98 Curses the Torah Reader Has to Whisper

Most people think the Torah's curses are ancient warnings that no longer apply. The Jews who read them every year in synagogue know better. Parashat Ki Tavo, in (Deuteronomy 28:15-68), contains 98 curses: a relentless, escalating catalog of horrors that God promises will befall Israel if they abandon the covenant. Disease. Famine. Siege. Madness. Exile. The destruction of everything they love. The passage is called the Tochachah (תוכחה), which means "rebuke" or "admonition," and it is one of the most harrowing texts in the entire Hebrew Bible. It is also one of the most carefully handled in Jewish liturgical tradition, surrounded by customs designed to soften its blow. For over two thousand years, Jews have believed that merely hearing these words spoken aloud carries real spiritual danger.

What the 98 Curses Actually Say

The Tochachah in Ki Tavo is not vague. It is surgically specific. (Deuteronomy 28:22) promises consumption, fever, inflammation, and drought. (Deuteronomy 28:27) adds boils, tumors, scabs, and itch "from which you cannot be healed." (Deuteronomy 28:28-29) threatens madness, blindness, and confusion: "you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness." By verse 34, the listener is told they will be "driven mad by what your eyes see." And the curses keep going. Fifty-four more verses of escalating devastation.

The passage reaches its most terrible climax in (Deuteronomy 28:53-57), where the siege becomes so desperate that parents eat their own children, and hide the food from each other. A woman "who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground" because of her delicacy will secretly devour her own newborn. These are not abstract threats. They are prophecies of specific historical horrors, and Jewish tradition recognized their fulfillment in the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, described in gruesome detail by Josephus (37-100 CE) in The Jewish War. Our Josephus collection contains texts that parallel these very descriptions. The number 98 became fixed in rabbinic consciousness. The Midrash Tanchuma on Ki Tavo (compiled c. 5th-9th century CE in the Land of Israel) counts them precisely, and our database contains 4 texts from Midrash Tanchuma on Ki Tavo that explore the passage's meaning and context.

Why Does the Reader Whisper?

The Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Megillah 31b (redacted c. 500 CE) establishes that the Tochachah must be read without interruption, no breaks, no pauses between aliyot (Torah reading portions). A single reader must get through all 98 curses in one continuous block. The custom that developed across Ashkenazi communities, codified by Rabbi Moses Isserles (the Rema, 1530-1572 CE, Krakow) in his glosses on the Shulchan Arukh (Orach Chaim 428:6), was to read the curses in a lowered voice, quickly and quietly, almost under the breath. The Rema did not want the congregation to absorb the full weight of every word. Speed was mercy.

The underlying fear was ancient and deeply felt. The Talmud in Megillah 31b records that Abaye (c. 280-339 CE, Babylonia) explained the custom of reading the curses before Rosh Hashanah, which is when Ki Tavo always falls in the annual Torah reading cycle, so that "the year and its curses may end" before the new year begins. The curses function as a kind of spiritual purgation. You hear the worst. You absorb it. And then the slate is clean for the year ahead. To linger on them, to savor or dwell on each terrible image, was considered not just unnecessary but dangerous. The words had power. Reading them slowly was like handling fire without gloves.

Nobody wants this aliyah (עלייה, the honor of being called to the Torah). In many traditional Ashkenazi congregations, the custom developed that the ba'al koreh (בעל קורא, the Torah reader) calls himself up for the Tochachah reading, rather than summoning a congregant by name. The logic is straightforward: it would be rude to single someone out for the "honor" of standing at the Torah while 98 curses are read over them. Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488-1575 CE, Safed), author of the Shulchan Arukh (published 1565), and later authorities debated the precise protocols, but the widespread practice became that either the reader takes it himself or a willing volunteer steps forward.

The Devarim Rabbah (compiled c. 9th century CE in the Land of Israel) adds a mythological dimension to this reluctance. When Moses reached this section of his farewell address, his face changed color. The Israelites saw that even Moses, the man who spoke with God face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10), was shaken by what he had to say. Devarim Rabbah 7:10 reports that Moses told them: "These curses are not from me. They are from the Holy One, blessed be He." Moses was a messenger, not the author. Even the messenger trembled. The midrash suggests that the curses were so terrible that Moses needed to explicitly distance himself from them, to make clear that no human mind would choose to speak such words. Our Midrash Rabbah collection (2,921 texts) preserves multiple traditions about Moses's emotional state during his final speeches.

Two Sets of Curses - and a Crucial Difference

Ki Tavo's 98 curses are actually the second Tochachah in the Torah. The first appears in (Leviticus 26:14-46), in Parashat Bechukotai, and contains 49 curses. The Talmud in Megillah 31b explicitly pairs them: the Bechukotai curses are read before Shavuot, and the Ki Tavo curses are read before Rosh Hashanah, so that each set of curses precedes a major holiday and purges the spiritual ledger.

The two Tochachot are not identical in tone. The Midrash Tanchuma on Bechukotai notes that the Leviticus curses are spoken in the second person plural, "you" as a nation, while many of the Deuteronomy curses shift to the second person singular, "you" as an individual. This makes Ki Tavo's curses feel more personal, more intimate, more like a finger pointed directly at you. The midrash reads this as a theological escalation. The first set warns the nation. The second set warns each person. No one hides in the crowd. The rabbis of the Midrash Aggadah (3,763 texts in our collection) developed elaborate comparisons between the two Tochachot, treating them as twin prophecies addressed to different historical periods: the first to the Babylonian exile (586 BCE), the second to the Roman exile (70 CE).

Do the Curses End with a Hidden Promise?

Here is the detail that transforms the Tochachah from pure horror into something stranger and more complex. The very last verse of the curse passage, (Deuteronomy 28:69) in the Hebrew numbering, or (Deuteronomy 29:1) in most English translations, reads: "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 at Horeb." The curses, in other words, are themselves a covenant. Not a punishment. A brit (ברית), a binding agreement between God and Israel.

The Ramban (Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, Nachmanides, 1194-1270 CE, Girona) in his Torah commentary on this verse reads the Tochachah as a paradoxical expression of intimacy. God does not threaten strangers. God threatens those He is bound to. The curses presuppose a relationship so deep that betrayal has cosmic consequences, which means the relationship itself is cosmic. Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, 1040-1105 CE, Troyes, France), the most influential Torah commentator in Jewish history, notes on this verse that the curses are bracketed by covenantal language on both sides, blessings before (Deuteronomy 28:1-14) and covenant renewal after. The structure itself contains the message: the curses are not the last word.

The Zohar (first circulated c. 1290 CE in Castile) goes further. In its commentary on Ki Tavo, the Zohar (3,298 texts in our collection) teaches that the curses contain hidden blessings, that every curse, read at a deeper level of interpretation, is actually a blessing encoded in the language of severity. The kabbalistic principle is that din (דין, divine judgment) is not the opposite of chesed (חסד, divine lovingkindness) but its compressed form. Severity is mercy that has not yet unfolded. The 98 curses are 98 blessings that the world is not yet ready to receive in their true form.

The Curses and the High Holidays

The placement of Ki Tavo in the annual Torah reading cycle is not accidental. It falls on the Shabbat before or near Rosh Hashanah every single year. The Talmud in Megillah 31b makes the connection explicit: Abaye said, "We read the curses in Deuteronomy before Rosh Hashanah so that the year and its curses may end." The Tochachah functions as a kind of annual spiritual reckoning, a confrontation with the worst-case scenario before the Days of Awe begin.

This connects to the broader theology of teshuvah (תשובה, repentance/return) that dominates the month of Elul leading up to Rosh Hashanah. The Tochachah is not read to terrify. It is read to wake people up. The Devarim Rabbah compares it to a doctor who shows a patient an image of a diseased organ: not to cause despair, but to motivate treatment. The curses are the diagnosis. Teshuvah is the cure. And the timing ensures that the cure is available: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur follow immediately, offering the chance to repent and start fresh.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740-1809 CE, Ukraine), one of the great Chasidic masters, was famous for his advocacy on behalf of the Jewish people before God. When the Tochachah was read in his synagogue, he reportedly said: "Master of the Universe, if You must send curses, send them to the enemies of Israel. But these curses, we accept them, because they prove that we are still in a covenant with You. A father only rebukes a child he loves." This reading, the curses as proof of love, became a cornerstone of Chasidic theology around the Tochachah.

Explore the Texts of Covenant and Prophecy

Our database contains 4 texts from Midrash Tanchuma on Ki Tavo, plus the full traditions of Moses's farewell speeches across Legends of the Jews (2,650 texts) and Midrash Rabbah (2,921 texts). For more on the covenant theology that frames the Tochachah, see The Angel of the Covenant and The Covenant of the Pieces. To explore the broader tradition of divine rebuke and repentance, search for covenant or search for repentance across our 18,000+ texts.