Shabbos Parashas Bechukosai - 5774

Shabbos Parashas Bechukosai - 5774

Rabbi Hal Miller

I will make the land desolate and your foes who dwell upon it will be

desolate. [Vayikra 26:32]

This sounds ominous, but at the same time, rather confusing. The Torah is in

the process of telling us to keep the Shemitah year, including telling of the

punishment we will merit should we fail. Why does it now tell us of the impact

on our enemies as well? What does 'desolate' mean?

Our pasuk is immediately preceded by "I will lay your cities in ruin and I

will make your sanctuaries desolate. I will not savor your satisfying aromas."

This pretty clearly says that if we fail to follow the commandments, we will

be in for some serious trouble. Our pasuk is immediately followed by, "And

you, I will scatter among the nations, I will unsheathe the sword after you,

your land will be desolate and your cities will be a ruin." Again, the Torah

tells us that our failure to do as the early part of our chapter told us with

regard to following G-d, we will pay the price. In this latter pasuk, we note

that the land will also pay this price, with desolation and ruin.

If we fail to follow G-d's commandments, why does the land have to suffer too?

Nechama Leibowitz notes that "the scourges of war have all been enumerated:

sword, famine, wild beasts and pestilence. Now the Torah describes the

desolation after the war." Rav Hirsch says something similar: "Everything up

to now was the natural working of a conquest which G-d had refrained from

curbing. What follows, the permanent desolation of the land, is as much a

direct special touch of the Finger of G-d, as was the previous abundance.

The land will remain desolate, and your enemies, who live there in your place,

will not prosper."

But the earth has been devastated by wars many times. In each case the land

heals fairly rapidly, and anyone is able to live there again. Even Hiroshima

and Nagasaki, Dresden and London, all of which suffered incredibly, all

support life again. Why is our case different? Not only the Jews, but even

our enemies will be unable to live there?

Rav Hirsch points us in the right direction: "For the land, of which it has

just been said that when the people will have become mature for their final

purpose, it too will regain its purpose to be the land for G-d's people to

keep the whole of G-d's Torah. It will serve no other people as a suitable

soil for their development."

Rashi thinks this is good for Israel: "Their enemies will find no solace in

the land, which would remain desolate of its gentile inhabitants."

The purpose of Creation has to do with tikkon olam, the 'correcting of the

world'. Our job as humans is to become partners with G-d in that Creation,

to complete it, to correct the things He intentionally left over for us to

work upon. Our job as Jews is to lead the rest of the world to doing this

task. For us to perform that task, He gave us His holiest land. But that

Holy Land requires its inhabitants to be of a higher standard. If we do not

merit to live there, nobody else will prosper there either.

There is a special attachment between G-d and the people of Israel. If we

observe His commandments, we merit living with Him in His land. Only then,

as in verse [42], does the Torah tell us, "and I will remember the land."

We must, as a people, earn the right to live there.