17th of Iyyar, 5771
21st of May 2011
Praying For Rain / painting
Praying for rain is a key part of the spiritual life of a Jew. Beyond praying for beneficial rain, we must follow through with environmental action. Praying for rain is a key part of the spiritual life of a Jew. For almost half of the year, our daily prayers include praise of God as the One who "makes the wind blow and the rain descend" and a request that God will "give dew and rain for a blessing on the face of the earth." MORE>
Weekly Torah Portion
Parashat Bechukotai presents a series of blessings that God will bestow upon the people Israel if they obey His commandments and comply with the covenant. In contrast, a much lengthier catalogue of curses and harsh consequences is invoked as the punishments if the Israelites neglect God’s law.
God’s loyal devotion to the covenant, however, is unflagging. God assures the Israelites that even when they are exiled to the land of their enemies, even when Israel as a nation fails in its covenantal duties and “forgets” God, God never will forget Israel or abandon it to destruction. God will continue to support and to shield Israel out of fidelity to the divine “covenant with the ancients” – referring either to the patriarchs or to the tribes of Israel that gathered at Sinai – or to both. God’s promise to safeguard Israel in perpetuity has inspired a number of writers, among them Leo Nicholaivitch Tolstoy:
“The Jew is the emblem of eternity.
He who neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy,
he who neither fire, nor sword, nor Inquisition was able to wipe off the face of the earth.
He who was the first to produce the Oracles of God.
He who has been for so long the Guardian of Prophecy
and has transmitted it to the rest of the world.
Such a nation cannot be destroyed.
The Jew is as everlasting as Eternity itself.”
Parashat Bechukotai continues with the valuation of possessions and livestock, so that payment can be made properly and vows can be fulfilled correctly in support of the sanctuary; it describes the procedure for redemption of property and tithes consecrated to the sanctuary and the limitations placed on the redemption process. With the conclusion of Parashat Bechukotai, the Book of Leviticus also draws to a close. The divine authority for the sacrificial cult, the fundamentals of significant areas of Jewish ritual practice, and – more specifically – the laws prescribed in the closing chapters of Leviticus, is explicitly restated in the final verse:
“These are the commandments that the Lord gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai.”
God enumerates the rewards for keeping the
commandments and the punishments for
violating them; the laws of tithes are then listed
commandments and the punishments for
violating them; the laws of tithes are then listed
God says: If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant rain so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees their fruit. I will grant peace and you shall sleep with no fear. I will cause vicious beasts to withdraw from the land and your enemies will fall before you.
I, your God, will look with favor upon you and make you fertile and multiply. I will establish My covenant with you. I will place My Sanctuary among you and My Spirit will not reject you. I will walk among you, I will be God to you, and you will be a people to Me. I, who broke the bonds of your slavery and taught you to walk upright.
Divine punishment is real.
The haftarah selection is from Jeremiah 16:19-17:14.
In the haftarah for Parashat B’hukotai (also read when B’har and B’hukotai are combined as a double parashah) Jeremiah prophesizes on several themes in a relatively short span. Many scholars, responding to the discontinuous nature of this section of Jeremiah, suggest that it might be a collection of sayings culled from Jeremiah’s notes by his assistant Baruch
PRAY please
for our beloved country Israel,
to be able to pass this dangerous
situation that she is in now
SAFE and SOUND , Amen
May 19th 2011
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