Parashat Ki Tavo

One of the verses of this parashah says: “God will put you at the head and not at the tail, you will always be above and you will never be below, if you listen to God’s commandments, and fulfill them carefully”. Hence the custom we perform at the Rosh Hashanah table in the evening, when we eat lamb or fish head and say: “may we be head and not tail next year”. However, after reflecting on this, a concern arose in me: If we know that the head is above and the back is below, why does the Torah repeat “you shall be above and not below”, was it not enough that it says that God will put you at the head? Many times, in the different areas of life, such as work, we feel bored, listless, or, on the contrary, too comfortable, perhaps out of habit, or knowing that our salary is still waiting for us at the end of the month, causing us to relax too much. Stop being a tail, and get out of your comfort zone, says God, go to the forefront in everything you do, and do not stagnate in a sedentary state, because that will cause you to go down a level. Just as when you go up an escalator in the opposite direction, if you stop you will go down. But not everything that we think will lift us up is always good, as many times we can be harmed. The end of the verse reveals it to us: “if you listen to God’s commandments and keep them carefully”. Only a true change will lead us to happiness.