The Sin Was the Strategy - Ki Tesse

 The Sin Was the Strategy  This morning’s Breakfast & Class begins with a troubling question in Parashat KiTetze. Why does the Torah judge Ammon and Moav so harshly? Their crime was not simply that they failed to offer bread and water, nor even that they hiredBilaam. Rabbi Yissocher Frand, drawing on the Dubno Maggid, the Kli Yakar andthe Tolner Rebbe, points us toward something deeper: they strategized.They studied our vulnerabilities, created the circumstances in which we mightfall, and deliberately planned a spiritual trap.  But in Elul, that frightening idea can become an extraordinarily hopeful one. If somuch evil can come from planning how someone might fall, imagine the power of sitting down and planning how we might rise. Together with an insight fromRabbi Yehonasan Gefen, and the remarkable Talmudic story of Rav Amram Ḥasida shouting “Fire!” before temptation could overcome him, we ask a very practical Elul question: Instead of simply promising ourselves that this year will bedifferent, what can we actually change in the architecture of our lives to make it easier to become the people we want to be?