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This week's Torah portion (i.e., Bechukotai) includes the first great "rebuke" (i.e., tochechah: הוכחה) of the community of Israel given in the Scriptures (the second is found in Ki Tavo, i.e., Deut. 28:15-68). In this sober and ominous section, God promises the people great blessing if they would obey Him (Lev. 26:3-13), but He forewarns that exile, persecution and other progressively worse punishments would befall them if they would break faith with Him (Lev. 26:14-46). The sages note that divine censure would come if the people "forgot" about God or otherwise became careless in their observance of His laws. They point out that the refrain "if you walk contrary to me" (והלכתם עמי בקרי) - which occurs several times during the rebuke - really means "if you walk carelessly (i.e., keri: קרי) with me." Rashi notes that the verb קָרָה means "to befall" or "to happen" and therefore suggests a sense of randomness (the related word mikreh [מִקְרֶה] means "coincidence"). If the people regarded the events of life as "random," then God would reciprocate by bringing senseless trouble into their lives... For this reason the sages regard a careless attitude about God's will as the very first step to inevitable apostasy. In other words, regarding whatever happens in life as mere "coincidence" essentially denies God's Presence (hashgachah pratit), and this attitude will eventually call for God's corrective intervention. People may be "hot or cold" regarding their relationship with Him, but God will never give the option of affecting indifference toward Him... Indeed, God often brings hardship into our lives to regain our attention and cause us to return to Him. As C.S. Lewis once said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
The portion begins, "If you walk in my statutes (i.e., bechukotai: בחקתי) and guard my commandments and you do them..." (Lev. 26:3), which led Rabbi Hanina to ask why the seemingly superfluous phrase, "and you do them" (וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אתָם) was included here. After all, if the people would walk in God's statutes and guard his commandments, wouldn't they necessarily be doing them? He then suggested that the vowels of the word otam ("them") should be vocalized as atem (אַתֶּם), "you," which would then change the sense of the phrase to become, "you shall make (עָשָׂה) yourselves" (i.e., into God's image). The logical corollary of this seems to imply that if you do not walk in God's statutes and guard his commandments, you will disfigure the image of God within you...
Interestingly, God specifically cites the failure to observe the Sabbatical Year (i.e., shemittah), mentioned earlier in parashat Behar, as part of the reason why His judgment would come (Lev. 26:34-35,43). The observance of the Sabbatical Year, of course, required complete faith that God was in control of all the "happenings" of nature. Like the Sabbath day, the Sabbatical year was designated to proclaim that God is the King of the universe. Those who disregarded this law therefore denied God's rule over nature, and thereby denied the existence of spiritual reality that ultimately governs the physical world...
יִרְאַת יְהוָה רֵאשִׁית דָּעַת
חָכְמָה וּמוּסָר אֱוִילִים בָּזוּ
yeer·at · Adonai · rei·sheet · dah'·at
chokh·mah · oo·moo·sar · e·vee·leem · bah'·zoo
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and moral discipline." (Prov. 1:7)
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The Scriptures warn us to "pay more careful attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away" (Heb. 2:1). We must be anchored to the truth lest we become shipwrecked in our faith. Drifting occurs slowly and almost imperceptibly, though the end result is as deadly as openly turning away from God in outright apostasy. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, "The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." The devil seeks to lull you to sleep...
Spiritual danger is just as real as physical danger, though most people pretend it isn't because it isn't as easily seen. The danger today is to give up hope, to "go with the flow," to become numb, to drift off asleep, and to die inside... It is far more dangerous to tranquilly ignore God's mercy, or to make a pretense of knowing God's grace, than it is to blatantly break his law. Therefore the urgent need is to remember, to hear, and to awaken the soul to face the truth about reality. We must focus the heart, concentrate the will, and consciously "set" the Lord always before us (Psalm 16:8). Each day we must awaken from our native emptiness to reaffirm the central truth: "Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God; the LORD is one; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (Deut. 6:4-5). As the Apostle Paul said, "Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Messiah will give you light" (Eph. 5:14).
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Therefore we must be vigilant to secure our high calling in Messiah: "Let us know; let us press on (i.e., נִרְדְּפָה, "pursue after") to know the LORD; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth" (Hosea 6:3). The day is drawing near, and now - more than ever - we must remain steadfast. May God help you pursue him be'khol levavkha – "with all your heart" – because He has promised, "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13). And may the love of the LORD be upon you, even as you put your hope in him (Psalm 33:22).
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