EXTRA 1 · Measure-for-measure in the Tochacha

Parashas Ki Savo · chapter 28 (Sifrei) · Not cited by Torah Temimah

Source

Sifrei Devarim on the Tochacha (and parallel midrashim).

Sefaria — Sifrei Devarim

Core idea (paraphrase of Sifrei style)
מִדָּה כְּנֶגֶד מִדָּה — כְּשֵׁם שֶׁשְּׂמַחְתֶּם בְּהַצְלָחַת הָעַכּוּ״ם, כָּךְ תִּהְיוּ נְתוּנִים תַּחַת יָדָם; כְּשֵׁם שֶׁלֹּא שְׁמַעְתֶּם בְּקוֹל ה׳, כָּךְ לֹא תִשְׁמְעוּ לְשׁוֹן הָאוֹיֵב.

English: Measure for measure — just as you rejoiced in the success of the nations, so you will be placed under their hand; just as you did not hearken to the voice of Hashem, so you will not understand the language of the enemy.

In Sifrei: Many of the individual curses are read as precise reversals of the blessings that open the chapter, or as consequences that mirror the particular failures of hearing and doing.

Type of Learning

Custom (measure-for-measure pattern in the Tochacha).

What Is Learned

The cascade of curses is not arbitrary; Chazal read it as a coherent system of middah keneged middah that answers the people’s failure to hear and to do.