Dear Friends;
I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parashat summary followed by a Dvar Torah;
” Parsha in a Nutshell ”
G-d promises that if the people of Israel will keep His commandments, they will enjoy material prosperity and dwell secure in their homeland. But He also delivers a harsh “rebuke” warning of the exile, persecution and other evils that will befall them if they abandon their covenant with Him. Nevertheless, “Even when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away; nor will I ever destroy them and to break My covenant with them; for I am the L-rd their G-d.”
The Parshah concludes with the rules on how to calculate the value of different types of pledges made to G-d.
” Dvar Torah ”
This week’s parsha starts off with such a promising note. Hashem tells the Benei Israel, ” If you walk in my path and observe my commandments, then I will provide your rains in the right time, you’ll eat and you’ll be satisfied, you’ll live in your land peacefully, I will make you fruitful and increase you, I will walk among you, I will be a G-d unto you and you will be a people unto me…”.
But after such soothing words which gives us great encouragement to do G-d’s commandments, the Torah suddenly changes it’s calm tone of voice into harsh words of criticism. It gives a lengthy harsh rebukes and talks about the troubles and punishments that will come upon the Jewish People if they are disobedient. Thirty consecutive verses of nightmarish misery and suffering, all destined to fall upon the Jewish people when they don’t follow Hashem’s commandments and they commit a sin. Many of the words used are so appalling that they are difficult to read. Indeed, the Chazan is expected to read these verses quickly and in a quieter voice than usual in the Shul, in order to not get the people in a bad mood on Shabbat.
However, after reading these chilling words, an interesting question comes to the minds of our sages. Why is Hashem so angry at the people if they are disobedient and commit sins?? Hashem knows that human beings are just flesh and blood and inevitably they would fail sooner or later and they will sin!! From the beginning of creation, nearly all of our great leaders including Adam HaRishon, Moshe, Aaron and King David committed sins. Every year for Yom Kippur Hashem commands EVERYONE to fast! It’s not an optional fast just for the sinners! It’s as if Hashem expects EVERYONE to sin!! So why all these harsh rebukes and punishments if we sin?! We are talking about the same compassionate G-d who is slow to anger and abundant in kindness and truth. Not long ago the entire nation were involved in the sin of the Golden Calf, and Hashem found it in his heart to forgive them! So, what happened now?! What does Hashem expect from us? What is really bothering Him so much? Why does Hashem intensify the punishments if we continue to sin? After all, He knows that we are never going to stop sinning!
Rabbi Berel Wein gives the following explanation. He says the answer is given in the midst of the rebukes itself. The rebukes or punishments intensifies seven times in the passage and the Torah tells us the reason for it. At the end of each series, Hashem says: “If you behave casually with me and refuse to heed me…”, which means “if you think that the sufferings were merely coincidental, then I’m going to intensify the punishments!!” Hashem is not so much bothered by our sins, but He gets mad if He sends us a warning, or a punishment so to speak, and we don’t see it! Hashem wants us to acknowledge his actions! The Torah warns us repeatedly that we will continue to suffer as long as we attribute our suffering to “chance” rather than to our sins. Any kind of misfortune or suffering that may be fallen upon us, should be a wake up call for us! We should be able to see it as a will of G-d. We should look into ourselves and try to find what sins are we committing and try to correct them and repent. But G-d forbid, if we see a misfortune as an accident or bad luck, then we have infuriated Hashem’s anger. We should know that anything that happens to us, whether good or bad, is a will of Hashem and we should acknowledge it. Hashem does not expect us not to sin, but if we do sin, Hashem expect us to acknowledge it and try to repent. If we forget, he might send us a warning and he expect us to see it.
Yes my friends, Judaism does not believe in accidents or “luck”. Everything that happens to us is Hashem’s will. If a person wins $1M in lottery, it’s not because he picked the lucky numbers, but rather, it’s because Hashem wanted him to win the million dollars! If G-d forbid, we get into a car accident, the whole point is not to see if it’s the other guy’s fault or not, but rather, what matters is for us to realize that it was Hashem’s will that we happened to be in the accident. We should never rationalize our destiny as “this is my luck” — instead, we should see it as the will of G-d. If G-d forbid, we are faced with suffering, we should look into ourselves to see if we are doing anything wrong, and try to correct ourselves if we can. Conversely, if we are blessed with good things in life such as prosperity, good health, good wife, healthy children and so on, we shouldn’t think that we’ve been “lucky” or attribute them to our intelligence. Instead, we should see all these blessings as Hashem’s generosity that he has bestowed upon us and we should acknowledge and be grateful to Him on a daily basis.
Remember that Hashem loves us and he doesn’t want to hurt us. If he punishes us sometimes, it’s because he cares for us and he wants to discipline his loving children. All he expect from us is to love him back and not to shut him out of our lives. What he wants, he has already said it passionately at the beginning of the parsha…… “ I will walk among you, I will be a G-d unto you and you will be a people unto me…”.
Shabbat Shalom & Regards;
Martin