BECHUKOSAI, LEVITICUS 26:3-27:34

 BECHUKOSAI, LEVITICUS 26:3-27:34

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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We conclude the Book of Leviticus:

חזק, חזק, ונתחזק

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

Chazak Chazak Ve-Nit’Chazek

Behar Leviticus 25:1-26:2

 Behar Leviticus 25:1-26:2

 In Behar we read about proper conduct to a fellow Jew:  

At 25:17 -

“And you shall not wrong, one man his fellow Jew, and you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord, your God”.

At 25:25 -

“If your brother becomes destitute and sells some of his inherited property, his redeemer who is related to him shall come forth and redeem his brother's sale”.

At 25:35 -

“If your brother becomes destitute and his hand falters beside you, you shall support him [whether] a convert or a resident, so that he can live with you”.

At 25:36 –

“You shall not take from him interest or increase, and you shall fear your God, and let your brother live with you”.

At 25:37 -

“You shall not give him your money with interest, nor shall you give your food with increase”.

At 25:39 -

“And if your brother becomes destitute with you, and is sold to you, do not work him with slave labor”.

At 25:43 -

“You shall not work him with rigor, and you shall fear your God”.

At 25:47-48 -

“If a resident non Jew gains wealth with you, and your brother becomes destitute with him and is sold to a resident non Jew among you or to an idol of the family of a non Jew.

After he is sold, he shall have redemption; one of his brothers shall redeem him”.

Being a Member of the Tribe is not a bad deal.😃

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At 25.23 we learn just who the Land of Israel belongs to:

 וְהָאָרֶץ, לֹא תִמָּכֵר לִצְמִתֻת--כִּי-לִי, הָאָרֶץ:  כִּי-גֵרִים וְתוֹשָׁבִים אַתֶּם, עִמָּדִי.

"The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to Me, for you are strangers and  residents with Me".

This is a profound idea: the land that we were  commanded to possess as an inheritance is fundamentally not ours because we are only guests.   Hashem is the only one who truly possesses the holy land.  

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Just as we must rest on the seventh day, so must the Land rest.

At 25:4 -

וּבַשָּׁנָה הַשְּׁבִיעִת, שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן יִהְיֶה לָאָרֶץ--שַׁבָּת, לַיהוָה:  שָׂדְךָ לֹא תִזְרָע, וְכַרְמְךָ לֹא תִזְמֹר.

"But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the LORD; thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard".

This rest for the Land is called the "shimitah" year.  It is observed in Israel.  It is being observed now, this year.

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Counting the Omer- Netzach

We are entering the 4th week of counting the Omer. This week's focus is on Netzach, which Rabbi Shimon Jacobson equates to Endurance, 

Endurance is the power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way as in "she was close to the limit of her endurance".  Endurance often denotes or relates to a race or other sporting event that takes place over a long distance or otherwise demands great physical stamina.

Rabbi Jacobson describes Netzach as follows:

"Endurance and ambition is a combination of determination and tenacity. It is a balance of patience, persistence and guts. Endurance is also being reliable and accountable, which establishes security and commitment. Without endurance, any good endeavor or intention has no chance of success.

Endurance means to be alive, to be driven by what counts. It is the readiness to fight for what you believe, to go all the way. Without such commitment any undertaking remains flat and empty. It is an energy which comes from within and stops at nothing to achieve its goals. This, of course, requires that endurance be closely examined to ensure that it is used in a healthy and productive manner.

Ask yourself: How committed am I to my values? How much would I fight for them? Am I easily swayed? What price am I ready to pay for my beliefs? Is there any truth for which I would be ready to give my life?"

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Jeremiah

This week’s Haftarah portion is from Chapter 32 of the Book of Jeremiah which contains 52 chapters in all. The Prophet Jeremiah is a person who has the courage to be disliked.  By contrast, many of us go out of our way to be likable, to be popular, and to not upset the apple cart. We excel in maintain the status quo…not so Jeremiah:

The episode in the Haftarah portion takes place about one year prior to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroying Jerusalem or about 587 BCE.  The setting is in a prison yard where Jeremiah has been incarcerated for speaking out against King Zedekiah.

I don’t know how prison yards looked 2,600 years ago or say 1500 BCE.  However you and I have watched enough thriller movies to picture the yard:

There is at least one huge muscular guy working out with an impossibly heavy barbell.  Many of the inmates have separated into groups, such as white supremacist skinheads or blacks or Latinos or whatever. And often there is one inmate who has been tasked with assassinating the good guy.

 

Returning to the reality of Jeremiah we learn that Hashem tells the Prophet that he will be visited by a close kinsman who will ask Jeremiah if he is interested in purchasing some family property located in the village of Anathoth, about 2.5 miles north of Jerusalem.  It is up for sale.  Jeremiah has been selected as a potential purchaser because 900 years prior at Mt. Sinai we were commanded by Hashem to keep our lands within our family, and not to sell our lands to someone outside of the family.  This commandment is found in Leviticus 25:25 and evidently was and is the rule of the Land:

 כִּי-יָמוּךְ אָחִיךָ, וּמָכַר מֵאֲחֻזָּתוֹ--וּבָא גֹאֲלוֹ, הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו, וְגָאַל, אֵת מִמְכַּר אָחִיו.

“If your brother becomes destitute and sells some of his inherited property, his redeemer who is related to him shall come forth and redeem his brother's sale”.

The commandment takes more importance in purchasing back land from a non-Jew who had acquired previously owned  Jewish land. We this today 2600 years later, particularly in Jerusalem, where Jewish individuals such as Irving Moskowitz, z’l, or Jewish organizations purchase land from Moslem landowners.

Jeremiah’s situation is somewhat different. He has been commanded by Hashem to purchase land that for all intents purposes is worthless. It is only a matter of time that Jerusalem will fall, many of us will go into exile and the real estate market will be in shambles.  This not a matter of buying low and selling high.  It is a matter, however, that Hashem will right the wrong, and Nebuchadnezzar’s days are limited, which is indeed what happened. In just a short time later, Cyrus the Great defeats the Babylonians and welcomes Jews to return to the Land.

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