Anticipate the light of success shining upon a new world, renewing it with health and spectacular beauty. * The imminent redemption promises such intense healing that it completely removes the nightmarish trauma of generations.
This parsha is known for the tochecha, the harsh words of rebuke G-d delivered to the Jewish people, in which the most exacting punishments associated with Galus-exile are threatened.
When a Jew cries out “Daloi galus! (Enough with exile!)” and “Moshiach now!” – were he simply to want it sincerely it would be fulfilled at once, without any delay (and there is no need to wait even the short duration described in the verse, “His word runs swiftly”), being that the redemption is already here in the world and a Jew must simply reveal it! * The lesson of the mahn.
“I will remember My covenant with Yaakov, and My covenant with Yitzchak too. I will also remember My covenant with Avraham, and I will remember the Land.”
Two sections of the Torah are extremely difficult to read with their harsh rebukes of the Jewish people. The first such passage is in this week’s parsha, B’Chukosai.
This Shabbos we will be reading the Torah portion of Behar. The word “Behar – on the mountain” refers to the giving of the Torah on Har Sinai. The first topic in the Parsha is the laws of Shmita. On the very first Pasuk (25:1), Rashi comments: “What [special relevance] does the subject of Shmita [the “release” of fields in the seventh year] have to Mount Sinai? Were not all the commandments stated at Sinai? However, [this teaches us that] just as the mitzva of Shmita and its general principles and its finer details were all stated at Sinai, likewise, all of them were stated – their general principles [together with] their finer details – at Sinai
Among the myriads of Bitachon messages that the Torah gives us is a profound message which comes from the mitzvah of Shmita
The Torah generally does not raise questions about its own dictates. The Torah gives voice to G-d’s will. Our responses are not what the Torah is about. Yes, in several of the narratives, the Torah will describe the actions of the Jewish people; how they accepted, followed and submitted to the Divine will or, when they rejected it. But, the Torah never introduces a hypothetical challenge to G-d’s will.
One of the important teachings of Chassidus is that the curses contained in the Torah, particularly the curses mentioned in this week’s parsha, known as the tochecha (as well as in the expanded version of the tochecha in the book ofmD’varim), are really blessings in disguise. Many a Torah commentator has demonstrated that the curses that sound most painful and harsh are actually positive and sublime blessings.
“If you will go in the way of My statutes and guard My commandments and you will observe them; then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.”
When a Jew cries out “Daloi galus! (Enough with exile!)” and “Moshiach now!” – were he simply to want it sincerely it would be fulfilled at once, without any delay (and there is no need to wait even the short duration described in the verse, “His word runs swiftly”), being that the redemption is already here in the world and a Jew must simply reveal it! * The lesson of the mahn.
This parsha opens with the laws concerning the Sabbatical year known as Shmita.
A person must recognize an obligation to treat his or her “underling” not only as an equal but as his or her master. The vaunted role as a person in whom power is vested only comes with the immense responsibility towards those who serve you.
May 19, 2021