Torah Table Talk – A New PaRDeS

Is God a Fair-Weather Friend?

Parshat Bechukotai, Leviticus 26:3 -27:34
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Twice each day a Jew is enjoined to recite the three paragraphs of the Sh’ma: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the
Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God,” (Deut. 6:4-9); “Instruct the people of Israel that every generation shall
put fringes on the corners of their garments,” (Num. 15:37-41); and the middle paragraph of the Sh’ma, “If you will
earnestly heed the commandments…I will favor your land with rain at the proper season,” (Deut. 11:13-21). Together,
these passages are said to contain the fundamental Jewish beliefs: an affirmation of God‟s sovereignty, the acceptance
of the „yoke of the commandments,‟ and acknowledgment of Gods redemptive power. A thoughtful reader cannot help
but be troubled by the middle passage of the Sh’ma which speaks of rain and drought being products of obedience and
disobedience to God. This idea is found throughout the Torah, most prominently in Leviticus, Chapter 26 and
Deuteronomy, Chapter 28. The Torah is unequivocal: obedience leads to blessings in the natural world while
disobedience leads to destruction. Of course, the world is not so simple and people throughout the ages have questioned
why, if this is so, „do bad things seem to happen to good people.‟ Dr. Baruch Levine refers to these ideas as
„fundamental principles‟ of biblical religion. And yet, as modern readers of the Bible, we continue to struggle with these
ideas, as have sages and scholars through the ages. How are we to understand these passages and their meaning for our
understanding of God?
Leviticus 26:3; 14; 20 If you will follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments I will grant
your rains in their season so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit….
But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn
My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant…I will make your
skies like iron and your earth like copper, so that your strength shall be spent for no purpose. Your land
shall not yield its produce nor shall the trees of the field yield their fruit…
PaRDeS
1. P’shat – Understanding the plain sense meaning of the text
The epilogue to the Holiness Code is the only composition within the book of Leviticus that is neither legal nor ritual
in character. For the rest, Leviticus is made up of collections of religious law and descriptions of ritual celebrations,
all of which are written in formulaic language. In both form and function, the epilogue is a counterpart of
Deuteronomy 28-30. Each composition appears after a collection of laws and seems to reinforce the sanction of those
laws. Two major principles of biblical religion find expression in these epilogues: the concept of free will and the
doctrine of reward and punishment. Obedience to God‟s will brings reward; disobedience brings dire punishment.
The choice rests with the people of Israel and its leaders.
I will grant you rains in their season: In the land of Israel, as in adjacent areas, rainfall is limited to a fixed season
of the year. At other times, there is no rain for months on end. If sufficient rain does not fall at the expected time, the
results are more harmful than in temperate climates. This explains the repeated emphasis on “rains in their season.”
(Baruch Levine, JPS Torah Commentary, Leviticus)
My Commentary: We begin by acknowledging that the idea of blessings in Leviticus, Chapter 26 is just as troubling as
curses. If we are unwilling to say that God causes the rain to cease, famine to ravage the world, or disease to be an
expression of divine displeasure then we must also be willing to admit that the blessings are no more the will of God
than the curses. You cannot have it both ways: either God curses and blesses or God does neither.
Having said that, we struggle with the meaning of Leviticus, Chapter 26. What is the significance of the dramatic
epilogue at the end of the Holiness Code? Why do we find this long list of blessings and curses both here and at the
end of Deuteronomy? What does it mean to connect the divine with natural productivity and fecundity? What does
this say about God? I would suggest that what we find here is not so much a theological statement as it is an attempt
to drive home the importance of the law. “The Reproof,” as it is traditionally called, serves as a dramatic punctuation
to the legal code. Simply put, any code of law, human or divine, has to be followed by a list of consequences.
 In the land of Israel, this was also a natural response to the environment. Unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt, which had
a river on which they could depend for their source of water, the land of Israel was dependent on the rain which came
in its own time from a source beyond the people‟s control. This meant that the environment and the agricultural
needs of the community were completely outside of human control. You could not create a system of irrigation or
draw water from the river to maintain the land – you waited and prayed for the rain to come down. This was a source
of great anxiety as well as the wellspring of faith. It is no wonder that our ancestors came to associate their moral and
spiritual behavior with the will of God. If we were to speak of the consequences of immoral behavior and
disobedience today, we would suggest different consequences; for our ancestors, it logically began with the
environment.
2. Remez – Allusions: Finding meanings hidden in the text
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope: (Lam. 3:21). Rabbi Abba bar Kahana, citing Rabbi Yohanan, said:
By what parable may this verse be understood? By the one of a king who wed a noblewoman. He wrote out a
substantial marriage settlement for her and told her, "I am to provide so-and-so many state apartments for you. I am
to give you so-and-so many purple garments. I am to give you so-and-so many seagoing ships. I am to give you so-
and-so many towns on the mainland." Then the king left her, went away to a country far across the sea, and tarried
there. Meanwhile, her neighbors visited her and sought to provoke her, saying, "The king has left you, gone away to
a country far across the sea, and he will never come back to you." She wept and sighed. But then she would go into
her bridal pavilion, open [the chest in which her marriage settlement was deposited], take it out, and read it. On
seeing, "I am to provide so-and-so many state apartments for you. I am to give you so-and-so many purple garments.
I am to give you so-and-so many seagoing ships. I am to give you so-and-so many towns on the mainland," she was
at once comforted.
After a long time, the king came back and said to his wife, "My little one, I marvel how at you were able to wait for
me all these years!" She replied, "My lord king, but for the substantial marriage settlement you wrote out and gave
me, my neighbors would long since have caused me to feel that you were lost to me."
[As her companions mocked the king's wife], so the nations mock Israel, saying to them, "Your God has hidden His
face from you and removed His Presence from you. How long will you die for your God, letting yourselves be slain
for His sake, giving up your lives for His sake? He will never come back to you." And Israel weeps and sighs. But
then they go into synagogues and houses of study, open the Torah scroll, read in it, and find written in it, "I will have
respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and I will set My tabernacle among you . . . and I will walk among you"
(Lev. 26:9 and 26:11-12). Then they are comforted. In the future, the Holy One will say to Israel, "My children, I
marvel how you were able to wait for Me all these years." Israel will reply, "Master of the universe, but for Your
Torah You gave us, the nations of the earth would long since have caused us to feel that You were lost to us."
(Midrash Lamentations Rabba 3:21 #7)
My Commentary: This Midrash, suggests that the blessings and curses in the Bible served a different purpose. They
were meant to inspire hope and fear in their reader. The sages loved to illuminate biblical passages with parables. The
reader or listener must then take the parable and figure out its connection in this particular context. In this case, the
noblewoman (Israel) in this parable is given wonderful promises by her husband the king (God). But the king then
takes leave and all the noblewoman has to sustain herself during the years of separation are the terms of her
agreement and the promises her husband has made to her. The parable here sounds more than a little like Homer‟s
Odyssey; it takes Ulysses ten years to return to his wife Penelope, during which time she is accosted by suitors who
tell her that her husband will never return. It is the marriage settlement/Torah that sustains the bereft wife during her
years of separation; both the promises of great gifts and possibly the threat of punishment for not living up to the
terms of her marriage/covenant. The Reproof, then, is not so much a statement about God as it is a document which
has the ability to give the people of Israel the strength to carry on even when God appears to be absent. There is
something comforting in being able to open their covenantal document when they are feeling most hopeless and lost.
This idea of the Torah as a marriage contract is an idea that gains special relevance during the upcoming holiday of
Shavuot. There is even a custom among Sephardic Jews of reading a Ketubah written for God and the people of
Israel on the first day of Shavuot. If we entered into a marriage with God then there should be consequences and
blessings to our fulfillment of the terms of the marriage.
3. Din – Law: Applying the text to life
The idea behind the material rewards in the Torah is as follows: the Almighty says to you: if you perform the
commandments I shall assist you to carry them out and to perfect yourself through them and remove all obstacles
from your path. For a man cannot perform the commandments if he is sick, hungry, or thirsty, or in the hour of battle
 or under siege. The Almighty, therefore, promised that He would rid them of these situations and that they would
enjoy health and tranquility, enabling them to perfect their knowledge and merit the Hereafter. These material
rewards are, thus, not an end in themselves but a means. Conversely, if they transgress the Torah, evil would
overtake them, preventing them from carrying out the commandments, “because you did not serve the Lord your God
with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart….therefore you shall serve your enemy.” (Deuteronomy 28:47-48) …If
you perform some of the commandments out of love and by dint of your own efforts, I shall help you perform all of
them and remove obstacles from your path. But if you forsake and despise them, I shall put obstacles in the way of
your performance until you are deprived of spiritual perfection and immortality. This is the implication of our sages‟
dictum, “The reward of a commandment is a commandment.” (Moses Maimonides, Mishnah Torah)
My Commentary: Maimonides sees the blessings and curses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy not as rewards and
punishments but as the means or obstacles for the fulfillment of God‟s will. When we fulfill God‟s will then God
gives us the means and strength to continue to do so – that is the blessing. And when we fail to live according to the
terms of our covenant with God, then the curse is that we create our own obstacles that prevent us from doing so. We
cannot gain spiritual perfection without the help of God. Maimonides is attempting to answer the question here: why
is it even necessary for the Torah to tell us what the material rewards are for obedience of the commandments? Such
rewards should be unnecessary; it should be enough to fulfill the commandments for their own sake. This chapter
does not contain rewards or punishments but rather the means to live by God‟s law. Conversely, Maimonides
suggests that when we fail to live by the commandments we create our own curses.
4. Sod – The Meaning and Mystery of Faith
It is impossible to avoid the fact that the consequences of our actions are directly connected to the material world in
this chapter and similar passages throughout the Torah. Rain and drought, fertility and famine, sickness and health
are all associated with our obedience and disobedience to God. We confront this idea daily in the middle passage of
the Sh’ma. When we obey God‟s commandments, God favors us with rain in its proper season, ample harvest and
abundance in the herds and fields. When we fail to do so, God will “close the heavens and hold back the rain, the
earth will not yield its produce. You will soon disappear from the good land which the Lord is giving you.” Reward
and punishment takes place in this world. This troubled our ancestors. The philosopher, Joseph Albo comments:
“Jewish authorities have, in all ages, never ceased to be puzzled over this point. Why does the Torah not explicitly
mention spiritual rewards in the same way that it alludes to material ones?” Medieval scholars were particularly
troubled because they were well aware that Christians and Moslems spoke openly of other worldly and heavenly
rewards. And yet the Torah is silent about such rewards for obedience to God. The God we encounter in the Torah is
a fair-weather friend. We can find some comfort in knowing that we are not alone in struggling with these passages
in scripture. Whether we read them literally or as a powerful expression of the idea of consequences, they remind us
that our actions do matter. Today we are keenly aware that our actions can save or destroy our physical environment;
we need to think about the power of our moral actions on the world around us as well.
Questions to Ponder
1. Read the second paragraph of the Sh’ma. How do you feel about this passage? Should we still include it in our
liturgy? Why or why not?
2. We live in a country that is blessed with abundance. How do you think the physical environment of our country
influences our attitudes toward faith?
3. A parable is a story whose symbolism is applied to some aspect of our lives or the world. One of the questions
one asks in reading a parable is how far this symbolism can be taken. If the king is God and the noblewoman is
the people of Israel, then how are we to explain God‟s absence? Has God taken off on a vacation and deserted
us? How can we carry the line of symbolism through from the parable to our understanding of the world and
God?
4. What are your thoughts about Divine providence, reward and punishment?
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“All it takes to study Torah is an open heart,
a curious mind and a desire to grow a Jewish soul.”
Copyright 2011 Rabbi Mark B Greenspan