Bechukotai: Coping with Curses and Blessings

Let's be honest: the pshat — plain reading — of Parshat Bechukotai presents a theology that's pretty hard to take which I suspect most of us in the room don't buy into. If we "follow [God's] decrees, keep [God's] commands and fulfill them" THEN, God will look favorably upon us, grant us all sorts of blessings and even living amongst us. In sum God says, "I will be your God, and you shall be My people."

But IF NOT, as the Israelis I know might say, "OY VAH VOY"…then all sorts of awful — truly awful — things will happen. These things are SO awful that the custom is while leyning the "Tochecha" — the iteration of the curses that will befall us — the leyner is supposed to whisper them so they can be barely heard. (Thankfully, the verses I leyned today were from Behar not Bechukotai ;-))

How can modern non-Orthodox Jews derive meaning and significance from this notion of a covenantal God who so straightforwardly asserts that we will be rewarded for halachically observing ALL the 613 commandments (not just observing them but also following and performing them) and draconically punished for not keeping "ALL of God's commands"? How is the black and white halakhic choice between blessing and curse relevant to me?

I want to argue that there are two larger lessons that emerge from Bechukotai. The first is that human beings have agency…that the Torah is teaching that the choice we make to live a good and moral life matters. Not because we will otherwise be punished and cursed but because the impact of the connective tissue of all of that moral living is indeed a world in which God will be dwelling with us and walking among us (Vayikra 26:12). As we say, "olam chesed yibaneh," if we build this world from love then God will build this world from love.

The second is to think beneath the pshat of what God is asking of us when we're asked to "follow My decrees, keep My commands AND fulfill them." The fact that there are three verbal actions that are required of us to meet God's condition — "to walk/follow," "to keep/observe/guard," and "to fulfill/do" God's laws and commands — suggests that A LOT more is being required of us than simply following the "letter" of the halakhic regimen. Both Rashi and Ibn Ezra observe that the implication of these three verbal emphases is that the underlying obligation is to "study Torah laboriously" (Rashi) and "to study, to teach and observe" (Ibn Ezra).

What God is truly asking of us in demanding that "we study and teach Torah laboriously" is to understand what the overarching purpose of the halakha is and I think Bechukotai provides some pretty clear guidance…or at least clues. While the tochecha is so painful in its detail that it's difficult to even read much less analyze, a careful eye will observe a clear overlap with many of the plagues that God visited upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And the longer we do not "listen" to God "despite all of this" (26:27), the more stubborn we are, the worse God's ratcheting up of the punishments become. "I will punish you seven times more for your sins" so much that we will cannibalize our own children, a metastasizing of the final plague against the Egyptians that is truly hard to fathom.

Really? How many failures to observe God's commandments results in THIS? Three — two — or perhaps even just one? For me, the disproportionality of these punishments is so extreme that something much larger simply MUST be going on here and the words of the tochecha provided some hints. "I will break down the majesty of your power…Your strength will be spent in vain…They will stumble over one another as if fleeing the sword, when no one chases them…You will have no power to stand before your enemies." It is the human arrogance of power and lack of humility that the Torah is concerned with and the halakhic regimen is God's ADHD methodology for keeping that human tendency in check. And so at the end of the tochecha, with all of the Israelites scattered in their enemies' lands, what is the most essential step to redemption? That "their obstinate hearts are humbled and they atone for their sin" (Vayikra 26:41).

Donniel Hartman, in his recent book about Jewish identity introduces the idea of being an "Exodus Jew" — a Jew whose identity comes from choosing to observe the mitzvot of the Torah. But he argues that this identity is not necessarily about following all 613 mitzvot.

"One of the core principles of the Torah is that when a person fulfills one commandment from the 613 commandments properly…they merit life in the world to come…[and] at the bedrock of this notion of the Exodus Covenant is the belief that Judaism is not a spectator sport. Exodus Judaism is first and foremost the challenge to find your commandment…what counts is whether you are a player."

The choice the Torah puts before us in Bechukotai is NOT to be halakhic Jews or else be cursed. Rather it is to follow the prophet Micah's guidance in Micah 6:8: "You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what God requires of you: Only to do justice And to love goodness, And to walk modestly with your God." Can I wake every day and be an Exodus Jew who simply walks modestly in the world, does justice and loves goodness?

This is my one mitzvah…MY Halacha.