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Our Parsha Bechukotai is but another in the series of Parshiyot usually paired with the one it preceeds, in this case Parsha Behar, as a doubleheader.
Therefore, yet another opportunity exists to emphasize, in another way, the connection between the Jew and Eretz Yisrael.
When we parallel the laws of Shabbos: six days you shall work and you shall rest, refrain from all manner of avodah on the seventh day… to keep it Holy, just as in emulation of Hashem’s creation of the universe; with the laws of Shemittoh: ‘I will command My blessing during the sixth year and it will provide produce for three years’ we see beyond the Hatam Sofer’s explanation that;
The laws of Shemittoh prove that the Torah was given in Shemayim (heaven). Had the Torah been of mortal origin, how could any human promise, ‘I will command My blessing during the sixth year and it will provide produce for three years’? — something which is beyond the realm of the natural, and a way to test whether Torah is genuine.” (Torah Gems, Aharon Yaakov Greenberg, Parsha Behar, page 331)
We see that the halachot of Shabbos and the halachot of Shemittoh connect and bond the Jew and his Land — “Eretz Yisrael” for eternity, or as expressed in an oldies ballad from the late 1950s;
“The Twelfth of Never” sung and recorded by Johnny Mathis, Donnie Osmond and others. For us, the Land of Israel is a one-of-a-kind, unique land granted by Hashem to His Am Yehudit — his Am Segula: Light unto the other nations and His Land — a land like none other, to be loved, embraced, possessed, tended and cared for.
And to reinforce that bond and connection, our parsha contrasts the brachot which the B’nai Yisrael will receive for cleaving to and adhering to the laws of Torah with the klalot, the punishments which will befall the Jews if they stray away from Torah or rebell against Hashem’s dominion over the world.
Rabbi Meyer Fendel wrote in a Young Israel Parsha Sheet on Bechukotai in 1995 regarding a posuk from amidst the terrible tidings of the Tochocha (the reproof);
“I will make the land desolate; and your foes who dwell upon it will be desolate.” (Parsha Bechukotai, Sefer Vayikra, Perek 26, posuk 32) He then brings a Rashi on the posuk, “This is good tidings for Israel, that her enemies will not find happiness in the Land and she will remain … barren from her inhabitants.”
Rabbi Fendel then reasons that a question may be asked; “How will Israel benefit if her enemies will… be unable to inhabit the land?” He brings a Ramban which concurs with Rashi but which adds something more;
“This is also a great proof and promise, for in the whole inhabited world, one cannot find such a goodly land which was [once] inhabited and yet is as ruined as she is today, for since the time that we left her, she has not accepted any nation or people, and though they all try to settle her, their efforts are in vain.”
In essence, Rabbi Fendel expresses that the Ramban tells us that the Land ‘went into Galut’ along with the B’nai Yisrael and could not bear harvest to strangers on her soil.
“Herein lies the good tiding, in which … Chazal found a source of hope: the Land would never produce for strangers — but for Klal Yisrael returning home, she would. Eretz Yisrael lay dormant for 2,000 years, … simply because she was awaiting the return of her children.”
“… The Land was so barren and so desolate that one could not fail to see this as fulfillment of the Biblical “I will lay waste to the land.” (Another translation; Parsha Bechukotai, Sefer Vayikra, Perek 26, posuk 32)
And yet Chazal saw the hope and foresaw the return of B’nai Yisrael to the land: “The Land will wait and remain desolate, as a sign both of the sins of Israel and it’s guaranteed return.” (Parsha Bechukotai, Rabbi Meyer Fendel, National Council of Young Israel Parsha sheet, 27 May, 1995)
A commentary in Sefer L’lmode Ul’lamed (page 126) adds another dimension to Rabbi Fendel’s Parsha HaShevua.
Earlier in our Parsha, the Tochochah, the admonishment, the reproof, is explicit as to the punishments that will befall B’nai Yisrael if they violate Hashem’s Torah.
“I (Hashem), will set my face against you and you will be smitten before your enemies. They that hate you will rule over you.” ((Parsha Bechukotai, Sefer Vayikra, Perek 26, posuk 17)
The commentary is as follows;
“The text implies that included among the enemies will be those from Yisrael, enemies from within. Thes enemies say our Rabbanim, are the most vicious of adversaries.” They are the most dangerous of all enemies. “They are traitors against their own kind who know where their fellow men are most vulnerable.” (Sefer L’lmode Ul’lamed, Parsha Bechukotai, page 126)
They are Jews who seem to deny their roots and do not accept their Judaism. They put their “Emunah” in mortals — in the prowess of man, in themselves and their self-interests and self-enrichment, in the super-power of the time while seeking to destroy their fellow Jews, Jewish roots, laws, history and heritage.
It is tragic that often the worst enemy of the Jewish people, and those most dangerous to the Jews, are the Jews themselves.
As a result, the B’nai Yisrael is often deceived into feeling that all is helpless and that there is no Divine being by it’s own evil rulers; those who seek to subvert Torah, our history and our traditions to suit their own ends and self-interests.
May we be zocha in this coming year that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard and the 3 captive Chayalim and the other MIAs be liberated and returned to us and that we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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