Astonishment of the Heart
One of the hardest passages to read in the Torah is the tochechah ("rebuke"), the series of blessings and curses that comes in two versions - one near the end of the Book of Vayikra and one in this week's portion. As a Ba'al K'ri'ah, I shuddered inwardly every time I had to read this section. My problem was that, unlike most of my congregation, I understood every word of the Hebrew.
I always found it difficult to reconcile the catastrophes with the introductory words.
I recognised so many of the horrific predictions in the passage in the events of the Holocaust. But I always found it difficult to reconcile the catastrophes with the introductory words (Deuteronomy 28:15), which warn us that all this is punishment for sin.
Modern thinkers, such as Eliezer Berkovits, say it is obscene to associate suffering with sin to the extent that we somehow blame the martyrs of the Holocaust for their own fate. I am well aware that other thinkers try to pinpoint where European Jewry went wrong, but who reaped the worst whirlwind? Not the assimilationists, but the intensely Jewish community of Poland, who accounted for over half of the six million martyrs.
There are some who try to bring a modicum of comfort by means of the doctrine of vicarious atonement; i.e., the righteous suffer for the sins of the generation. But nothing takes the pain away or succeeds in explaining the mystery.
The most we can do, then, as some philosophers suggest, is to say that it is all too hard and we should not look for explanations, but only for responses. We do not know why it all happened, but we can and must respond by holding fast to our Jewishness and refusing to give the enemy the last laugh.
Is the difficulty in finding an explanation what is meant when the tochechah says, "The Lord will smite you with... astonishment of the heart" (Deuteronomy 28:28)? The Hebrew tim'hon levav is rendered by some as "confusion of the mind" and by others as "dismay."
A Really Good Gift
Bringing the first fruits to the kohen was an exciting moment. What a feeling of achievement! The suffering of the slavery was over. The people were free and independent. They had struggled through the wilderness and now they had arrived. They had entered the Promised Land, they had planted and sown, and the land had proved fertile and yielded a good crop.
No wonder the Torah commanded, "You shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given you."
What, they ask, is the nature of "the good" that God has given?
There is a discussion about this verse in various rabbinic commentaries. What, they ask, is the nature of "the good" that God has given? Since our ancestors lived in societies that were ruled by kings, many rabbinical parables had to do with kings and royal deeds and doings. So, they make the comment, "When the king gives you a present, does the actual value of the gift really matter? Isn't the exciting thing the fact that, whatever the gift may be, it has come from the king?" In this case, the great thing is not merely the land, but the fact that it was the gift of God.
Modern implication? Israel is great, with all its problems and perplexities, but let us never forget Who gave it to us, and to Whom we are responsible for cherishing and looking after it.