I AGREE

On April 1, 2010, a British video-game retailer called GameStation conducted an experiment.

Like every company selling things online, GameStation had a page of Terms and Conditions. And like every page of Terms and Conditions, absolutely nobody read it.

We all know how this works: endlessly scrolled pages explaining what happens in the event of an arbitration in Delaware, and at the bottom a little box saying I AGREE, which we click with enormous confidence despite having no idea what we have just agreed to.

GameStation wondered how far they could push this. So, for April Fool’s Day, they quietly inserted a clause stating that anyone placing an order – agreed to grant GameStation an option to claim his or her “immortal soul,” collectible by one of its “duly authorised minions.”

Customers who actually read the clause could opt out – “If you (a) do not believe you have an immortal soul, (b) have already given it to another party, or (c) do not wish to grant Us such a license, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause.” – and if they opted out, they could receive a £5 voucher.

It won’t surprise you that almost nobody opted out. In fact, it surprised me, when I researched this story, that anyone did opt out! Apparently some did. Go figure! But the vast majority gave up their souls to GameStation. Can you believe it? 7,500 people surrendered their immortal souls to a computer-game retailer rather than read the small print.

About a week later, GameStation revealed what had happened – and of course it was picked up by the international media. The company announced it would not be enforcing the clause—which was nice of them theologically, and in any event it might have been hard to enforce legally—but the point had been made. People will agree to almost anything, provided you put it in very small print.

You may be wondering what this story has to do with Parshat Ki Tavo. Simple. Parshat Ki Tavo is the portion in the Torah where the Jewish people are introduced to what may be the most extraordinary Terms and Conditions ceremony in history.

Moshe tells them that once the nation crosses the Jordan into Eretz Yisrael, everyone must assemble between two mountains: six tribes on Mount Gerizim, six on Mount Ebal, with the Kohanim, Levi’im – and the Aron HaBrit – in the valley between them.

The Levi’im will turn toward one mountain and proclaim a blessing, and the entire nation will answer Amen. Then the Levi’im will turn toward the other mountain and proclaim the corresponding curse, and again the nation will answer Amen.

Every Jew is going to be physically involved: everybody has a place to stand, everybody has to listen, and everybody has to respond. Amen. And what does Amen mean? It means: I agree. I affirm this. I place myself inside this covenant.

Which raises an obvious question: why was any of this necessary?

The Jewish people had already stood at Mount Sinai, they already said naaseh v’nishma, they had already lived under the Torah’s laws for forty years. Why was this gigantic national reacceptance ceremony necessary?

 The answer is the difference between clicking I AGREE, and actually reading through the terms and conditions first. In other words, there is a huge difference between assuming a commitment and proactively choosing one.

Don’t forget, the generation at Gerizim and Ebal were not the people who had stood at Mount Sinai. Their parents and grandparents had said naaseh v’nishma, but they had simply grown up with the result. Torah was there. Shabbat was there. Judaism was the atmosphere in which they had spent their entire lives.

And that creates a danger—it’s something very subtle, called autopilot. You can spend your entire life being Jewish without ever consciously deciding to be Jewish.

You come to shul because your parents came to shul, you keep kosher because your kitchen has always been kosher, you make Kiddush because that is just what happens at the beginning of a Shabbat meal. And that’s wonderful—mitzvot are supposed to become woven into the fabric of our lives. But habit contains a danger. Eventually you find yourself clicking I AGREE without really knowing what you agreed to.

Which explains an extraordinary pasuk immediately before this ceremony (Deut. 27:9): הַסְכֵּת וּשְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה נִהְיֵיתָ לְעָם לַה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ – “Be silent and listen, Israel: this day you have become a people to Hashem your God.” This day? Surely they had been a people for forty years.

Rashi gives a magnificent explanation: every day, the covenant should appear to you as though today you entered it. Every day, you need to be fully conscious of the terms and conditions. Judaism may be inherited, but it must be renewed.

My father’s Amen cannot be my Amen. He can teach me the words and put me in the right place between the mountains—but sooner or later I have to open my own mouth and say, loud and clear: Amen.

And there is another fascinating detail that takes the idea further. Look at what the curses are about: someone who secretly worships an idol; who dishonors his parents; who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker; who misdirects a blind person; who perverts the justice of the stranger, orphan or widow; who secretly strikes another person.

The common denominator, the commentators teach us, is that these are overwhelmingly sins committed in private, when nobody else knows.

With that insight, suddenly the ceremony takes on a whole different meaning. The most public covenant ceremony imaginable is actually about what you do when nobody is watching.

Thousands of Jews stand on mountains shouting Amen together—agreeing that Judaism cannot just be a public performance. Anyone can behave properly when the room is full. The real covenant begins when the room is empty.

Take the boundary marker. Move it six inches in the middle of the night.

Nobody is going to see you. Your neighbor comes out the next morning and wonders whether he remembered the line incorrectly. But you know what happened, God knows what happened—and unless you’re conscious of the terms and conditions, it will happen – and life goes on.

Or honoring parents. It is easy to give a magnificent speech at your father’s or mother’s birthday when everyone is watching. The real test comes when your mother calls you and asks for a favor, or when you need to take care of a parent who is sick. There’s no audience, no photograph, and no applause. And that is precisely where the covenant lives.

This idea matters enormously in an age when so much of life has become performative. Someone gives charity—there is a picture on Facebook. Someone visits somebody in the hospital—and it appears on Instagram. You want people to know what you’re thinking, what you’re doing, how good you are.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not against photographs. Publicizing good things can inspire others. But the evidence of the mitzvah must never become more important than the mitzvah itself – because God isn’t interested in what your life looks like for public consumption. He is interested in what your life is.

We naturally measure someone’s faith and conscientiousness by the things that are easiest to see: how someone dresses, which shul he attends, which school the kids go to, and so on. But Mount Ebal reminds us that God is much more interested in the information unavailable to everyone else.

How do you treat people who cannot help you? How do you speak to those closest to you when no one else is watching? How do you behave in business when you can get away with something that is not as it should be? The covenant with God is not a costume.

It is a contract. And the final curse is the most telling one of all: אָרוּר אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָקִים אֶת דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת לַעֲשׂוֹת אוֹתָם – “Cursed is the one who does not uphold the words of this Torah to perform them.” And everybody says Amen.

It is an extraordinary thing to ask of an entire nation. The Torah does not ask whether you feel inspired at that moment, or whether you have resolved every philosophical or theological question. It asks something much more basic and much more adult – Do you accept responsibility?

In our modern online world, we like being able to unsubscribe, cancel at any time, and preferably receive a full refund. But the things that matter most do not work that way. Marriage does not work that way. Parenthood does not work that way. And neither does Judaism.

That is the difference between a covenant and a Terms and Conditions page. GameStation succeeded because nobody could be bothered to read. The Torah stages a national spectacle so that nobody can ever claim they never knew about it.

It’s a great message for Elul. Time for us to think carefully: which parts of my Judaism did I just click I AGREE to, without worrying about what it was all about? When did I last think seriously about why I keep Shabbat, and whether I’m doing it properly? When did I last make a bracha and actually think about the words I’m saying?

And most importantly: what kind of Jew am I when nobody else can see me?

Elul doesn’t ask us to reinvent Judaism. It asks us to reopen the agreement, read it again, and choose it again.

A beautiful Rashi brings the idea full circle. Moshe gives the Torah to the tribe of Levi, and the rest of the nation becomes alarmed: “We stood at Sinai too! What if one day the Levi’im claim it was given only to them?”

And Moshe is delighted. According to Rashi, that is when he says: הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה נִהְיֵיתָ לְעָם—”Today you became a people.” Why today? Because today you cared enough to claim the Torah as your own.

That is maturity: not just doing what your parents did, or rejecting it because they did it – but taking what they gave you, understanding it, and making it yours.

So, back to GameStation. They eventually returned those 7,500 souls, which was very generous of them. But there is a serious lesson inside that ridiculous story, and it’s this: the most important things in life should never be done by accident—and our Jewish heritage, the Torah, being the best Jew we can be – that’s the most important commitment we have.

Our parents may have placed us inside this covenant. And it’s true that generations carried it across continents, through expulsions and persecutions, and handed it to us. But eventually, every one of us arrives at our own Gerizim and Ebal. And we need to be the ones who say Amen.

God does not ask us to click a box without reading the small print. He asks us to listen carefully, to understand what we inherited, and to decide whether we are prepared to make it our own.

And when we say Amen, we are reaffirming a chain of commitment that stretches back all the way to Mount Sinai.

And that is the greatest blessing of all.