Parshat B'har B'chukosai
by Rabbi Avi Billet
Many of us are connected directly or are one or two steps removed from someone who was at Meron on Lag B’omer this year. The feeling remains surreal – as all those who died have now been buried. Some of the shivas are over, some will finish on Sunday or Monday. So many lives impacted, there are so many people who will now observe what is supposed to be a joyous day on our calendar as a yarzeit of their loved one.
On Monday I tuned into the livestream of the funeral of Donny Morris, A”H, not just because his father Aryeh and I were friends in college, but because like the over 30,000 people who were logged in online, and the thousands who were present in Israel, we needed a space to participate in the mourning with Klal Yisrael. While I don’t know of other livestreams from funerals, and while there may have been others, the Chassidic circles of most of the deceased would likely indicate that livestreaming wasn’t foremost on the mind.
Of course the loss of this young man was felt by all. His chen, his smile, his chesed for others was so apparent. His growth in learning Torah was the apple of the eyes of his parents and teachers. His shortened life is a paradigm of what was lost that day in the other sons, brothers, fathers, grandfathers as well. So much greatness, and so much potential for greatness.
One of the more challenging portions of the Torah is the Tokhacha – the Great Rebuke. The one in chapter 26 is only outshined by the one in Devarim 28 in its length and depictions of destruction and desolation, and there are a number of other smaller rebukes throughout the Torah, such as the one in the second paragraph of Shema (Devarim 11), when we are told what the negative consequences of our poor choices and idolatry will lead to.
God attributes the consequences He will divine onto the nation of Israel as coming from a number of particular deeds. (All of the following quotes are from Artscroll’s translation) “If you consider my decrees loathsome, and if your being rejects my ordinances, so as not to perform all My commandments, so that you annul My covenant…” the punishments will come. “If you behave casually with Me and refuse to heed Me…” (this refrain is repeated several times) “I will destroy your lofty buildings and decimate your sun-idols, I will cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols…” “Then the land will be appeased for its sabbaticals during all the years of its desolation”
Not being enamored by mitzvoth, walking casually (בקרי) with God, idolatry, ignoring the opening mitzvah emphasized in B’har – Shmittah (Sabbatical year)… all of these are the causes behind things turning south, and the devastation which follows in its wake.
But what does it mean? Is there really such direct causality in the world? Was God warning us of what makes us deserving of goodness vs what makes us deserving of punishment? Are there do-overs and mulligans? What about teshuvah?
There are enough indicators in the text of the tokhacha that some of this comes after repeating warnings, years of turning away, many reminders to take heed, all of which went for naught.
Towards the end of the tokhacha, however, the text takes a turn for the better noting that with learning the lesson will come a sort of redemption. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch describes how if the people will embrace their גלות (exile), “instead of it becoming a grave of decay, exile will become ground for new fulfillment of Israel’s God-ordained mission, fruitful soil for a גלות-life directed toward God and bound up with Him, a new life whose content and meaning is: ירצו את עונם.” (it will satisfy the debt of their iniquity)
Our question will then have to be, OK, but at what cost?
And, upon further introspection, our question will be “are we paying attention, or are we still doing all that?”
While this past year was not a Shmittah year, in many ways we took off from aspects of communal Jewish life. As we get closer to the one year anniversary of when our shul reopened, we ought to ask ourselves if we’ve learned the lessons we are meant to take from the tokhacha rebuke and have we taken the steps necessary to avoid its consequences.
In no particular order: do we take our davening more seriously? Do we engage in idle conversations while Tefillah is going on? Do we still say Lashon Hora, seeking it out, loving the gossip, enjoying sharing the shmutz we have on other people? Do we value the Torah and her teachings? Do we believe that the instructions given to us – both to fulfill mitzvoth and to avoid negative behaviors – truly drive the direction our lives take? Do we worship the forms of idolatry that exist today? This is not to suggest anyone is bowing to sticks and stones, BUT when we say we believe in something that is not simply a vote of confidence in another human being, or if we listen to everything people on television tell us to do, we are worshipping a form of idolatry.
The idea of Shmittah, the Sabbatical year for the earth, was meant to give the earth a chance to reboot its own batteries, to allow the microbiome, as it were, to have a rebirth so it can produce in the same manner it did at the height of its strength.
We need to reboot our own batteries. We need to remind ourselves that we are people who are baalei chesed, who open our homes to guests and the needy, who support one another without strings attached, who value Torah study and growing as a Jew, no matter our age, who want to aim higher and higher in our relationship with the Almighty and who do not want to coast to the finish line.
While every one of us would love to be able to turn back the clock on last week’s tragedy to have all those 45 holy souls be given the chance to live full lives, and while I do not diminish in any way the tragic nature of how their lives ended, there is a small side of me that says “What were they doing in their final moments? They were gathered, with thousands upon thousands of אחינו כל בית ישראל, not caring about what kippah you were wearing, what community you are part of, which yeshiva you attend… They sang Ani Maamin together, I believe with a complete faith that Moshiach will come… and then hell broke loose. In a way they experienced the death of the great martyrs who died al Kiddush Hashem – declaring God’s Oneness, unified with true Ahavas Yisrael, just as they experienced their last breaths.”
It may not be a comforting thought for a lot of us. As noted above, I am sure we would like nothing better than for there to have been no tragedy. But when we think of Rabbi Akiva, for example, and Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon, for example, their last lesson to us was that it doesn’t matter as much that you die as much as it matters how you die. What did you live for? How did you display it in your final moments of cognition?
Our goal, not just in avoiding tokhacha for us and for all of our Jewish brothers and sisters, is to heed the lessons we are to take from tragedies, that those who died should not have died in vain.
They valued Ahavas Yisrael. We must cherish our fellow Jewish brothers and sisters.
They gathered to celebrate life. We must celebrate life.
They declared their belief in God and in Moshiach. So must we.
They were dancing to celebrate a life directed and guided by the Torah. So must we dance with joy over our lives and dedicate our fulfillments of mitzvos and the Torah to their holy Neshamas.
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