Blessed in the City, Blessed in the Field
Adaptability in Ki Tavo
Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field. (Deuteronomy 28:3)
IN THE CITY. This is a blessing regarding an increase in merchandise. IN THE FIELD. In seeding and planting. - (Ibn Ezra)
Cain said to his brother Abel … and when they were in the field, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him. (Genesis 4:8)
Then the agents said to Lot, “Whom else have you here? Sons-in-law, your sons and daughters, or anyone else that you have in the city—bring them out of the place. (Genesis 19:12)
The observance of the law yields many blessings, according to parashat Ki Tavo. The Torah distinguishes between the blessing of city and field, leading to a question. What distinguishes these contexts such that each warrants a unique blessing? Ibn Ezra offers a reasonable explanation—blessing means economic success. Thus, the blessing of the field is agricultural and the blessing of the city is trade. The Da’at Z’kenim takes a more deontological approach, consistent with the idea that the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah: the blessing of the field refers to commandments unique to the field, such as dwelling in a Sukkah. The blessing of the city refers to commandments unique to the city such as placing a fence around one’s property or posting a mezuzah on the doorpost.
The distinction between city and field is a Biblical motif. Cain kills in the field, but founds a city. The Tower of Babel (Migdal Bavel) doubles as the City of Babel (Ir Bavel). Sodom and Gemmorah are cities. Jerusalem, of course, is also a city. Cities are defined by commerce, scale, but also moral hazard, corruption, pollution. The field is a place of contemplation, as when Isaac goes to talk to God in the field (“lasuach basadeh”) but is not exempt from vice. Deuteronomic law (Chapter 22) distinguishes two cases of wrongdoing: in the case of a man and woman who lie together in a field, the presumption is that this is a case of rape, as the woman has no recourse to shout out; the law does not presume the same base case for sex in the city, where both parties are held to account. Read unconventionally, the text may be suggesting that there is something morally unsound, if inevitable, about city life.
Jane Jacobs coined the concept of “eyes on the street” to describe feeling of neighborhood safety that comes from lots of people out and about. Solitude and remoteness, by contrast, are not without eeriness and vulnerability. In a city, an empty lot can city feel less safe than a popular street—this implies that one trusts society to police itself and uphold basic decency. Thoreau found blessing in the country, but curse in the city. Rousseau’s Noble Savage is a caricature of the person for whom civilization itself is the curse, a theme picked up by Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents. But the field is not Paradise and the city is not irredeemable. How many die hiking Everest? Or what of the protagonist in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Bear, who convinces himself that he can live amongst bears until one day he is eaten to death.
The blessing of field and city points to a deep point: that no place is a silver-bullet; neither San Francisco nor Patagonia, neither Dharamshala nor the Sahara. On the flip side: all situations can be blessed and need blessing. The field needs a blessing for the infrastructure and functionality of city life, the cultural pulse that comes from aggregating talent and the productivity gains that emerge from specialization of labor and trade. The city needs less congestion, less degeneracy, more simplicity.
In his alternative read, the Da’at Z’kenim says that the blessings of field and city refer to Jerusalem: “The city” referred to is Jerusalem, the holy city, and the expression: “blessed are you in the field,” refers to Zion, of which the prophet Jeremiah 26:18, said: Zion will be plowed as a field.” We can read this as saying that we should be blessed when Jerusalem is a healthy city, but we should also be blessed when it is destroyed and we go into Diaspora—here, the field is a symbol of dislocation and temporariness. We want the blessing of stability but we sometimes need the blessing of instability. What’s curious about this point is that the destruction of the Temple—the reduction of Zion to a field—is on its face a curse. But that is the real blessing: to find and make blessing even in difficult moments.
City and field can be thought of not just geographically and not just in terms of Jewish history, but also in terms of center and periphery. Being at the center, as in being a cultural majority, or being assimilated, has the advantage of fitting in. It also has the disadvantage of being so normal that you don’t strive or see what’s missing. Creativity is often found amongst those who are peripheral—those who come from the field. But the price paid for this is a sense of non-belonging and estrangement. The Torah is a text for all occasions. The Law guides us through different forms of power, different stages of life.
Moses’s advice comes down to asking us not just to relish the blessing of conquest and settling down, but to store away the blessing of adaptability. Will we feel blessed not just on the way up to Jerusalem but the way down?
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins