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(Leviticus will walk in the midst of the 26:3-4). dwellings of children of Is- The last parasha of the rael. book Leviticus begins with But should Israel refuse this simple contractual to hear God and follow his formula, familiar by now commandments, plagues from several samples in will swiftly come together Exodus and Leviticus. Ver- with barrenness of the land, ses of conditional promise wild animals, invasion and and threat, blessing and defeat, famine to the point curse, sum up sections of the of parents devouring chil- Law, exhorting Israel to ob- dren, and destruction of the serve the preceding com- land ending in exile. mandments. Commentators The early Midrash on have viewed our parasha as Leviticus, the Sifra, elabo- concluding as small a sec- rated the blessing, "The tion as the mitzvot of the land shall yield its produce Sabbatical year and the and the trees of the field Jubilee found in last week's shall yield their fruit" sedra, and as large a section (Leviticus 26:4): "Not the as all the commandments way it is now, but rather as given at Mt. Sinai. The lat- it was at the time of Adam ter view is supported by the . . . the land will be sown last line of chapter 26: and will bear fruit on the These are the statutes and judgments and laws which God made between himself and the children of Israel at Mt. Sinai by the hand of Moses. Convincing Israel to ob- serve the statutes, judg- ments and laws given at Mt. Sinai was no small task. After all, if the events of the Exodus, the splitting of the Sea, and the revelation at Sinai didn't convince them, what other inducement re- same day . . . Not only will the fruit be eaten, but the mained? The readings Mishpatim tree itself will be edible!" and Kedoshim, the two cen- The Sifra goes on to record tral legal sections of Exodus that wild beasts will be wild and Leviticus, respectively, no more, men shall not only both concluded with exhor- have abundance, but they tations. However, in com- will be satisfied with mor- parison with our parasha, sels, etc. What do such exagger- the promises there are not as thrilling and the threats ated descriptions tell us? are less explicit. For in- Some traditional commen- stance, Exodus 23:20-23, tators such as Abravanel which concludes Mis- were embarrassed by these hpatim, promises God's materialistic promises. blessing of bread and water, They were troubled with the health, long life and con- question of why the quest of the Land of Israel, blessings were not of a more and simply warns that serv- spiritual nature. ing other gods would be a Nachmanides, free of Ab- ravanel's- discomfort, un- snare for Israel. At the end of Kedoshim derstood the parasha to (Leviticus 20), the warning promise that "the Land of is made somewhat stronger, Israel, at the time when the advising • adherence to the mitzvot are observed, will Torah lest the land "vomit be like the world was before out" Israel as it had its prior Adam's sin." The world of the Garden inhabitants. These sections barely anticipate the deluge of Eden and world of Be- of blessing and the horrible hukotai are linked by a. curses presented to Israel in phrase which may have this week's reading, Be- been the starting point of hukotai: if the mitzvot are the Sifra's hyperbole. Ve- observed, not only will the hithalachti B'tochechem land be bountiful to the says God in Behukotai point of overflow and peace (26:12) — an unusual con- be insured, but Israel will struction of the verb "to have such military success walk" meaning I will walk among you — as the ulti- mate blessing. The only David Nelson, a Jewish other prior place in the educator, lives in Torah in which this verb Jerusalem where he studies appears with God as its sub- Talmud. ject is in the story of the Parashat Behukotai: Leviticus Jeremiah 16:19-17:14. Garden of Eden. There we read of God walking (Mithalech) in the breeze l e- the day (Genesis 3:8). Human life in the garden was distinguished by the total harmony of man and nature flowing from the closeness of man and the Creator, who walked through the garden, as it were, together with Adam and Eve. Therefore, it is not material wealth per se that our parasha envisages in its promise of restored Eden- in-Israel. It is rather the prospect of God "walking" among those who follow His laws. Bounty and prosperity simply accompany the new terms of human existence. While the specific blessings culminate in the vision of Divine-human closeness, the curses threaten alienation of man and finally, exile. The oppo- site of God's presence is not described as the eclipse of God, but rather as the exile of Israel from its land, which clearly includes the former. Likewise, the an- tithesis of exile is not only settlement in Israel, but rather the walking of God among the people of Israel residing in their land. The vision of life with God in our midst and the curse of exile is one of the central themes of the Torah. Why did the Torah delay until the end of Leviticus to re- veal this vision, when sec- tions of blessing and curse already appeared in both Exodus and Leviticus? A fully developed formula of blessing and curse did not follow the first sections of Sinaitic revelation and legislation because Israel was simply not ready to understand such blessings and curses. How can man comprehend the prospect of a life of closeness to God such as has not been known since Adam's day? It was not enough for Israel to know that they stood once at the foot of Mt. Sinai and re- ceived God's word. The life offered by the Torah is one of continual relationship or God with man. The vehicle of that rela- tionship was the Mishkan (tabernacle), triumphantly erected in the last chapter of Exodus. The Mishkan brought the "glory of the Lord" (Exodus 40:35) into the midst of the Israelite camp on an ongoing basis. The book of Leviticus laboriously spells out the ritual and moral require- ments for the creation of an environment in which the Divine Presence could re- main. The functioning Mis- -