The words of the prophets on subway walls, math, science, and sacred text

We are in the middle of Elul — the Hebrew month of abundance and reckoning. The summer has softened; the days are still warm but the light has shifted. Each morning, the shofar already calls us awake. The figs are ripe, the coffee is robust, and the rabbis and the comedians are in fine form. It is a season of sweetness and urgency, of laughter and self-examination, when we take stock before the gates of the new year open wide.

And into this softened season comes Ki Tavo, with its striking command: When you enter the Land, take great stones, plaster them smooth, and write upon them the words of Torah ba’er heitev — “very clearly.” Not hidden away in scrolls, not guarded only by priests in dim chambers, but written where the sun hits the plaster, where every passerby can read. Midrash even says the words were written in seventy languages, so that anyone — Israelite or stranger — could understand.

This command itself holds a paradox. Only chapters earlier, Deuteronomy called for the destruction of the nations of the land. And yet here, Torah insists that its words be legible to the entire world. The boulders embody this tension: covenant is particular, but its words are universal.

I think of this command and hear, too, the words of Simon & Garfunkel: “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls.” Prophecy isn’t meant to be hidden in towers or sanctuaries. It must be scrawled where life is raw and ordinary, in the languages people actually read.

And so Ki Tavo pivots from inscription to consequence: blessings and curses. Blessing if you make the words clear, curse if you turn away. They are communal conditions. Rain and drought, prosperity and famine, security and fear — things that affect everyone, whether or not they themselves lifted the chisel. When words are inscribed, when knowledge is shared, the whole people thrive. When they are withheld, the whole people suffers.

We know this all too well in the curse of war. When hatred is nurtured and human dignity denied, everyone feels the impact. War does not confine itself to one group. Its curses ripple outward — through grief, through insecurity, through fear of the next siren.

And there is another struggle, quieter but consequential: within Israel, a rabbinic and political system that too often denies children access to the basic languages of our time — math, science, technology.

This is not about individuals. Many Haredi families would embrace a fuller education if it were offered. But here, unlike in other countries, the state colludes with rabbinic leadership to withhold it. Elsewhere — whether in New York, London, or Antwerp — even the most insular Orthodox schools must provide a basic curriculum in the language of the land in order to be licensed.

But in Israel, government policy and funding have entrenched an educational system that leaves too many children without the tools to fully participate in the shared life of trades, professions, and innovation.

And yet, even in this community often described as separate, we are reminded of shared fate. Just today, a terror attack in Jerusalem killed six.

We now know that one of the heroes who stopped the terrorists was a Haredi man with a gun license — a commander in the Hashmonaim brigade. In a community often divided between those who serve and those who stand apart from service, between those who want to join the modern state of Israel and those who don’t, I feel overwhelming gratitude for this man — for his courage, and for his choice to do everything he could to protect his brothers and sisters this morning.

May his bravery remind us that in moments of danger, what binds us together is stronger than what sets us apart. His act itself was a kind of inscription, written not in stone but in courage, a testimony that our lives are intertwined.

That reminder of shared responsibility also sharpens the urgency of another truth: courage in battle cannot substitute for the tools needed to thrive in peace. When a society withholds literacy in the languages of modernity, it leans toward dependency, poverty, and division.

In Torah’s terms: it leans toward curse instead of blessing. It is not unlike what the Church once did in the Middle Ages, when priests kept the poor from literacy, insisting that only an elite could read sacred texts. It was a way of keeping power — but it also kept whole generations in the dark. Ki Tavo offers a different vision: stones plastered white and words inscribed clearly for all.

And not just in Hebrew. In every tongue under heaven — the seventy faces of Torah. In our own day, those “languages” must also include the disciplines of science, mathematics, medicine, and technology. To refuse them is to close our eyes to part of Torah’s face, to shut ourselves off from God’s revelation in the world.

Elul reminds us: blessing is always possible. Torah can be written again, ba’er heitev. The prophets still speak on subway walls and tenement halls. The words can still be inscribed in stone, in books, on glowing screens — in every language our generation needs.

Blessing comes when we keep writing, keep teaching, keep making knowledge legible. Curse comes when we choose obscurity and silence.

So may we, in this season of abundance and reckoning, choose blessing. May we keep inscribing the words — in stone, in courage, on walls, on screens, in math and science and Torah alike — so that all can understand, and all can live.

Thanks Rabbi Menachem Creditor and Matthew Kalman for helping me think this through with sensitivity and Clarity