Well it is time again to take a look at the this week’s parsha (Torah portion). This week we say goodbye, not just to a parsha, but also to a book; we finish reading the third book of the Bible, Vayikra (Leviticus). The parsha is called B’chukoti which means, “In my laws,” as in, “If in-my-laws you-all will go,” which is how the parsha begins.

So, what happens if we go in haShem’s (god) laws? This is such a good question, that the Torah immediately answers it by saying that the rains will come at the right time and the land will give its produce, and there will be food and security in the land.

This means that no-one will have to worry about wild animals or swords (war) passing through the land. Our enemies will not stand a chance before us, and we will have lots of children. God will be within/amongst us. And this is all coming from haShem, our god/powers.

Right after we read about how nice life can be if we follow in god’s footsteps… I mean, ways, we read about what will happen if we are disgusted with, and do not follow god’s laws. First we will start to panic and consume and consume and feel feverish which will darken our eyes. What we sow will be eaten by our enemies who will defeat us and we will run from imaginary foes. If we don’t change our ways, god will break our pride of strength, make the heavens like iron and the earth like copper and the land will not give its produce. If we continue to rebel, the wild animals will bereave us of children and we will lose our livestock and our roads will be only be filled with the breath of these animals. If we still behave in this manner, the sword will come for us and we will be gathered in cities where plagues will strike and we will be given to our enemy’s hand. We will eat, but never be satiated. If we continue not to listen, we will eat the flesh of our children, our idols will be knocked down and covered by our corpses. Our cities will be in ruins. The land will be desolate and we will be scattered amongst the nations. The land will have a chance to rest and desire its shabbats; the rest it did not have during its sabbatical years while we dwelled on her. And we will be so scared, in the lands of the other nations, that we will run from the sound of a leaf falling. We will die for our sins.

Or perhaps our hearts will surrender, and then god will remember his brit (covenant) with Yaakov (Jacob), Yitzhak (Isaac), and Avraham.

And while we are in exile, god will not reject us, or break the brit, for, “I am haShem, your god/powers.”

Now, all these laws (that we have learned over the last several weeks), god gave between itself and us on Mount Sinai, via Moshe (Moses). God then tells Moshe to tell the people the value of a person’s soul, if a vow has been made regarding it. He also should tell the people not to switch animals that are given to god, as well as the value of other property that is given to god, but can be redeemed. We end with a few rules about redeeming tithes of produce, but animal tithes cannot be redeemed, and finally we are told that these are the mitzvot (commandments/connections) that haShem commanded Moshe to the children of Yisrael on Mount Sinai.

What a way to end a book, no? What can we learn from it? What is it trying to tell us?

In order to answer this, I need to describe an orchard to you. No, not an apricot orchard, but the orchard of the Torah.

You see, the Hebrew word for orchard is pardes, and pardes is an acronym. It is made up of four letters and each letter is the first letter of a word. The ‘p’ stands for p’shat (which means plain or simple meaning), the ‘r’ stands for remez (which means to hint), the ‘d’ stands for drosh (which means to interpret), and the ‘s’ stands for sod (which means hidden).

When we learn Torah, we are supposed to learn it in this orchard, meaning that as we read the text, we are supposed to try to understand each letter and each word and each sound on all of these levels at the same time. I have heard it said that one cannot really understand the plain meaning of the text without first knowing its hidden meaning. So, lets take a walk thru this orchard, over by the patch that is our parsha.

As I said, one of the ways of looking at the Torah is thru the lens of p’shat. The p’shat is the plain, literal meaning of the text.

And it is something more. It is the shape of the letters and the layout of the text on the parchment, and how the letters sound when they are chanted. It is the layout part of the p’shat that I want to use as a jumping off point (Brownie points to those of you who can figure out when I jump to a non-p’shat branch!), and I actually want to start from a few parshas back.

Does everybody remember the previous parshas seeming fixation on god? What I mean is that they kept saying do this, I am god. Do that, I am haShem your god/power. Do this, I am haShem that took you out of Egypt. It seemed like every other verse was saying some form of, “I am your god.”

This week’s parsha does not begin with quite the frequency of, “I am your god,” but it does have it, up until the verse that says, “if you will not follow my laws.”

From this point on, we read 30 verses and the word haShem (god) is not mentioned once, and during those 30 verses, we read what will happen if we rebel against god.

Finally, when, in our hearts, we finally surrender to our creator, our creator will remember the brit and we read, once again, “I am haShem, our god.” And right after that we start reading about redemption, redemption of human souls.

So, what we have here, is a very primitive graphic of where god exists, and the beauty of it is that it is all up to us. 🙂

If we follow in god’s ways, really follow in his ways, then, as we do what she asks of us, we have to have him in mind because we should be thinking of what we are doing and why (the why being because god asked us to). By having the divine in our thoughts, the divine is now within us, and if god is within all of us, it is also around all of us.

This is illustrated by all the, “I am haShem,” verses mixed into all the rules. We do the rules, and god is mixed in with us. The result of this we read in our parsha: we live safe and secure and well fed by the land.

If however, we rebel against the divine, and actively go against her rules, then we are doing things without any thought of god, and so we do not provide an access point for the divine to enter in/around us. This is shown in the Torah by the absence of god’s name within the section (30 verses) describing what happens if/when we rebel.

Why do these things happen? Because we are not letting the creator in to create for/with us. Hence we are left to be buffeted by the ways of nature and man, which is what is described. (from this we can begin to see why I have been writing god/powers as in: I am haShem your god/powers. God is our power to not be ruled by nature and man.)

And finally, we come to redemption, which naturally is after being told what will happen if/when we rebel. The words now form the graphic that says: if we surrender, IN OUR VERY HEARTS and not just our heads, we can and will be redeemed, and we are told/shown this several times and in several ways.

This is the picture that came to me as I read the parsha. I hope all of you can see it, and I hope you all can find the strength to let go the need to be contrary to your creator, and instead give in to the wishes of the divine (perhaps this is the reason we should honor our parents – our human creators – to help us see the wisdom of the divine creator thru the wisdom of our parents), and in turn reap the blessings of flowing with the universe instead of against it.

If you care to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.

About the Author

Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.