Two Minute Torah Podcast

B'har-B'hukkotai 5769 by Richard S. Moline

Shalom, this is Rich Moline, and as KOACH director, I am pleased to welcome you to another edition of KOACH's Two Minute Torah, a project of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

This week, we read two parshiyot — B'har and B'hukkotai as the Israelites continue to learn about God's ways and their relationship to the Divine. I would like to look at the second parashah — B'hukkotai, the last portion of the book of Leviticus — and examine a serious issue that arises from the text.

Im B'hukkotai teleikhu — If you follow my laws

V'et mitzvotai tishm'ru — and guard (or observe) my laws...

Then, says the text, God will grant us all sorts of wonderful things. Rain to nourish fruit-bearing trees, defeated enemies, fertility and more.

But, we are told —

V'eem lo tishm'ru li — And if you do not obey Me

V'lo ta'asu et kol hamitzvot ha'eileh — if you reject My laws — spurn My rules, break My covenant….

Then, we are told —

V'hifkadeti aleikhem behalah — I will wreak misery upon you — consumption and fever, letting loose wild beasts to bereave you of your children and wipe out your cattle, making the land desolate and all sorts of other horrible things that I find far too distasteful to mention.

Wow.

This is our God? A primitive God who rewards us amply if we follow a prescription but absolutely destroys our land and our livelihood and our children when we don't? A God who not only seems eager to please us, but just as eager to punish us if we stray? Can we believe in such a God?

Clearly, there are those who do. We have been admonished from time to time by those who insist that we bring tragedy upon ourselves by not having mezuzot properly affixed or by failing to observe Shabbat. There are those who have the audacity to suggest that human tragedy is the result of sin.

I can say, unequivocally - - this is not my God.

So what do I do with our text? What do I do with a text that very clearly says great things will happen if I follow God's commands, but terrible, awful things — like eating the flesh of my own children will occur if I don't?

I suppose we can say there is a larger message here. There are rewards for doing good and consequences for doing evil. It's not always the case, but I can live with that. But it still doesn't help me understand the Tokheikha, these terrible admonitions.

So I'm going to chalk this one up as follows —

Perhaps it's not God who was primitive here, but the people. And perhaps God is showing us that we need to reach and teach people where they are and that this is the way the Israelites needed to learn. It's not where we are today, but then again, we learn differently when we are toddlers than when we are older.

I'm taking the larger message out of this. There are consequences to our actions. Sometimes the consequences are just and sometimes they're not. We have a safeguard though, and that safeguard comes in the form of mitzvot. May we all reap the rewards.