if you do not obey the Lord, your God,
to observe to fulfill all His commandments
and statutes which I am commanding you this day,
that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
* * * * *
You shall be cursed in the city, and you shall be cursed in the field
Cursed will be your [food] basket and your kneading bowl
* * * * *
Cursed will be the fruit of your womb,
the fruit of your soil, the fruit of your livestock,
those born from your cattle and the flock of your sheep
* * * * *
You shall be cursed when you come,
and you shall be cursed when you depart
* * * * *
The Lord will send the curse of shortages, confusion, and turmoil upon you,
in every one of your endeavors which you undertake,
until it destroys you and until you quickly vanish,
because of your evil deeds in forsaking Me
* * * * *
The Lord will make pestilence cleave to you,
until it has exterminated you from upon the land,
to which you are coming, to possess it
The Lord will strike you with consumption,
fever, illnesses with burning fevers,
a disease which causes unquenchable thirst,
with the sword, with blast,
and with yellowing,
and they will pursue you until you perish
* * * * *
And your skies above you will be [like] copper,
and the earth below you [like] iron
* * * * *
The Lord will turn the rain of your land into powder and dust,
raining down upon you from the heavens until you are destroyed
* * * * *
The Lord will cause you to be broken before your enemy:
you will come out against them in one direction,
but you will flee from them in seven directions.
And you will become a terrifying [example] to all the kingdoms on earth
* * * * *
Your corpse will be food for all birds
of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth,
and no one will frighten them [away]
* * * * *
The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt,
with hemorrhoids, with oozing sores,
and with dry lesions, from which you will be unable to be cured
* * * * *
The Lord will strike you with insanity,
with blindness, and with bewilderment
* * * * *
You will grope at midday,
as the blind man gropes in the dark,
and you will be unsuccessful in your ways.
You will be only oppressed and robbed all the days,
and no one will save [you]
* * * * *
You will betroth a woman, but another man will lie with her.
You will build a house, but you will not live in it.
You will plant a vineyard, but you will not redeem it[s fruits]
* * * * *
Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes,
but you will not eat from it.
Your donkey will be snatched right in front of you,
and it will not return to you.
Your flock will be given over to your enemies,
and you will have no savior
* * * * *
Your sons and daughters will be given over to another people,
and your eyes will see [this] and long for them all day long,
but you will be powerless
* * * * *
A people unknown to you will eat up the fruit of your soil
and [the result of] all your toil.
You will be only wronged and crushed all the days
* * * * *
You will go insane from the vision before your eyes that you will behold
* * * * *
The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs
with a terrible skin eruption from which you will be unable to be cured;
[it will eventually cover you] from the sole of your foot to the top of your head
* * * * *
The Lord will lead you and your king whom you will have established over you,
to a nation unknown to you or your fathers;
and there, you will serve other deities [made] of wood and stone
* * * * *
And you will become an [object of] astonishment,
an example, and a topic of discussion,
among all the peoples to whom the Lord will lead you
* * * * *
You will take much seed out to the field,
yet you will gather in little,
for the locusts will finish it
* * * * *
You will plant vineyards and work [them],
but you will neither drink of [their] wine, or gather [the grapes],
because the worms will devour them
* * * * *
You will have olive trees throughout all your boundaries,
but you will not anoint with [their] oil,
because your olive trees will drop off
* * * * *
You will bear sons and daughters,
but you will not have them,
because they will go into captivity
* * * * *
All your trees and all the fruit of your soil the cicada will make destitute
* * * * *
The stranger who is among you will arise above you,
higher and higher,
while you will descend lower and lower
* * * * *
He will lend to you,
but you will not lend to him.
He will be at the head,
while you will be at the tail
* * * * *
All these curses will befall you,
pursuing you and overtaking you to destroy you
because you did not obey the Lord, your God,
to observe His commandments
and statutes which He commanded you
* * * * *
And they will be as a sign and a wonder,
upon you and your offspring, forever
* * * * *
because you did not serve the Lord, your God,
with happiness and with gladness of heart,
when [you had an] abundance of everything
* * * * *
Therefore, you will serve your enemies,
whom the Lord will send against you,
[when you are] in famine, thirst,
destitution, and lacking everything,
and he will place an iron yoke upon your neck,
until he has destroyed you
* * * * *
The Lord will bring upon you a nation from afar,
from the end of the earth,
as the eagle swoops down,
a nation whose language you will not understand
* * * * *
a brazen nation,
which will not respect the elderly,
nor show favor to the young
* * * * *
They will devour the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your soil,
to destroy you.
They will not leave over anything for you of the grain,
wine, oil, offspring of your cattle or flocks of your sheep,
until they annihilate you
* * * * *
And they will besiege you in all your cities,
until your high and fortified walls in which you trust come down,
throughout all your land.
And they will besiege you in all your cities
throughout all your land, which the Lord, your God, has given you
* * * * *
And during the siege and the desperation
which your enemies will bring upon you,
you will eat the fruit of your womb,
the flesh of your sons and daughters,
whom the Lord, your God, gave you
* * * * *
The most tender and delicate man among you,
will begrudge his own brother
and the wife of his embrace and the rest of his children,
whom he will leave over
* * * * *
of giving any one of them of the flesh of his children that he is eating,
because not a thing will remain for him in the siege
and in the desperation which your enemies will bring upon you,
in all your cities
* * * * *
The most tender and delicate woman among you,
who would not venture to set her foot upon the ground,
because of delicateness and tenderness,
will begrudge the husband of her embrace
and her own son and daughter
* * * * *
and the infants who emerge from between her legs,
and her own children whom she will bear,
for she will eat them in secret,
in destitution, in the siege and the desperation
which your enemies will inflict upon you, in your cities
* * * * *
If you do not observe to fulfill all the words of this Torah,
which are written in this scroll,
to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord, your God
* * * * *
Then the Lord [will bring upon] you
and your offspring uniquely [horrible] plagues,
terrible and unyielding plagues,
and evil and unyielding sicknesses
* * * * *
And He will bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt
which you dreaded,
and they will cling to you
* * * * *
Also, the Lord will bring upon you
every disease and plague
which is not written in this Torah scroll,
to destroy you
* * * * *
And you will remain few in number,
whereas you were once as numerous as the stars of the heavens
because you did not obey the Lord, your God
* * * * *
And it will be, just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do good for you and to increase you,
so will the Lord cause to rejoice over you
to annihilate you and to destroy you.
And you will be uprooted from the land
which you enter therein, to possess it
* * * * *
And the Lord will scatter you among all the nations,
from one end of the earth to the other,
and there you will serve other deities
unknown to you or your forefathers, [deities of] wood and stone
* * * * *
And among those nations,
you will not be calm,
nor will your foot find rest.
There, the Lord will give you a trembling heart,
dashed hopes, and a depressed soul
* * * * *
And your life will hang in suspense before you.
You will be in fear night and day,
and you will not believe in your life
* * * * *
In the morning, you will say,
“If only it were evening! ”
and in the evening, you will say,
“If only it were morning!”
because of the fear in your heart
which you will experience
and because of the sights that you will behold
* * * * *
And the Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships,
through the way about which I had said to you,
You will never see it again.
And there, you will seek to be sold to your enemies
for slaves and handmaids,
but there will be no buyer
* * * * *
These are the words of the covenant,
which the Lord commanded Moses
to make with the children of Israel
in the land of Moab,
besides the covenant
which he made with them in Horeb
Devarim- Deuteronomy- Chapter 28 ; 15-69
* * * * * * * * * * *
“I will surely gather all of you, Jacob;
I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel.
I will bring them together like sheep in a pen,
like a flock in its pasture;
the place will throng with people
Then I said,
“Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of Israel.
Should you not embrace justice,
2 you who hate good and love evil;
who tear the skin from my people
and the flesh from their bones;
3 who eat my people’s flesh,
strip off their skin
and break their bones in pieces;
who chop them up like meat for the pan,
like flesh for the pot?”
4 Then they will cry out to the Lord,
but he will not answer them.
At that time he will hide his face from them
because of the evil they have done.
5 This is what the Lord says:
“As for the prophets
who lead my people astray,
they proclaim ‘peace’
if they have something to eat,
but prepare to wage war against anyone
who refuses to feed them.
6 Therefore night will come over you, without visions,
and darkness, without divination.
The sun will set for the prophets,
and the day will go dark for them.
7 The seers will be ashamed
and the diviners disgraced.
They will all cover their faces
because there is no answer from God.”
8 But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the Spirit of the Lord,
and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression,
to Israel his sin.
9 Hear this, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of Israel,
who despise justice
and distort all that is right;
10 who build Zion with bloodshed,
and Jerusalem with wickedness.
11 Her leaders judge for a bribe,
her priests teach for a price,
and her prophets tell fortunes for money.
Yet they look for the Lord’s support and say,
“Is not the Lord among us?
No disaster will come upon us.”
12 Therefore because of you,
Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets
Filed under: photos, poems for Palestine | Tagged: Antisemitism, compassion, faith, Palestine, Torah | 8 Comments »
Poetry for Palestine 
