This week’s parasha is the last one in Sefer Vayikra — Leviticus. It’s a bit of a strange portion, very harsh and very difficult to read if you’re not reading it with understanding. It’s got a lot of warnings in it. The first couple of passages have some blessings, and then right away it turns into the curses — and most of the portion is curses and warnings about what’s going to happen if we don’t keep the Torah. It’s a long and horrific list.
And the obvious question is: why is the list of punishments so long, while the list of rewards is so short? That’s the big issue we have to answer.
What’s the Difference Between Rules and Laws?
This portion is called Bechukotai — “In My Laws.” Now, the truth of the matter is that chok doesn’t really mean “law.” It means rules. And what’s the difference between rules and laws? According to the Torah, it’s the understanding of it.
If I live in a country and they say, “You can’t drive through a red light” — if someone asks why, we know the reason: it’s to keep us safe. It’s dangerous. You can’t text and drive, you can’t drink and drive, you can’t steal money — we know the reason for all of these.
But imagine if a country would come out and say, “You can’t wear red shoes anymore,” or “You can’t say the word ‘um’ anymore.” And they’d actually put you in jail for breaking those rules — rules you don’t understand, rules that don’t make any sense — and yet you’re held responsible on a moral level. If you don’t keep these laws that we don’t even understand, you can be punished for that transgression.
So the parasha starts out: Im bechukotai telechu, ve’et mitzvotai tishmoru, va’asitem otam — “If you follow these rules, and keep My commandments, and do them.”
There’s a lot of language here that’s a little bit difficult to understand. First it says bechukotai — these are the chukim, the rules you don’t really know the reason for. Then telechu — “if you go in these rules, if you walk in these rules.” That’s a strange word. You don’t walk, you don’t go in rules — you follow them. And then it says ve’et mitzvotai — My commandments — tishmoru, you keep My commandments. The mitzvot are the commandments; the chukim are the rules that are difficult to understand. And then va’asitem otam — and do them.
So are we walking? Are we keeping? Or are we doing? And what’s the difference between those three things?
Number One: Torah Rules Are Not Like Civil Rules
When you live in a society where rules are just a matter of keeping the society safe — for example, you can’t run a red light — here’s the question: if it’s 4:00 in the morning and the streets are absolutely empty, can you run a red light? You’re not allowed to. But you’re not an evil person if you do, because the only reason you’d run that red light is that no one’s out, and you weren’t in danger of injuring anyone. You shouldn’t do it because it’s “illegal” — but it’s not like you are an immoral person if you do so.
So the reason you don’t do it is: you look around, there might be cops. You ask yourself: it’s 4:00 in the morning, you’re driving on the road — do you run the red light? And if you say no, are you saying no because you’re scared of getting caught? Or because of some moral reason? Those of us who are not running red lights at 4:00 in the morning are doing so because either we’re scared there might be a cop around — but we’re certainly not scared on a moral level. We run that red light and we’re not an immoral person.
Here, with Torah laws and commandments, it’s much, much different. Torah rules, laws, and commandments have a moral consequence to them. And therefore, even if my understanding is lacking — even if I’m not sure why I have to keep kosher, why I can’t eat meat and milk together, why I have to build a sukkah during the Sukkot holiday — all the questions we don’t understand, that don’t make any civil sense. Not eating milk and meat together — for what reason? Why? It doesn’t make any sense.
And here’s something important: according to Judaism, you’re not supposed to say that something not kosher looks disgusting. You’re supposed to say it actually looks absolutely delicious — but I can’t eat it. That’s exactly the point. That’s the difference between rules in Judaism and rules in civil society.
Civil society’s rules are there to make society comfortable and livable — but not necessarily to set the moral level of that society. In fact, in most countries, in the educational system, you’re not even allowed to teach morality like that. It’s actually considered breaching someone’s freedom — because if you define morality for them, they have to adapt to your morality, and that’s not allowed. I grew up in the United States. You can’t say the pledge of allegiance because it mentions God and it offends people.
So in regular civil society, the laws are there to make society safe and comfortable — and they’re very important. By the way, it’s one of the seven commandments of Noach: to set up courts and have laws in a civil society. Absolutely important. But the difference is, those laws are built to keep society in order and to keep it safe and comfortable. There are no moral laws set up in society — except in a society that defines morality as something objective.
In other words, if I decide one day that it’s okay to go hunting — killing animals not for food — and the next day say it’s not okay to go hunting, what is that morality based on? It’s based on society’s comfort levels. What are they deciding is right and wrong? It could be abortion, it could be hundreds of different things. If morality is decided by society, then we’re talking about what society’s comfortable with — not necessarily the true morality of that society.
Why Does the Torah Start with the Laws We Don’t Understand?
Bechukotai — it starts out with the laws that don’t make sense, the laws we don’t understand. That’s what a chok is in Hebrew — the laws we don’t understand. Why does it start with that?
Because if it would start with the logical laws, you’d say, “Well, I understand those, so I’ll keep those. But when it comes to kosher — which I don’t understand — when it comes to Shabbat, not turning on and off a light on Shabbat — who cares?” So if the Torah had started with: thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill — all the civil laws which most Western societies keep today — you’d say, “Oh, those I’m keeping.” Honor your father and your mother — of course. But when it comes to not using electricity on Shabbat, or keeping kosher, you’d say, “Well, I understand the civil laws. Those make sense, and they came first in the parasha, so they’re more important. But these other laws — the spiritually based ones I don’t really understand — those I’m going to give myself a discount on.”
So the Torah starts out with bechukotai — the laws you don’t understand. First of all, what we’re talking about is the language of telechu — that you go with these laws. That’s exactly the point. It’s not just keeping the chukim, the laws you don’t understand — it’s going according to those chukim. The idea is that I don’t define morality for myself. I don’t say, “Today I think this is moral, tomorrow I think it’s immoral.” Just as an example — in 1950, abortion, for whatever reason, was considered blood and murder. In 2018, it’s pro-choice. Without even giving my opinion on the matter — that’s totally irrelevant — I’m showing that society turned something it thought was murder into something acceptable. If morality is dependent on society, you can go either way.
So the first thing the Torah says — im bechukotai telechu — if you walk with these rules that you do not understand, because the first thing to understand is that you don’t have to understand. Morality is not set by your understanding. And if you think it is, society can go down levels of immorality which are very scary.
Take Europe as an example. Germany was the most enlightened country of its era — technology, culture, everything, A to Z. And we know what road they went down. They justified it by their own laws, even backed it up with fake science. Why? Because it was all based not on the chukim — the laws you don’t understand — but on the mishpatim: “Keep the laws.” And they kept the laws — their own laws, that they defined themselves. That was the big issue and the big problem in Germany.
So when it comes to Torah: im bechukotai telechu — first of all, walk with the laws you don’t even understand, because the first thing to understand is that you don’t have to understand. These laws are moral definitions. Whether the way I grew up, or you grew up, whether our culture understands it or it makes sense to us — that is totally irrelevant, because comfort is supposed to be suppressed to remain moral. You don’t suppress morality to be comfortable. Very important point. You’re supposed to suppress your comfort in order to stay moral. You’re not supposed to define morality according to your comfort.
So if someone comes along and says, “Well, I feel like this is moral” — if your morality is stemming from your own brain and your own ideology, then no one can define morality for you. But if morality is coming from a higher place, from an objective place, then your comfort zone has nothing to do with it.
So the first message is: walk with these chukim — the laws and rules that do not come from your own ideas, from what you like and don’t like, from what you’re comfortable or not comfortable with. Something much more spiritual.
The Second Message: Keeping God’s Commandments
Then it goes on — ve’et mitzvotai tishmoru. At the end of the day, these are commandments. They make a difference. We’re talking about God’s commandments — an objective source, not what I think, not what I feel. You have to keep God’s commandments. Why? Because that is the source of moral code, and no matter what it says — whether you understand it or not — it doesn’t matter.
The Third Message: Keeping vs. Doing
And then: va’asitem otam — and do them. Why does it say “keep God’s laws” and then also “do them”? If I’m keeping them, I’m doing them — right?
There’s a difference between cognitive understanding of what you have to do, and your heart, the emotional understanding, and actually doing them.
I was at the Kotel last night, at two o’clock in the morning. I was walking to my car, and a young lady walked over and said, “Can you help me?” I said, “How can I help you?” She said, “Do you have any money for me?” I opened up my wallet, and at first I said, “One second.” She looked like a teenager.
I said, “What do you need the money for?” And she said, “I’m raising my sister’s daughter — I’m bringing the kid up — and we have no money and we can’t pay rent.” And she told me a whole story. We got into a discussion, and she said she’s sick and she needs help. I said, “What are you sick with?” She goes, “It’s embarrassing. I don’t want to tell you.” I said, “Well, you know what? I don’t know you. I’m not going to judge you. Tell me what you’re sick with.” And she told me she’s addicted to substances.
Now I was nervous. Give her 50 shekels — and who knows where it’s going? I said, “Listen, I have a problem giving you the money right now. I’ll help you in any way you need, but giving you money directly is irresponsible for me.” And she started crying. She said, “I want to stop. I want to get off the drugs. I want to.” And she really did want to. She was crying.
But wanting and doing are two different things. Specifically with addiction — I realized this last night — this poor girl going through this real disease: you could want it all you want, but you can’t do it on your own. Anyone who has any experience with this, God forbid, or with family or friends, knows that someone addicted to hard drugs could want to stop as much as they want — but unless they’re in a rehab center, behind closed doors, they can’t do it alone. It’s impossible.
So va’asitem otam — you’ve got to actually do it. It can’t just be up in the air — “It’s so nice, I want to be religious, I want to keep these laws” — and then not do it. We all make mistakes, everybody sins. But the message is: do them.
So those are the three messages. The laws are not like civil laws, and they’re not made to be broken. Laws are made to be kept — but not to be kept because you’re going to be given a reward or punishment. They’re made to be kept because they are the moral compass of your life. Therefore, I keep them.
And whether I really want to have that cheeseburger — as a Jew, I can’t. If you’re not Jewish, you can have as many cheeseburgers as you want. But as a Jew, no matter how much I want it — and it looks delicious, I really want it — I’m suppressing my comfort for the definitions I have as a Jewish person. That is Jewish morality.
The Blessings — and Yom Yerushalayim
Now, what comes next? After all that explaining of what you have to keep, it says: I’ll give you rain in the right time. Rain is a sign of livelihood, of parnassah, of money. And then: the land will give up its fruit, and the trees of the field will give fruits. It’s going to give a lot of food, a lot of parnassah, a lot of money, and your life will be good.
And then there’s an interesting pasuk. I read this, and it really struck me. Listen to this. God says: I will give peace in the land. And there will be no fear — you’ll have no fear of your enemies, nothing. And there will be no wild animals that’ll do any damage to you. And the sword will not come into your land — meaning nobody will be able to destroy you or hurt you.
Listen to the next passage. It says: you will chase your enemies, and they will fall by your sword. But wait — the Torah just said that no sword will come into your land. And now it says you’re going to chase your enemies and they’re going to fall in front of you by sword. How does that work?
Wait for the answer. The next passage says: 100 of us are going to chase 10,000 of our enemies. One hundred of the Jewish people will chase down 10,000 of our enemies. And your enemies will fall in front of you by your sword.
First of all — what happened to the sword? There are no swords in the land, right? So how does the sword suddenly appear? That’s the point. It didn’t say you won’t go to war. It said there’ll be no sword in your land. No enemy sword. As someone from the IDF, I can tell you: IDF strategy has always been that we never want to fight a war on our own turf. We always want to fight outside the border of Israel — and if they ever get inside the borders of Israel, it will not be good.
All the wars we fight are outside the borders of Israel. Since 1967 — since we liberated Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan Heights — there has not been a single war that Israel fought on Israeli soil. It’s always outside the borders. They attack, and we go outside the borders to fight them. So it says: they’re not going to come in. Yes, they’re going to start it when they try to destroy you — but the enemy sword will never come in.
And then it says we’re going to chase them, and they’re going to fall by our sword — 100 of us chasing 10,000 of our enemies. Ladies and gentlemen, this week we are celebrating Yom Yerushalayim — Jerusalem Day. For those who don’t have such a long memory: between 1948 and 1967, the Jordanians were ruling Jerusalem. We were not able to get to the Old City. They put a wall up in Jerusalem and called it east and west. And then in 1967, in a miraculous war of six days, we defeated six Arab armies — armies that out-weaponed us and outnumbered us — and we came back to Jerusalem and unified the city.
Six Arab nations outnumbered us probably 100 to one, out-weaponed us, out-everything us. Six major Arab armies, funded and armed by the Russian government. If I’m not mistaken, Egypt alone was 20 to 1 — every one Israeli soldier facing 20 Egyptian soldiers. And that’s just Egypt. There were six countries. And we miraculously, in six days, completely destroyed their military and liberated the areas.
A hundred chasing ten thousand. That pasuk is not a metaphor. It happened.
So I think that’s what these promises mean. And then it says: v’hifneiti aleichem — “I will make room for you, I’ll turn to you” — u’fritem — “and you’ll become fruitful” — v’hirbeiti etchem — “you’ll become plentiful” — and I will uphold My covenant with the Jewish people.
These Are Not Rewards — They Are Results
Now here’s the issue. The laws we’re talking about are not: “if you don’t keep this, you’re going to get smacked in the face, or punished.” Next comes the punishment, which I don’t really want to talk about — but the curses are the exact opposite of these blessings. The curses say they’re going to chase us, we’ll never have a quiet place to stay, the wars will be lost. Terrible curses. Curses that almost sound like the Holocaust — almost exactly echoing the Holocaust — saying we’ll eat the flesh of our own children. Really terrible stuff.
But it’s not only about reward and punishment. That’s a childish way of looking at it. Judaism is not one of these religions where we say, “If you don’t keep the mitzvot, you’re going to hell.” That’s not our religion. The commandments and the rules and the laws are not there to scare us, not there to warn us that we’re going to end up somewhere bad if we don’t keep them. The commandments are there, the rules are there, the laws are there to make sure we keep a moral standard. That is our goal in life.
We came back to the land of Israel for a reason — not just to be here. We’re not here just to be like any other country, with an army and a government. The reason the Jewish people came back to the land of Israel is to be the Jewish people. And if we are not upholding that, then these blessings are not going to come.
Why Did God Create the World?
If one asks, “Why did God create the world?” — was He lonely? Did He need people? Did He need this crazy world? Look at what’s going on around the world — it’s a sick place. What did God need this for? He doesn’t need anything.
So according to Jewish sources, the reason the world was created — Derech Hashem, “The Way of God,” one of the most famous books of Jewish thought — says that God created the world to give out His good. Really? Give out the good? Look around the world — that’s good? The answer is: you misunderstood. To give out the good, the good has to be taken. In other words, if I have a child and I’m giving him money and presents all the time, and he never deserves it — it’s not really his. I’m not allowing someone to actually enjoy that good.
Someone who works themselves every single day for hours and wins a gold medal at the Olympics — they feel that tremendous accomplishment. If someone just buys a gold medal and puts it around their neck, they might want to show off, but they don’t feel that accomplishment, because they didn’t earn it.
So when God says He wants to give His good out — it’s there to be chosen. Evil and good in the world are put there on purpose. It’s not a separate entity — Satan — no. God created evil and good. We say it every day in davening. Also light and dark, both of them — and they’re there for us to choose. The goal is to choose between good and evil. That is the goal of creation according to Jewish sources.
So what the Torah is saying is: “I understand that choosing between good and evil is difficult, because sometimes our own wants and comforts get in the way.” Our desire to be comfortable will push us to do something that’s morally incorrect according to the Torah code. Well, the only way to choose good over bad is if we understand the definition of good and bad — and that definition cannot come from our own minds. It has to come from an objective source. The Torah is our objective source.
Shabbat shalom from the beautiful rolling hills of Judea, Israel.