BECHUKOSAI, LEVITICUS 26:3-27:34

 BECHUKOSAI, LEVITICUS 26:3-27:34

-----------------------------------------------------

Painting by Yoram Raanan

We are given a message:

At 26:3 -

אִם-בְּחֻקֹּתַי, תֵּלֵכוּ; וְאֶת-מִצְוֺתַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ, וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם.

"If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them,"

At 26:11 -12

 וְנָתַתִּי מִשְׁכָּנִי, בְּתוֹכְכֶם; וְלֹא-תִגְוְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי, בְּתוֹכְכֶם, וְהָיִיתִי לָכֶם, לֵאלֹהִים; וְאַתֶּם, תִּהְיוּ-לִי לְעָם.עַל נַפְשִׁי, אֶתְכֶם.

"I will place My dwelling place in your midst, and My soul will not reject you; I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people."

I think today Israel has become Hashem's dwelling place where among other things He is walking among us and we are His people.

------------------------------------------------------------

This week we celebrated Passover Shaini, פסח שני which falls on the 14th of Iyar, one month after after the 14th of Nissan, the day before Passover when we were commanded to bring the Passover sacrifice.

This commandment is described in the Book of Numbers 9:1-14. If perchance a person had come in contact with a corpse, he was rendered ritually impure and not eligible to bring the sacrifice.  Passover Shaini in effect gave these persons another chance to celebrate Passover.

It is a custom nowadays to eat matzah on the second Passover, and to remind us that there is always a second chance.

----------------------------------------------------------

We treat the seven weeks of Counting the Omer as a period of mourning.  However on the thirty third day of the Omer counting, many of us stop mourning for the day or until Shavuous.  The 33rd day is called Lag B'Omer. 

There is a tradition that on Lag B'Omer Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students who had been dying from a plague stopped dying.  I think that it is a remembrance connected to the Bar Kokhba Revolt, and the student were soldiers fighting for freedom.  Initially the revolt was successful, and for three years the Province of Judea was independent with Bar Kokhba at its head with the title of Nasi Israel.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This week Israeli Arabs observed their tragedy, Naqba Day.

What is Naqba?

What is Naqba?
On May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence with the establishment of the
State of Israel which would come into effect on the termination of the British Mandate at midnight that day.

On May 15, 1948 Palestinians mark the establishment of the State of Israel as a Naqba, a "catastrophe" and demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

But what is the true Naqba?

“Naqba Day,” which occurs every year on May 15, was established in 1998 by former Palestinian Authority President — and international terrorist — Yasser Arafat to turn Israel’s Independence Day into a festival of grievance. The very fact of Israel’s existence was branded a “catastrophe” — naqba in Arabic — but not the displacement that affected both sides in the subsequent war, which included the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from what became the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. And during and after Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, 850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands; that is, in fact, the true Naqba.

Naqba is Anti-Israel propaganda.  Naqba is nonsense.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JEREMIAH

The Haftorah for Behar-Bechukotai is from Jeremiah.
We all know that sooner or later Hashem judges us. But how does He actually do it? For the Prophet Jeremiah (17:9-10), 2,600 years ago, it is by examining a person’s heart and kidneys.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and when it is sick, who will recognize it? I, the Lord, search the heart, test the kidneys, to give everyone according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds".

The heart and the kidneys at the time of Jeremiah and in the Chumash, 100's of years earlier, were held to be the location of a person’s psyche, the totality of the human mind, both conscious and unconscious.

Think about that when you recite the Shema Yisrael.

---------------------------------------------

At Jeremiah 17:7-8 -

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord; the Lord shall be his trust For he shall be like a tree planted by the water, and by a rivulet spreads its roots, and will not see when heat comes, and its leaves shall be green, and in the year of drought will not be anxious, neither shall it cease from bearing fruit."

------------------------------------------------------------------

In the 5^th week of the Omer counting the focus of is the sefirah Hod (הוד)…and according to Rabbi Simon Jacobson, Hod is Humility.  Here are some of his thoughts on Hod:

Hod (Humility) is the silent partner of the previous sefirah, Netzach (Endurance).   Hod’s strength is in its silence. Its splendor is in its repose. Humility leads to yielding, which is an essential element of Humility - and the resulting yielding - should not be confused with weakness and lack of self-esteem. 

Humility is modesty; it is acknowledgement (from the root "hoda'ah"). It is saying "thank you" to G‑d. It is clearly recognizing your qualities and strengths and acknowledging that they are not your own; they were given to you by G‑d for a higher purpose than just satisfying your own needs.

Humility is modesty; it is recognizing how small you are which allows you to realize how large you can become. And that makes humility so formidable.

Acknowledging that your strengths come from a higher place gives you the power to endure far beyond your own perceived capacity. It gives you part of G‑d's enduring strength.

-----------------------------------------------------------

We conclude the Book of Leviticus:

חזק, חזק, ונתחזק

Be strong; Be strong, and let us strengthen one another.

Chazak Chazak Ve-Nit’Chazek