Shabbos Parashas Bechukosai - 5779

Shabbos Parashas Bechukosai - 5779

Rabbi Hal Miller

And I will bring your land to desolation and your enemies who dwell upon it will be

desolate. [Vayikra 26:32]

In the middle of the curses that God promises Israel should they fail to observe His laws,

we find that He will bring desolation to the land He has promised us. This seems strange

given how often He promised the Jews that they would inherit that land permanently, and

He does not do things that are not inherently good. How does this verse fit?

Most commentators read our verse as a curse, and we cannot hardly blame them for it.

However, Rashi takes the opposite view: "This is a good measure for Israel, that the

enemies will not find contentment in its land, for it will be desolate of its inhabitants." Rashi

is looking at the end of the verse to give us the timeframe involved. The curse is not for

when Israel is in the land, rather for when the enemies are in the land. Certainly, history

has borne out Rashi many times over, and there are a myriad of writings about the Jews

returning to the land and making the desert bloom after the failures of other people to exist.

But the verse before ours [26:31] reads, "​And I will put your cities to ruin and I will bring

desolation to your sanctuaries, and I will not smell your satisfying aromas.​" This verse uses

the same phrase about bringing desolation, but here it clearly refers to Israelite cities.

Could consecutive verses be using the same language in talking about different things?

Again, Rashi reads it as a positive. He admits that it could be read that God is going to

make Israelite cities desolate, but he interprets "ruin" as "empty of those who pass

through". He reads making sanctuaries desolate as "from the throngs, caravans of

Israelites who would ready themselves and meet to come there." Again, though, it sounds

as though this would be bad, that perhaps Jews are unable to make their thrice-annual

trips to the Temple, but it makes sense if we understand Rashi to be referring to poor Jews

who are essentially homeless. He is telling us that it will be devoid of poor. In this reading,

the verse before ours is also saying that the enemies will depart, but the Jews will prosper.

This also allows us to read the other commentators in a way consistent with Rashi.

For example, Ibn Ezra and others read the end of our verse as, "and your enemies who

dwell upon it shall be astonished." They explain that these enemies, used to living in

wastelands of desert, will find that this desolation is so complete as to be astonishing.

It will prompt them to leave. Nechama Leibowitz discusses the verse before with the making

Israelite cities desolate, but she puts it into the timeframe, again, of when the enemies have

taken over the land. Whether Jews remain in them or not, the cities at that point are under

enemy control, and it is then that God will bring that desolation upon them to drive them out.

These verses come in the section of curses, not because God is cursing the people, rather

because He is telling us that even though we may receive punishment for our failings, in

the end He will bring about our redemption as well.