What is more powerful – positive messaging or negative messaging? Is pain or pleasure a more powerful motivator?
Many might suggest that the key to Parashat Ki Tavo, with its blessings and curses, is precisely this. After 22 chapters in which the laws of Judaism are delineated, we get the "terms and conditions" of the covenant. And the curse section is four times more lengthy than the verses of blessing.
When we depict the six tribes "to bless" the nation on Mt Gerizim opposite the six tribes "to curse", again we hear only the curse and none of the blessings.
The Torah, then, might agree with Roy Baumeister that "Bad is stronger than good," and that framing a message around what someone stands to lose will often prove vastly more effective than highlighting a future positive reward.
Yet, we know that negative messaging has only limited effect. All smokers know that "smoking kills," yet they ignore that warning in real time; if you have ever used your phone while driving, you will have ignored the evidence that 25 percent of car accidents are because of phone use.
So why do we ignore the fear? We say, "it won't happen to me!" Our short-term emotional impulse, our immediate visceral needs, overpower our long-term rational thinking. And then we find our minds even justifying our instinct, rather than waking us up to the truth!
That is why, I would claim, Deuteronomy offers us fear, but also other messages – positive messages, which can channel our long-term thinking. Our parashah starts with a ceremony (chapter 26), a simple procession and declaration for the first fruits, the new harvest. At the heart of this public pageant is, in fact, a concise account of the Exodus: the power of freedom, God's salvation from persecution, the perils of homelessness, and the blessings of homecoming.
Deuteronomy presents us with a text which grounds us and tells us who we are and where we come from. This text is so powerful, it forms the basis of the Haggadah.
And again, in chapter 30, Deuteronomy tells us that even after things go wrong, even after we are exiled, there will be a return. This hope for the future is what we often call the belief in the Messiah – a restoration of land, of nationhood, peace and prosperity; that God and Israel will make amends. There is no narrative which is more positive.
So maybe we need the negative and the positive. Perhaps we hear about the past – positive; the potential curses of the present – ringing the alarm, the warnings of transgression; and we are also - again in positive terms – granted hope for a better future. All are true. We need the negative and the positive messaging. Judaism fuses these divergent strands to paint a more complete picture.
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