Bechukotai 2022

1In this week’s Parsha, the Children of Israel are offered a choice: follow in the ways of God and receive great blessing; fail to do so and suffer terribly – including ejection from the Land. Yet the timing of this warning seems strange, coming as it does just as the people are poised to enter the Land of Israel. Particularly odd is that the warning targets a specific failing, namely, not observing the Shemitah. Of the 613 commandments, Shemitah, it appears, will determine the fate of Am Yisrael.

2Despite the aforementioned warning, the Talmud tells us that the Jews failed to keep the Shemitah during the First Temple period. Did they not read our Parsha? Did the Jewish leaders not teach the consequences of failing to keep Shemitah? The Talmud records several reasons for the destruction of the First Temple. According to one, the Jews failed to “recite blessings on the Torah.” A second explanation suggests that the Jews violated the three cardinal sins of idolatry, murder, and sexual misconduct. Nonetheless, it is famously reported that the seventy years of the Babylonian exile corresponded to the seventy Shemitah years that were not observed during the First Temple period. In Parshat Behar, we read, “Lest you say: ‘What shall I eat in the seventh year, as I am prevented from planting and gathering?’ I will therefore command my blessing to you and give you double in the sixth year so that it will last through the Shemitah year.” (Lev 19:20-21) If this promise was fulfilled, why didn’t the people simply observe the earth's sabbatical year? If it wasn't, it is understandable that the people would have been forced to farm in order to prevent starvation. Were the people supposed to stockpile and tighten their belts during the sixth year so as to keep Shemitah? Based on the Pasuk, it seems that the observance was connected to the bumper crop in year six. If there were none, so it appears, there would be no Shemitah..

3Both the Ramban and the Rambam discuss the context for the blessings enumerated at the beginning of our Parsha, and agree that the Torah is referring to the Messianic era. At that time, wild animals will dwell in harmony with domestic ones. There will be a return to the pre-Noachite age, when all animals were vegetarian: “To all animals of the earth and birds of the sky and creatures that crawl on the earth all that have a breath of life I have given the vegetation of the earth to eat.” (Gen 1:30) In contrast, according to the Ramban, the curses in the Parsha refer to the destruction of the First Temple, while the curses in Ki Tavo relate to the destruction of the Second Temple and are associated with the current diaspora. According to this understanding of the Parsha, there is no linkage between the blessings and curses!

4I would suggest that the promise of extra blessings in the sixth year of the Shemitah cycle is directly connected to the blessings of the Messianic era. The verse, “I will command my blessings in the sixth year,” means that the blessings that are listed in the first section of our Parsha, those blessings that we expect to receive in the times of the Messiah, will accrue in the sixth year. However, unlike the Manna which fell in double portion every Friday, the bestowal of these blessings will depend entirely upon our merit. In this regard, the Pasuk states, “Im bechukotai telechu“ (If you follow my laws, etc.”). In explaining this Pasuk, Rashi quotes the Torat Kohanim: “You shall toil in Torah.” Thus, the blessing will accrue in the sixth year only if you toil in Torah throughout your lifetime. The Tochacho describes the religious deterioration that follows the failure to learn Torah, as described by the Midrash and quoted by Rashi: “First, you fail to learn Torah; then, you fail to keep the commandments; then, you hate those who keep the Torah; then, you hate the Rabbis; then, you prevent others from learning and keeping the Torah; then, you deny that God has commanded the Torah; and finally, you deny God’s existence. (Torat Kohanim Lev 26:14). The failure to toil in Torah and its inevitable consequences were reflected first in the absence of the sixth year’s blessings. This resulted in the impossibility of Shemitah observance. The two Talmudic statements, one covering the Blessings on the Torah and the other on the major religious failures, bookend the sad process described in the Midrash Torat Kohanim.

5Today, we are blessed with many individuals who toil in Torah and many farmers who keep the Shemitah. Everywhere I go in Israel, there are bare fields with signs that read, “Here we keep the Shemitah.” This is a reversal of the Tochacha and signals a return to a more blessed and holy era.

6Dedicated to the memory of Joel Shulman and to those holy farmers who guard the Shemitah; may they prosper.