Lev
25.29 to 26.46
By
Boker tov! (Today is a special day for me; it is yortzeit for my mother, who died 25 years ago. She tried to
teach me right from wrong but unfortunately, I don’t think I was a very good
pupil. So I dedicate this dvar to her, on this theme of right and wrong)
This week’s parsha is
Behukotai, and is sometimes paired with last week’s parsha Behar.
Behukotai means “my laws” and it concludes the book of Leviticus. Much of the parsha deals with
blessings that will come to
The parsha begins with enticing
promises from Hashem, which we repeat every Shabbat:
‘If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments I will give you rains in
their season, an the land shall yield her produce...I
will give you peace in the land and none shall make you afraid...” But, if the
people do not follow the commandments, Hashem will
cause enemies to strike the Israelites. They will lose their food supply,
cities will be laid waste and worst of all, lose the land itself and Israel be
scattered amongst all other nations. Yet, even if matters should come to their
worst conclusion, God still promises to to renew the
Covenant made with “the ancients whom I freed from
Why the need for such a dichotomy,
a powerful system of right or wrong, black or white, one extreme pitted against
the other? Would our ancestors only
respond to “ do it this way or else” , in the same way we treat young children
? In our day and age, we seem to always
challenge a dualistic view of two choices, right or wrong , a system that does
not allow greys in between. Would it be fair to assume that people back then also would challenge the
community’s rules? On one hand it’s
certainly far easier to live a life structured on fear of punishment,
especially from on high. On the other hand... it becomes crazy -making to be
allowed a whole spectrum of choices. If
we can have a whole range of greys, a universe of options on how to behave, how
do we choose our moral values for behaving
better as humans.? Perhaps having only
two paths from which to choose might force us to be more focused and in essence
“clean up our act.?....
I live with somebody like
this, someone who seems to need the structure and very clear guidelines of “do
it right or the punishments will follow” (such as “do your homework or you
don’t get to go to the party”) .Only today we call punishments “consequences”
in the hope, however faint on some days, that people will develop nuance to
their decision making, and learn to see there is a middle ground and a
compromise. This is a journey we call “growing up”. It seems to take a very
long time for this process to kick in with certain individuals!
I asked a learned friend
about the severity of punishment in the Tochechot. (Thank you, Ian Kagedan, who
taught Chumash for 12 years :) Ian proposed that at the time of writing of this
Parshah, indeed the period that the entire Book of Leviticus was written, people were very much LESS observant of laws
and traditions than we are today. I n order to provide a moral compass, the
Prophets of the era had to “raise the bar”. They created standards of behaviour
that were high, but not inaccessible or
unattainable. These standards then could be seen as something to strive for
in the journey to improve oneself, and the community over all. The rewards of
self, and community improvement are great.. The other end of the behaviour
spectrum, the Tochechot are graphic, visual creations, kind of like an
infomercial, to invoke fear and avoidance of immoral actions..
So here we are, given a
two-fold path in Behukotai. Choose to obey Hashem’s commandments, or live with
destruction and death as a consequence of not living within the Law. I
raise this question: does having rules
and commandments cut into our personal freedom? Not too long ago, my answer was
a resounding yes. It was
fashionable, a lifetime ago, to rebel against the conventions of society, to
question authority, to change the world. But as we know, something has shifted.
For me maybe it was becoming a parent, maybe it was getting co-opted by
society, maybe it was simply getting older. I found that rather than me
changing the world, the world has changed ME. Fortunately not exactly like
Winston Smith in the novel 1984, who after a journey of torture and
brainwashing had tears in his eyes because he devotedly came to LOVE Big Brother!
Now I admit I’ve come to see that rules do bring
security and safety. Much as children
need structure, grownups feel grounded when the law is made clear on how
we should treat each other, animals, and the environment . Commandments create
a common language, a safety net as to
what is acceptable and what isn’t. In my case, I dare say it’s been a long and
winding road to come to say what I just did. Part of me still doesn’t believe
that this is where I‘ve come to!
Perhaps in having strong
admonitions of what NOT to do, people can then choose what to obey, and what
not. Some may choose to live every law to the letter, and others to varying
degrees. So maybe the greys are “built-in”, after all?
Now I ask another question: what are the
blessings and curses of today? Will someone please tell me where they are
written... from on high..with a roadmap of consequences?!!! There are days I
wish for a simpler life, when there were prophets around to give some moral and
ethical leadership in the name of Creator of the Universe. It seems we have no moral compass in secular
society, and we have many urgent problems. How to raise our children in a safe
and caring environment, how to respect the planet, how to share resources more
equitably, and how to do something so apparently simple but almost impossible
to do: to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Time and again I come to impasses in the workplace. Suicidal
teenagers bring us to the wall. At such times I sometimes dare to bring in the
concept of a Higher Power. Aware that just as often, people look at me as if I
really DO have horns, or more kindly, two heads, given the lack of a spiritual
orientation in our daily lives.
Behukotai concludes ..chapter
27 verse 34, “These are the Commandments that Lord gave Moses for the people
The Haftarah for this week is
from Jeremiah. Just as there is a dichotomy of right and wrong in the
Torah portion, the Haftarah also sets
out the twofold path. Jeremiah trusts in
God, and paints a poetic image of those who follow in God’s ways:>Verse 8:
“Blessed is he who trusts in the Lord..he shall be
like a tree planted by waters, sending forth its roots by a stream..it
does not cease to yield fruit”
Sinners, on the other hand,
rely on things that are futile and worthless .In abandoning God’s ways, these
people will wither, when they “foresake the Fount of
living waters”
Etz Hayim has a lovely way of
knitting the parsha and the Haftarah together...and I
think, bringing a shade of grey to the dichotomy issue. I quote from page 763:
“No aspect of life is immune to Divine Judgement.
Inner deception yields external results that destroy one’s life on the Land.
Outward behaviour affects one’s inner strength and spiritual resiliency.” The
texts affirm that having faith and trusting in the Divine will renew us, as
individuals, and as a People.
If my mom is watching from
above, and I think she is, she’d be laughing about what I said about the
usefulness of having rules :)
Shabbat Shalom!