What, me cursed?!

After the snake offered Eve the Forbidden Fruit in Gan Eden (The Garden of Eden), God cursed the snake by telling it that "On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat, all the days of your life" (Genesis 3:14).
 
Rabbi Simcha Bunem commented that since dust is everywhere - and dust is what the snake eats - it would never go hungry. Not much of a curse, eh?

However, the Rabbi said, human beings periodically do get hungry. We sometimes are in want. We sometimes are in pain. We sometimes are in need of help and comfort. And sometimes we reach out to God for that help. We ask for inspiration. We seek insight. We pray for strength.

The snake does not. It doesn’t need to. It has all the dust it wants, and as such, has little. It has no struggles. It asks for nothing. It doesn’t need to overcome anything.

And THAT is its curse.