R. Avital Hochstein on Parashat Ki Tavo: Clearing the Holy from the Home

Our parashah describes a ceremony known as vidui ma’aser. The word vidui here from the root י.ד.ה. probably means something like “declaration of thanks” (like the prayer Modim), but can be also literally translated as “confession,” like the vidui familiar to us from our High Holiday liturgy. What at first seems like an idyllic description of a perfect covenant in our land turns, through a reading of a Medieval commentator, into a pathway to move forward after sin and covenantal ru...