One Night Shtender

Bechukotai

Many people I know got married this past weekend. On the Jewish calendar, Sunday was Lag B’omer, a time when Jews finish a time of semi-mourning recalling the end of a plague that killed many of the students of Rabbi Akiva in the 3rd century CE. This year Lag B’omer overlapped with Memorial Day, another day that is mourning for some in America and the start of summer for others. Our parsha combines this feeling of happy and sad times. God enumerates the good things that will happen to the people if they follow the mitzvot and the bad things that will ensue if they do not. At the nuptial I attended, a friend had a good take I’d like to share with you this Friday.

You might think that this is a terrible parasha for a wedding, said my friend. Most of the reading is the tochacha, the string of rebukes or curses that are so demoralizing that they are whispered quickly. Quite the opposite—this parasha is about the relationship between God and Bnei Yisrael. The reading begins with the blessings that come if Bnei Yisrael nurtures and maintains the relationship. For a marriage to work, opined my friend, one needs to prioritize the relationship, to pay attention to the other’s needs and to respect the covenant. The rebukes only come when Bnei Yisrael fails to prioritize the relationship. The Rabbis in Bava Batra 88b say, perhaps with hope, that there are twenty-two blessings and only eight curses. The way forward through the bad times is by going through together. Return to the good times by returning to each other.

Many of us understand that idea in terms of human relationship but how do we do that with God? The blessings promised include peace, fertility and plenty. It feels hard now when we seem to be on the receiving end of some of the curses detailed this week. Especially where the Torah says that our children shall be bereaved and the roads deserted. Even in exile, we will not feel safe as the curses continue. The theology of Bechukotai is difficult.

The Rabbis put the stories of exile and the destruction of the Second Temple in the tractate of Talmud on the laws of divorce, as if to say that its physical breakdown signified that the relationship between God and the Jewish people was over. But that was not God’s promise. The section of curses ends with God saying that even with all the promised fury, the relationship is still there; that covenant forged with our ancestors is still binding. Curiously the Torah lists the forefathers in reverse chronological order, as if to make sure we are reading and paying attention to the details of this relationship.

Similarly, our calendar has a way of redirecting us. In a week and a half we will celebrate Shavuot, which commemorates the covenant that we made with God at Sinai. With our synagogues dressed in flowers for the renewing of the nuptials, hopefully we can reach back and find those old romantic feelings.
Shabbat shalom with love,
Rabba Claudia Marbach