and in the people and kingdom we are very lucky that we are past it.

One of the few places it can still be seen in Judaism is in the order of aliyot to the Torah in an orthodox synagogue where a Cohen has the first call up, then a Levite and only then an ordinary Israelite.

Fortunately such distinctions have been removed in Progressive Judaism.

As we can learn from the stories in the Bible, such distinctions and divisions are often the roots of hostility and division.

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