There's a story about Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, on Parshat Bechukotai. He was traveling that shabbos, away from his family. Upon his return, when his family shared their respective shabbos experiences with each other, his son shared that he fainted during Kriyat HaTorah!“What happened?” asked his father. His son replied, “It was the Tochechah! It was so bitter!”
His father was puzzled. “I don’t understand – you hear me read it every year. Why did you experience it differently with the other Ba’al Koreh? Dov Ber replied, “Indeed, you read it every year. But when you read it, Abba, I hear blessings.”
How is this possible? No matter how one Ba’al Koreh might sing the words – the curses are clear and explicit. What was Dov Ber saying?
Though the Parsha begins with 11 Psukim of blessing-rewards for performing Mitzvot, the portion is dominated by 49 curses of Tochecha, rebuke foretelling of the punishments that will come as a consequence for the non-performance or defiance of the Mitzvot. It is a gloomy forecast, foretelling a terrible fate. The curses are so difficult that there is a custom for the Ba’al Koreh to read them in a whisper.
But to read the curses as a blessing? The Kedushat Levi 49 re-reads each curse in a way that only a Chassidic master could do. He posits that each curse is no more than a reality prophesied to occur – and it is a choice of ours whether that event is experienced as a blessing or curse.
Consider this example: One of the first curses is, “וּזְרַעְתֶּ֤ם לָרִיק֙ זַרְעֲכֶ֔ם וַאֲכָלֻ֖הוּ אֹיְבֵיכֶֽם you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.” (Vayikra 26:16) It describes a scenario where a person's hard work and efforts are rendered fruitless and are exploited by others. The wasted effort, loss of sustenance, and emboldening of an enemy surely would make one feel destabilized and insecure. This is clearly a curse.
How could this be re-read as a blessing? The Kedushat Levi says – there is a time when sowing the earth is pointless: during a time of over-abundance! He foretells of a time when Hashem will bless Bnei Yisrael with a miracle – the earth spontaneously sprouts food, without a farmer’s effort, resulting in so much grain, no one would bother with sowing.
In sum, the Kedushat Levi is reading each verse to be an inevitably. But that future reality is manifested as either a blessing or a curse depending on whether we performed a Mitzvah or Aveirah to justify it.
A similar interpretation is said by the Ibn Ezra regarding Sefer Yonah. God told Yonah ``עוד ארבעים יום ונינוה נהפכת” – meaning, “in 40 days Ninveh will be overturned.” (Yonah 3:4) And yet, to Yonah’s chagrin, Nineveh remains! It is not destroyed like Sedom! So what do we make of God’s prophecy? The Ibn Ezra explains that “נהפכת” could either mean “overturned” or “turn over in change.” Thus, the prophecy’s essence is that Ninveh would never be the same again – but it was up to the people of Ninveh to decide whether their change would bring about the נהפכת of trauma and Churban (as Yonah hoped) or the נהפכת of blessings and Teshuvah (that eventually happened). Thus, the through-thread between the Ibn Ezra on Yonah and the Barditchever on Bechukotai is this: while God chooses that a moment will occur, our choices determine how it is experienced – as either a blessing or curse.
I close with a message for Maimonides School. There is a rhythm to the student’s and teacher’s school year full of inevitabilities due to the passage of time and the scope of a year-long course: Labor Day means the school year begins, May and June means the school year is coming to a close with finals. And should a student fulfill their academic responsibilities each year, they will inevitably graduate at the end of 12th grade.
But are these inevitabilities curses or blessings? It depends on us! Either we experience finals as a curse – the endless studying, flashcards, and coffee; or we experience them as an opportunity for academic and personal growth to master material, learn grit, and feel accomplished in how much we have grown. Similarly, we can experience high school graduation as a sad moment – realistically, many won’t stay in touch, build their lives wherever and however they do. Or graduation can be a life-cycle moment of blessing, celebrating the culmination of learning for the student and their loved ones who supported them in arriving at that moment.
I will close with how I began. Rav Shneur Zalman was presumably conflicted in his heart – aren’t the curses indeed that?, but when he read the Tochecha he did so with conviction that they could be interpreted positively. It impresses upon teachers to measure how we speak to students. We cannot change the troubling circumstances of our world. Fear can cripple our ambitions. Anxiety can corrode our spirits. It is upon us to choose which message we impart – one of challenge or another of dreams and blessings – even when we know that there is struggle ahead. If we can open their hearts towards an optimistic bend, when the time comes for the prophecy to unfold, they will boldly choose to manifest thee reality into blessing! | 
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