33. V'yikra - In my Statutes (B'chukotai)

in which God enumerates the rewards for keeping the commandments and the punishments for violating them; the laws of tithes are then listed.

Nina’s take

embracing the worst case scenario

“If you walk in My laws and are careful to keep My commandments, I will provide you with rain at the right time, so that the land will bear its crops and the trees of the field will provide fruit. ”

This is what G-d promises if we learn the Torah and are careful to keep G-d’s commandments. This is the best case scenario.

But If we ask, “What is the worst that can happen?”, the Parsha Bechukotai provides an answer. In horrific detail it tells you what is going to befall the Israelites (us including) if we stray from the commandments. Really unspeakably scary stuff. Inthinkable.

In life we often encounter situations that could take a turn for something we are truly afraid of - we might lose our job, embarrass ourselves in front of people that matter, or worse, see a mouse.

We have a few possible courses of action here:

·       we might go to extreme measures to never-ever encounter the feared things

 or 

·       we might concentrate on the outcome that frightens us and sit with it. Pretend it happened, the mouse did cross our path and it is GROSS and fearsome. Fearful too, being so small. We will just dunk ourselves into that situation and try to embrace and accept it. And then, go and do what we can to avoid the undesirable outcome. We will be much less paralyzed by fear and have a good chance of success because our energy will be invested in the positive action but also because no matter how badly we fail, once we repent, G-d stil generously promises us his loyalty and mercy,

“even when they are in their enemies’ land, I will not grow so disgusted with them nor so tired of them that I would destroy them and break My covenant with them, since I am God their Lord”

An interesting point and a question for the rabbi:

The Parsha’s name “Bechukotai”, which means “In My Decrees”, refers to chukim as opposed to mishpatim.

Chukim and mishpatim are two different kinds of mitzvot  - a chok has no reason behind it, while a mishpat has a reason which is easily and fully understandable to man. Which means that it is harder to observe a chok than a mishpat and it is observance of chukim that truly tests the dedication of a pious jew.

Question: Is this distinction important in Bechucotai