AND THE LORD SPOKE TO MOSES,

SAYING, SPEAK TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AND SAY TO THEM: WHEN A MAN EXPRESSES A

VOW, [PLEDGING THE] VALUE OF LIVES TO THE LORD… AND IF [THE PERSON IS] SIXTY

YEARS OLD OR OVER, IF IT IS A MALE, THE VALUE SHALL BE FIFTEEN SHEKELS, WHILE

FOR A FEMALE, IT SHALL BE TEN SHEKELS.

(Vayikra 27: 1-2,7)

And if [the person is]

sixty years old [or over]

When people reach a venerable age, a woman's value becomes closer to that of a

man. This is why a man decreases [in value] in his old age [to] below a third

of his value [as an adult, namely, from 50 shekels to 15], while a woman [in

her old age] decreases [to] only one third of her value [namely, from 30

shekels to 10]. As people say: "An old man in the house

is a breach in the house, while an old woman in the house is a hidden treasure

in the house and a good sign for the house."

(Rashi Vayikra 27:7, Judaica Press translation)

The Jewish Torat

Kohanim, the Jewish codex of the laws of the

priests, declares Temple endowments and vows of gifts as being not especially

pious God-pleasing acts, and least of all does it ascribe to them the slightest

value as atonement for leading a sinful life. Not in gaining riches or possessions,

but in gaining souls and hearts, in gaining lives of individuals and the

national life in the fulfillment of the ordinances,

statutes, and laws does the Jewish priesthood of the Sanctuary see its task and

mission. Its members point to "sanctification of morals and of the life of

the senses" hukim [ordinances], to "justice,

truth and right dealing in social life," mishpatim

obtaining grace," as the one and only way which – between Him and the

Israelites – joins men to God and God to men.

(Rabbi

S.R. Hirsch on Vayikra 27:1, Levy translation)

If you follow My statutes

Benjamin Segal

Offered in the hope

you shall act out of love, wanting to do God's will, as they said [in Avot] "Make your will like His will."

Im behukotai teilekhu

or more successful summary of the Torah's attitude to the commandments of the Holy

One blessed be He than these first three words of parashat

Behukotai.

My

statutes – In contrast to

all the other ancient cultures and peoples, the Israelites understood that the

statutes and commandments came directly from the Holy One blessed be He. Of

course, the commandments were meant to be performed by

humans, but they allowed the individual to direct his deeds and raise them up

to the level of holiness – the same holiness that is characteristic of God

Himself.

You

follow – It would seem that

the divine word is perfect and unchangeable. None-the-less, we choose the root

of the third word of the opening phrase – telekhu

unchanging, halakhah is a dynamic term; its dynamism

sustains it in the face of changing times. It is also the path which walks [holekh] daily, and it is also a path that develops

daily. According to the accepted view, the Oral Torah was given together with

the Written Torah, and observance of the commandments refers to both "Torahs"

– which are actually one.

If – This is the most basic word. Here, at the

end of Vayikra, a book which contains so many laws

and statutes, we find an echo of the idea that these laws were given over to

humans; the question If they will observe those

laws remains open. There was room to assume that after the Exodus from Egypt

and the revelation at Sinai (we must recall that according to tradition our parasha was also given at Sinai) there would be no reason

to once again warn the people about what would happen to them if they failed to

keep the commandments – nevertheless, our parasha

takes pains to do so.

Such

is the background to the tokheha [prophetic

rebuke]: a divine law, including its future

developments, which is given over to human beings. Those humans

might observe the commandments, but since they enjoy freedom of will it is

certainly possible that they will not observe them.

Now

we approach the tokheha, the blessings and the

curses, and try to understand them as motivating observance of the

commandments.

How does the Torah encourage

the people to the commandments?

At

first we are confused. If observation of the commandments is a matter of choice

then what kind of choice is this!? The blessings promised to result from their

observance and the curses that will follow their violation constitute a kind of

"holding the mountain over their heads like a basin" [a midrashic reference to the acceptance of the Torah under

duress]!

In

order to deal with this question, we must take note that there is no

parallelism between the blessings and the curses. The differences between the

two passages are so great that it is impossible to view them as opposites. They

are of drastically different lengths – the blessings' passage is quite short in

comparison with that of the curses. In addition, the terms used are not sets of

antonyms and passages do not reflect each other's structure. It appears that

here there are expressed two different approaches to encouraging performance of

the commandments, and each must be discussed separately.

What

is the nature of the blessings? The needs mentioned are the most human and

basic – most of them belong to the material sphere, while only one is spiritual.

Here we find promises assuring food and offspring, and in the spiritual sphere

the basic promise of God's presence among us. The blessings are pulled in a

supernatural direction: the rains will come in their times, the

agricultural seasons overlap each other, people will eat to satiation – there

is no fearsome thing, no evil beasts, no sword. A hundred of you

shall chase ten-thousand.

Rashi noticed the

passage's exaggerations and added yet further exaggerations to them from the midrash:

A) Rain

in its season – when people don't usually go outside, e.g. on the Sabbath

night.

B) And

the tree of the field – these are the non-fruit-bearing trees, which in the

future will bear fruit.

C) And

I shall uphold My covenant with you – a new

covenant, not like the old one that you violated, but rather a new covenant

that shall not be broken, as it is said, and I shall make a new covenant

with the House of Israel and the House of Israel, etc. (Jeremiah 31).

D) And

I shall walk in your midst – I shall stroll through the Garden of Eden as

one of you, and you shall not be overwhelmed by me.

It

is clear that Rashi, basing himself on the midrash, transports the description of the blessings to the

days of the Messiah, when even the rain's timing will be perfect, all trees

shall bear fruit, and we shall all live in a new age with a new covenant, back

in the Garden of Eden.

No

matter how we view the blessings – as messianic promises or as plain

exaggerations that go beyond human experience – we wonder about their

effectiveness as motivators for the performance of the commandments. Can one be

expected to keep the commandments in order to gain such a fanciful reward – a

reward that is dependent upon the good behavior of the entire community?

If not,

can we suppose that that the blessings were not intended to motivate? It

appears that they had some other purpose – the creation of a horizon (even if

we do not believe that we will reach it today or tomorrow) that strengthens the

individual and allows him to contend with the acceptance of the yoke of the

commandments. The individual can read the blessings as a "horizon"

while still understanding that the reward he will see in his own lifetime will

be of a more limited nature – "The reward for [performance of] a

commandment is a commandment." The blessings of the tokheha

are communal (not individual) and they are not immediate.

 [It is worth emphasizing that we are not

dealing here with the debate between commentators over the timing of the

blessings – before or after death, i.e. in this world or the next. Here we are

talking about communal blessings and they are not to be discussed in the

framework of the individual's reward in world to come.]

The

question of motivation also arises in connection with the curses. Even though

the motivation is negative, the assumption is in any case that they are trying

to encourage observance of the commandments. As mentioned above, the curses are

unlike the blessings. The blessings are short (it should be noted that many

exegetes thought that the blessings' curt formulation does not bespeak their

lesser significance. On the contrary: "Empty brains said that the curses

are more numerous than the blessings, but they did not speak the truth – it is

just that the blessings were described in general terms while the curses were

elaborated in detail" – Ibn Ezra.)

It

is important to take note of the great detail in which the curses are described

and the order that they follow. Every stage ends with an additional warning:

And if, during these, you will not listen to Me, I will add…, And if, despite this, you still do not listen to Me… etc.

Let

us try to understand the structure and general nature of the curses. In my own

humble opinion the curses – as opposed to the blessings – reminded the audience

at Mount Sinai and readers throughout the biblical period (and even later!) of phenomena

with which they were very well acquainted.

That

is what we learn from Scripture – from the famines of the patriarchal period

and through the horrors of Lamentations, from the heart-rending accounts of

suffering in Psalms and the descriptions of poverty in the Prophets (all of

these being verified by the apocryphal literature and the testimony of other

peoples regarding war and famine). In the harsh ancient world, everyone was

acquainted with the curses. If the descriptions seem fantastic and

other-worldly to us today that is merely because of the place and time in which

we live – a period of (relative) peace. As soon as we think back to the middle

of the previous century or if today we wander to the ends of the earth we will

understand that these curses are based upon a cruel yet realistic world.

Since

the curses are "true," we should recall that they finally lead to a "happy

end" when the Holy One blessed be He declares: I will not despise them

covenant [made with] the ancestors. One might understand that the purpose

of the curses is not to motivate (and it is hard to accept that God would want

us to observe the commandments out of this kind of fear, as Seforno

states in the passage quoted above), but rather to renew the promise in truly desperate

times. The Torah tells us that when such things occur we must recall that

things could be worse and that we are not facing a final decree. There is hope

waiting at the end of each stage, and even in moments that seem hopeless we are

to understand and believe that at the end of the day we shall return to God's

blessing. Remarkably, therefore, despite the great dissimilarity between the

ways the blessings and the curses are respectively presented it may be said

that they function in the same manner; they emphasize the "view from above"

and the long-term promises, allowing the individual to observe the way of the

Lord in this world despite the difficulties, personal failures, stumbling, and

external circumstances that give one a feeling that he has passed the point of

no return.

In

conclusion: the purpose of the tokheha – of both

its blessings and curses – is opposite to what we first thought. It is not a

list of rewards and punishments set forth to offer positive and negative

motivations for observance of the commandments. Quite to the contrary; here we

find an expression of the importance of long-term considerations, of the

importance of understanding that life has various stages and that we must keep

the horizon in view. Such far-sightedness (and not the promise of immediate

reward) opens up the space and the freedom that allow us to contend with the decision

to accept the yoke of the commandments. Such far-sightedness also affords one

the opportunity to offer a positive response to the challenge of If you follow My statutes.

Incidentally

to our theme – in contrast with Rashi who finds a

messianic element in the blessings, there are those who interpret and you

shall dwell securely in your land and I shall grant peace in the land

– as referring exclusively to peace in your land, but not in foreign

lands (after all, according to the plain meaning of Scripture we are guaranteed

victory over our many enemies – who remain our enemies!)

According

to this approach the blessings are also realized in stages, and in our pursuit

of peace we must understand (and appreciate!) the greatness of the blessing if

we "only" achieve security, domestic peace, and clear military

superiority over our enemies from without.

May

that stage also be achievable in our days – I pray that it will be soon

achieved.

Rabbi Benjamin

Segal is the president of Melitz Center for Jewish

Zionist Education

For

the land is Mine

Do

not resent these laws [of Shemittah and

Yovel] for it [the land] does not belong to

you.

(Rashi, Vayikra

25:23).

It

admonishes against permanent transfer of ownership [of land] in the Land of

Israel, as it says: And the Land shall not be sold into perpetuity.

(RaMBaM, Sefer

HaMitzvot Negative Commandment 227)

One

reason for the commandment [not to effect changes in the designation of

plots in the Levites' settlements and of their fields]: The towns of the

Levites were set aside for the needs of all the tribes, because it was the

tribe chosen for the service of God, and all their dealings were with wisdom,

in that they were not bothered with agriculture as were the other tribes of Israel,

and regarding them it is said : They shall teach Your laws to Jacob, and

Your instructions to Israel. And because wisdom resided with them, all of

Israel constantly had dealings with them. To this add the fact that their towns

also serve as cities of refuge for the [inadvertent] murderer, and therefore

the eyes of all Israel are upon their towns, for who can foretell what tomorrow

will bring. Thus it was reasonable that that these refuges be located in towns

where equality reigns; town which, being in the public eye, should be paragons

of beauty and pleasantness; they are a source of pride for all Israel, and

therefore the prohibition against effecting changes in them, for the Master of

Wisdom established them, and perfected them, and set their boundaries, and He

saw that thus it was good…

(Sefer HaHinukh,

Negative Commandment 343)

For the Shemitah year also gives rise to solidarity and peace. This occurs because one does not sow

seed and grow [crops] while the poor can eat [whatever grows by itself], for one is prohibited from acting as the land-owner

and taking hold of the seventh year's grain. All of this doubtlessly causes

peace, since all conflicts derive from the trait of "mine is mine,"

i.e., "it is all mine." All of this is less evident in the seventh

year, because while action [i.e. agricultural production] involves inequality,

all are equal in inaction, and that is really what peace is about.

(Keli Yakar Devarim 31:12)

Do Not Maltreat… That You May Live

Existence of an Enlightened Society

Rebbi prepared a feast for his disciples. He served them

both soft tongues and hard tongues. They began to select the soft tongues,

rejecting the hard ones. He said to them: My sons, so

should your tongues be soft one with the other. Thus Moses admonished Israel, Do

not mistreat one another.

Do

not mistreat – Scripture refers to verbal mistreatment. … For

example, one should not say to a baal teshuva, a penitent, "Remember your earlier

behavior", and one should not say to a convert, "Remember your

ancestors' behavior". If a convert comes to study Torah, one should not

say to him "Shall a mouth which consumes carcasses and animals torn to

pieces and abominations and crawling things come to learn Torah which emanated

from the mouth of the Divine Presence?" If one is in agony, or he is

burying his progeny, say not to him – as did Job's friends say to him – Is

innocent man ever perished? If donkey drivers ask one to sell them grain,

he shall not tell them "Go to so-and-so" – knowing that so-and-so has

never sold grain. Rabbi Yehudah says: One should not

haggle over price when he has no money, for this a matter known to the heart

only, of which it is written Fear your God.

 (Yalkut Shimoni, Behar, 247: 661)

Do

not maltreat one another – This is an admonishment against wrongdoing by

means of words; one should not taunt his fellow, nor – for the sake of personal

advantage – give another inappropriate counsel. And should you ask: Who can

tell if one's intentions were not honorable? Therefore it says, Fear your

God – He who knows all thoughts knows. Matters known to the heart only,

known only to one who thinks about them in his heart, regarding him it says, Fear

your God.

(Rashi, Vayikra

25:17)

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