Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal

[Dondi]

"These shall stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin:
And these shall stand upon mount Ebal to curse; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali." - Deuteronomy 27:12-13

The initial impression I got from these of these verses is that half the tribes of Israel are blessed and the other half are cursed. Either that or half of the tribes send blessing to the people and the other half send cursing to the people. But I know I must be missing something here. I do know that this has something to do with crossing over Jordon into the Promised Land. Can you help me out?

[bananabrain]

what we're doing here is a ceremonial entry to the Land, as far as i can see - we're "activating" its spiritual potential - "turning the power on", so to speak. the two mountains therefore act like positive and negative power couplings. the blessings are for what happens if we keep the commandments in the Land, whereas the curses are for what happens if we don't.

this has never occurred to me before, so thank you for pointing it out. feel free to question the metaphor, it may not stand up without kicking the tyres.

b'shalom

bananabrain

btw, it is interesting that the samaritans picked mt. gerizim as their holy site. you never hear about mt. ebal from them, but i suppose that's the samaritans all over. splitters.

[Dondi]

I'm also thinking about the history or significance of the tribes. For instance, on the good side, from Judah will come the Moshiach, from Levi comes the priesthood. On the bad side, well, Dan was a "lost" tribe, wasn't it? And Reuben was cursed by Jacob in Genesis 49:3-4. I haven't investigated the rest of the tribes. Of course, I could be daft on this. Any thoughts on this line of reasoning?

[bananabrain]

i don't know... it doesn't match up with the matriarchs, either. have a look at what rashi says:

Chumash with Rashi - Ki Tavo - Parshah

b'shalom

bananabrain