PARASHAT KI TAVO CONTRASTS the blessings that reward those who keep the commandments with the curses that punish those who spurn them. Perhaps the most horrifying threat is that enemy invaders will devour the crops and cattle (28:51), causing even “tender” mothers to eat their own children (28:56–57). Here, as elsewhere, Deuteronomy presents a framework that we can fill out from other sources; the obvious intertext in this case is the book of Lamentations. Lamentations 4:5 depicts the upper class—“those who feasted on delicacies…those reared in crimson”—reduced to starvation and squalor. This helps us understand that in our parashah, the mother who “would never venture to set a foot on the ground” (28:56) is a member of the privileged elite, wearing the ancient equivalent of “taxi shoes” (those not for walking). One wonders if the adjective “tender” (v. 56) is ironic; not only does this mother eat her children, but according to Lamentations 4:10, she boils them first. These biblical passages remind us that enemies can reduce us to desperate measures and diminish us morally, causing us to perform formerly unimaginable acts in order to survive. Yet not all women eat their babies, even when in truly dire straits. How many actual mothers in Nazi concentration camps risked their own lives to preserve their children?
Who are the enemies that the curses of this parashah refer to? Deuteronomy blames the Israelites themselves: the enemy invasion and economic collapse are depicted as the self-induced consequences of failing to keep the commandments (28:15). People on the brink of death from starvation can face choices beyond their worst nightmares, but a reasoned choice was possible earlier on: the just society represented by Deuteronomy’s laws versus the unjust society reflected by its curses.
For Deuteronomy, the measure of a just society is at the margins—the treatment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow (26:12). If a community does not respond to their needs, then it risks creating the very conditions in which, according to Deuteronomy, even the most privileged are bound to suffer. In such circumstances, how will we treat our babies and those in need?
—Diana Lipton