Parshat Bechukotai

May 23, 2008 · Filed Under Bechukotai ·

Last week’s Parsha, Behar, laid out (in summary) the rules of Shmita, Yovel, slaves, redeeming Jews, charging interest, and idols, and Rav Kook explained that the reason why the parsha began by saying “vayidaber Hashem el Moshe behar sinai-the Lord spoke to Moses on mount sinai”(25:1)* was because through these halachas Hashem gave us, He was given us the opportunity to bring ourselves closer to Him. The link to Har Sinai is that, on it, Hashem gave us our mission in this world- to bring down Kedusha, and the parsha continued to elaborate on the tools He had given us to actualise this goal.

This week’s parsha, Bechukotai, begins two psukim into perek kaf-vav (26), which began in Behar, and also ends by stating “eleh hamitzvot asher tziva Hashem et Moshe el b’nai yisrael behar sinai-these are the commandments that the L-rd gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai”. Clearly, the enjabment between the two parshiot, and the repition of the idea that these are the mitzvot Hashem gave us on Har Sinai hint that there must be some sort of connection between the two-it must show that Parshat Bechukotai is also illustrating ways for us to fulfill our job as Hashem’s am segula, and is continuing from last week’s portion.

However, contrary to last week’s parsha, which merely lists many halachot, Bechukotai begins to ennumerate the ramifications of following (or NOT following (to your potentially grave misfortune, as we see) ) the mitzvot Hashem commanded us. In Perek kaf-vav, both physical and spiritual rewards are enumerated, followed by a large listing of punishments we will recieve, should we chose not to do as Hashem has said. It can be found rather discouraging that the section on punishment is much larger than that of both physical and spiritual reward combined(31 psukim vs. 10!!) and, even more disparaging, is the fact that Hashem even laid out a plan of retribution for us, in the first place!!

The midrash deals with both of these two issues in a very beatiful manner. If we look at pasuk gimmel-3, the beginning of the section on reward, we see that the word “im” starts the sentence, and the word itself begins with the letter “aleph”, the first letter of our hebrew alphabet. This section ends in pasuk yud gimmel-13, the last word is “komimiyut”, which ends with the letter “taf”-the last letter of the hebrew alphabet. We can learn from this that, if we are to follow Hashem’s torah from aleph to taf (a to z (zee or zed depending where you come from!)) (ie, we keep all the mitzvot Hashem has laid out for us), we can rest assured knowing that all of the reward Hashem has promised us will be recieved!

Ok, that part wasn’t so relevant to the issue at hand, I just felt like it was just too awesome to be possibly left out. Here’s where the tie comes through- if we comparethe above in the same manner with the first letter of the first word in the section on punishment (which begins in the 14th pasuk) and the last letter of the last word in the section, in the 45th pasuk, we are left with the letters “vav” at the beginning and “hey” at the end.
These two sets are symbolic to show us that, the midrash explains, although there is such a large amount of information concerning the punishment, Hashem doesn’t REALLY want to punish us. The time spent on the atonement of our sins will be short in comparison to the time in which he will shower us with goodness-represented by the whole alphabet in its entirety as opposed to the letters “vav” and “hey”, which are right next to each other in the aleph-beis.

To further reinforce the idea that Hashem wishes to continue shining his countenance upon us, even in times of tsoures and hardships he may need to send our way, it is interesting to note that both the letters “hey” and “vav” are key components in the four-letter name of Hashem, representing that even in diffculties, Hashem is still with us.

Shabat shalom-and may this be the last we have to experience in golus!

*All translations of psukim are taken from the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh

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