Parshat Bechukotai

 Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon

 Founder and Board Chaiman, JobKatif

 

This week’s parsha mainly delves into blessings and curses. If the Jewish people act properly – blessings. If not – curses. And what is the reward for proper behavior? The Torah tells us at the beginning of the parasha:

If you walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; then I will give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time. And you shall eat your bread until you have enough, and dwell in your land safely. (Vayikra 6:3-5)

The Torah’s promise only involves the materialistic side: of the world – produce from the field, eating until satiated and safety.   Why not a spiritual reward?

The Ramban explains this as follows.  A spiritual reward for spiritual work (i.e. the mitzvot) is obvious. The Torah doesn’t have to explain something obvious.  The Torah’s innovation here is that one gets rewarded materially for spiritual activity!  Man acts in a spiritual sense – according to the mitzvot, and it all has an impact on the material world.

This idea is unique to Judaism. Other religions only speak about the spiritual reward.  Judaism makes a connection between the spiritual and physical. The Torah commands us to sanctify reality and bring holiness into the material world.

Where do we see this?  In Israel, G-d appears to us in nature, in our rain and our fruit. (see Sanhedrin 97-98).  The holy fruit of Israel –and the ability to eat food that has been fortified with Godliness is a physical reward given to the people of Israel.

When we merit eating the produce of Eretz Yisrael, we feel the Godliness in this fruit, and we sense that G-d loves us and wants only the best for all of Am Yisrael.  And as wonderful as the food is, the rewards in Olam HaBa, the world to come, will be even more delicious.