Parashat Ki Tavo: Eyes to See, Light to Rise

Prayer for Israel

Parashat Ki Tavo | Sixth Shabbat of Consolation | "Eyes to See, Light to Rise"

*Shalom, Mishpacha,*

It's Tuesday, and the new year is closing in fast: less than two weeks until Rosh Hashanah. This Shabbat we read Parashat Ki Tavo, and its haftarah is the sixth of the seven Haftarot of Consolation that carry us from Tisha B'Av to Rosh Hashanah. Only one more will follow. Ki Tavo opens with a farmer carrying his first fruits into Jerusalem and closes with Moses looking at a people who had witnessed Adonai's wonders in Egypt yet still did not fully see. Isaiah answers that unfinished sight with a command: arise, shine, for your light has come.

Avinu שֶׁבַּשָּׁמַיִם — Our Father in Heaven,

We come this Shabbat with a people's old blindness in one hand and a promised light in the other, both still true of Israel today.

The Declaration

When Israel entered the land, the first fruits came with words to recite: "I declare today to Adonai your God, that I have entered into the land Adonai swore to our fathers to give us" (Deuteronomy 26:3, TLV). Your people still stand in that land, Adonai, and the declaration still needs saying. Thank You for Israel's farmers and her fields, from the Negev to the Galilee. Moses adds, on that same day: "Today you have affirmed Adonai as your God… today Adonai has affirmed you as His treasured people" (26:17–18, TLV). Hold that mutual affirmation over Israel now, whatever the headlines say about her.

The Blindness

By the end of the parashah, Moses is blunt: "You have seen all that Adonai did before your eyes in the land of Egypt… the great trials, those great signs and wonders. But to this day Adonai has not given you a heart to know, or eyes to see, or ears to hear" (Deuteronomy 29:2–4, TLV). Sha'ul quotes this verse in Romans 11 and finds that partial blindness sits inside a larger mercy — not the end of Israel's story, but a chapter inside it. Lord, give sight where there is fog. Give discernment to those shaping Gaza's stabilization. Provide clarity and protection to soldiers and families in the West Bank, where tensions are rising again. Soften what fear has hardened, on every side.

The Light

Isaiah refuses to leave Israel in that fog: "Arise, shine, for your light has come! The glory of Adonai has risen on you… Nations will come to your light, kings to the brilliance of your rising" (Isaiah 60:1, 3, TLV). This is the promise underneath the news. A day is coming when "no more will violence be heard in your land, devastation nor destruction within your borders. But you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise" (60:18, TLV). Pray that into the present tense too, Lord — over Gaza's border communities, over the north where families still watch the sky, over every hostage family still waiting for full and final word of the ones they love.

Together

A people who did not yet have eyes to see. A people told to arise and shine. Both are Israel, in the same two chapters. We ask for the second to overtake the first: revelation over blindness, light over fog, praise over grief. Protect her citizens, soldiers, and communities. Strengthen every fragile peace already in motion. As Elul deepens and the year turns, draw Israel, and draw us with her, toward teshuvah, toward the day Zion's light needs no more explaining and her Messiah reigns from Jerusalem.

"The smallest will become a thousand, and the least a mighty nation. I, Adonai, will hasten it in its time." (Isaiah 60:22, TLV — Haftarah, Ki Tavo)

B'shem Yeshua HaMashiach —