Behukotai - Covenant and Consequences

אם בחקתי תלכו ואת מצותי תשמרו ועשיתם אתם:....

If you walk in my ways - specifically those that are impossible to understand - and if you observe those commands which actually do make sense to you... and..... you actually do it.... I will give you rains at the right times and a land full of produce and fruitful trees... you will be satisfied when you eat your bread and you will dwell in security with your land. I will grant shalom in the land and you will lie down without trembling and no frightening beasts will disturb you and there will be no destruction by drought or sword.

ופניתי אליכם .... והקימתי את בריתי אתכם

ונתתי משכני בתוככם ... והתהלכתי בתוככם...

... ואולך אתכם קוממיות

I will turn to face you and live in covenantal relationship with you.

My Mishkan, my dwelling place, Shekhina, will be among you and inside each of you. I will walk amidst you.... with Me, you will walk upright...

As beautiful are these promises, the next sections of this parasha are troubling. A list of dire consequences for abrogating the covenant is described, in much excruciating detail.... so much so that this section is read very quickly in a quiet voice...

Let’s examine the language of “If...... then....”

Are we speaking here about reward and punishment, and thus bristling at a Deity who gives incentives and takes retribution, who can be punitive and mean? Or, is this a language of consequence, resonance, mida q neged mida, מדה כנגד מדה, measure for measure -good brings more good, destruction more destruction.... blessing and reproach flow from the natural order.

Our text told us earlier that the land is G!d’s and she resonates, reverberates with what is right and true....

This places us, and our conduct at the center of the cosmos... when we are in right relationship, the earth responds.

We are to be in right relationship with the earth, with our selves, with each other, and then with Gd, too -- a relationship of mutual regard, and mutual caring. A relationship that recognizes the essential sameness of the spark of Divinity within us, within the other, and within the land.

The land has a soul and she responds to our behavior -- importantly, not just the way we treat her, and her creatures, but to how we treat each other. This is a recurrent theme in the Priestly text of Leviticus and a fitting way for the book to end.

When we bring kedusha to our behaviors, the cosmos reverberates with blessing and we are in covenental relationship with the Mystery. We shine the light of awareness on our inter-dependence and we refuse to be separated from the aliveness the hayut, חיות which is our essence and the essence of the entire created universe.

My ברכה, b’rakha, blessing, is that we deeply discern what it means to walk in the path of the Divine Order- the walking, halikha, הליכה, the Tao, and the halakha, הלכה , the guiding principles.

Our tradition gives us Torah and mitzvot - teaching and instructions. Our task is to discern how to live in relationship to this tradition, especially when it is not always so beautiful and easy.

We are called to be sources of blessing.... Abraham was told וֶהיֵה ברכה -veh’yei brakha- be a blessing. We are called to be blessing itself. Walking in the Mystery is to transform our daily routines into a path toward sanctified living.

When we are שומרי הברית shomrei ha-brit, covenant keepers, we are pledged to Higher Service, in covenantal relationship with the Holy Blessed One as She manifests as self, relationship and the natural world....and, we pray that goodness will flow as a natural consequence of right relationship.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Erev 22 Iyyar 5769

G’vura she b’yesod

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Kedoshim - Holiness from the Inside Out

קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם:

Kedoshim tih’u ki kadosh Ani.

You will be holy because I, Infinity manifest, am holy - you will manifest My best traits - just as I separate out the gold from the dross, so you will, with intention, shine the light of awareness on your hearts and actions. I YHVH - all of existence, HaVaYaH, am the godliness that manifests in your lives.

Our parasha gives us many “thou shalt not’s”...

nevertheless, a very high standard:

לא־תעשו עול במשפט

bring no wrong/ injustice to your justice

בצדק תשפט עמיתך:

judge your companions righteously

לא־תלך רכיל בעמיך

don’t walk about bearing tales

לא תעמד על־דם רעך אני יהוה:

don’t just stand around while your friend’s blood is being shed (literal physical harm or metaphorically being shamed)

לא־תשנא את־אחיך בלבבך

don’t hate your brother or sister in your heart

הוכח תוכיח את־עמיתך ולא־תשא עליו חטא

reprove your companion so she does not take on further negative karma

לא־תקם ולא־תטר את־בני עמך

no revenge and no grudges

Finally the one positive mitzvah - “thou shalt” :

ואהבת לרעך כמוך אני יהוה:

love your neighbor as yourself....

This is seemingly an impossible list... particularly when it comes to my innerness, my פנמיות - to know that I am being called to scrub my insides clean of hatred, resentment, grudges, judgments about others, and yet to be given responsibility not to watch idly by as my sister is going down the wrong path, to not stand by while my brother is being harmed.

I need to manifest in the world,the highest values - this is holiness, this is acting with godliness.

Dovid haMelekh King David said to Shlomo (Chronicles 1 28:9), Solomon.... my son,, know - be intimate - with the Holy One, serve G!d בלב שלם with a perfect heart ובנפש חפצה and with a willing soul, for YHVH searches all hearts, and understands all the machinations of your thoughts, you have but to seek The Holy you and you will find the Divinity that is the lifeforce (חיות) of all...

Last week, I met a man of faith and action who perhaps comes closer than any other person in my experience to truly achieving

לא־תשנא את־אחיך בלבבך a lack of hate in his heart. Some of us may have heard Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish speak last week. He is a Gazan physician, who practices in Tel Shomeir hospital in Tel Aviv, who lost 3 daughters and a niece at one moment in the recent war in Gaza, and yet refuses to hate. He teaches us that the path of reconciliation, of faith in the meaning of tragedy and life circumstances, of seeing and supporting the essential humanity in each other is the way to shift reality. To feel pain and grief and sorry and loss - and yet not to take on the mantle of victimhood - not to hate the Other - is his mantra.

So I bless him and I bless all of us with the essence of this parasha: it our Divine nature to be, Holy, Sanctified, Consecrated, Kadosh.

Let us all be a Searcher of Hearts, calling ourselves to this highest of all the mitzvot - not just manifesting good deeds in the world - that is assumed, the minimum that is asked of us - but to truly to be love in our innermost places and radiate that love out into the world.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi SaraLeya Schley

Chochmat HaLev

8 Iyar 5769 Gevura she b’Netzah

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