Shabbat Behar & Bechukotai

Vayikra (Leviticus) Chapters 25-27 - Rebuke

by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen

A major part of the double portion we read this week (which ends the Book of Vayikra) is what is called the Tochecha which translates as the rebuke. A chapter that promises the Children of Israel but warns them.

Here are some selections from Chapter 26.

If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce…you shall eat your fill of bread… I will grant peace in the land… You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword… I will be ever present in your midst. I will be your God, and you shall be My people.

But if, you disobey Me and remain hostile to Me, I will send misery and diseases… and discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons and your daughters…I will lay your cities in ruin and make your sanctuaries desolate, I will make the land desolate, so that your enemies will settle in it…

And I will scatter you among the nations, and Your land shall become a desolation and your cities a ruin.

In some synagogues the custom is to read it very quickly in a soft tone as if to tiptoe through what I have always found painful stuff, as quickly as possible.

On the one hand it seems so out of touch with the way we think today. Life rarely works out so simply or that we are rewarded or punished according to any rule of justice. And yet it is surprising how over the course of time it is so accurate in describing the rise and the fall of the Jewish people.

One way of looking at this, is to say that thanks to archaeology and the large amount of information that we have accumulated over the years about the culture language and literature of Mesopotamia, we can see how this sort of blessing and curse, promise and payback, was universal. Whenever monarchs came to power they would open their reign with a demand for loyalty. In exchange, they would promise protection, wealth, health, happiness, safe borders and all good things that the monarch was committed to providing. At the same time, warn that if they betrayed the monarch they would suffer from invasion, death, slavery and sickness and oppression. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. But it was a way of keeping them inline.

This part of the Torah is another example of how external culture and attitudes provide a background to the Torah. Everybody at that time would have expected promises from rulers, while as we know full well that, politicians then and now that they will not or cannot keep them. It is pro-forma. It is a ritual.

But there's another way of looking at this, perhaps more psychologically. As human beings we need reassurance. To feel we are loved and valued. That our parents are looking out for us, protecting us and enabling us to find our way in the world. Even if we know full well, they can’t always protect us and sometimes their claim to want the best for us turns up to be the worst for us. Nevertheless, we remain emotionally attached to our parents and crave the feeling of warmth and love that we long for. In return we hope our parents will stand by us even when we do wrong, disobey and make mistakes. We hope they will give us another chance to do better next time.

Perhaps we should read these Biblical formal declarations as words of promise and rebuke intertwined. Designed to give us a feeling that there some power we can feel cares about us. Like a parent warning how easy it is to go off the tracks and make the wrong decisions and suffer consequences.

This is what I understand by the statement “ Visiting the errors of fathers on to children” (Shemot 20:5). Visiting the errors of parents on the children does not mean that you actually punish someone else for what someone else did. That is certainly not Jewish Law. But if parents do fail there will be consequences. We are commanded to love and respect our parents regardless. In the same way this chapter is a designed to help us through life and make the right decisions. But as humans we often fail. And even so we can come back from failure.

This is both warning and reassurance and like naughty children or rebellious adults, we need to be warned of the consequences as well a promised a future.

Shabbat Shalom

Jeremy

May 2025