5/9/2018 1:33:03 PM
Ardelle Brody
Behar
Shalom!
This week the Torah will very clearly detail the ramifications of two different directions the nation of Israel could choose to go. On the one hand, they could decide to take the path of obedience and experience the extraordinary blessings that will be poured out on them as a result of adherence to Yah's Torah. However, they are also confronted with the curses - terrible horrors that will plummet them downward into the depths of despair if they choose to be disobedient.
When you read the lists of the blessings and the curses, you will quickly notice that the list of curses is at least three times the length of the blessings and contains far more detail. There is, however, a clear symmetry between the two. The opposite of every blessing is seen in the curses:
1. Rain/drought2. Agricultural abundance/famine3. Peace/war4. Fertility and population increase/bloodshed and genocide5. Wealth/poverty6. God's tangible Presence/God's absence7. Home in the Land/Exiled into the nations
Rabbi Alex Israel describes the blessings as a process. The blessings begin with the rain which ensures agricultural success. Because there is plenty of food, there is no need to leave the Land to look for food in other countries.
Vayikra/Leviticus 26:4 then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
There will be peace in the Land, because of the absence of dangerous animals and because of the promise of divine protection from foreign attack. Israel will have no problem defeating her enemies:
Vayikra/Leviticus 26:6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. 7 You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
And then another blessing. Something truly divine. In a very intimate phrase, YHWH mentions that He will "turn to you." The results are promises we have heard before:
Vayikra/Leviticus 26:9 "'I will turn to you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.
And yet another blessing as we reach the pinnacle of the upward spiral. Our covenant keeping Elohim will promise to go beyond physical blessings and "set His tabernacle among you" and "walk among you":
Vayikra/Leviticus 26:11 I will set My tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you. 12 I will walk in your midst and be your Elohim, and you shall be My people.
So these are the blessings for obedience - first YHWH
taking care of their physical needs from a distance and climaxing with His very Presence in the midst of the nation. Rashi makes an interesting comment pertaining to "I will walk in your midst":
I will walk with you as in the Garden of Eden, like one of you, and you will not tremble from My very Presence.
Quoting now from commentary by Rabbi Alex Israel:
Rashi wishes to compare the world of the blessings with the Garden of Eden. He draws on a textual parallel. In the Garden of Eden, Adam experienced God as "walking through the garden." (Genesis 3:8) What is this "walking?" It would seem that this is a metaphor for a constant divine presence that was synonymous with the environment of Gan Eden. Adam was able to commune with God without fear or apprehension.
This incredible state of things lasted only for a short time. It was shattered by man's sin. Bereshit describes how, after his sin, man felt a need to hide from God, unable to face him openly....Man and God are distanced, separated...And now, back to Bechukotai. Here, in the "Blessings" passage, God talks once again about "walking" in the midst of the people....are we seeing a resurfacing of an Eden-like reality? The answer is - Yes! The Torah is communicating something to us. That as a response to man obeying God's law, man can once again "walk" with God, communicate with God in a straightforward manner. The Man-God connection is repaired...we must infer a startling conclusion. That our Blessings describe a process whereby Man "returns," in some way, to Eden.
Ramban tells us that the world of blessings IS the Garden of Eden with all its associated blessings; God's intense Presence and closeness, the absence of sin, all worldly needs effortlessly at hand.
Rabbi Israel goes on to speak of the changes that took place when man was forced to leave the garden. Quoting:
Man and woman ate from the Tree of Knowledge and were banished. Before they left, they were each cursed. To woman: "I will make most severe your pangs of childbearing..." (Gen 3:16). To man, "cursed shall be the earth because of you; By toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles will it sprout up for you, but your food shall be the grasses of the field..." (Gen 3:17-18). so we have hardship in two areas: pain in childbirth and the exhausting task of tilling the land for food.
Look again at the blessing passage. It is precisely these two elements that reverse themselves. In the narrative of the "blessings", agriculture becomes easy, and bringing children into the world is somehow effortless. The curses of Adam and Eve would seem to have disappeared. Why? Because we are back in the Garden of Eden!
In reference to the Land of Israel as the special place of blessings:
The Land of Israel and the Garden of Eden are both spiritually attuned. They both act as a spiritual barometer and tolerate their inhabitants accordingly. If God's ethic is followed, it becomes a paradise; a place where the worldly is taken care of and one can focus on higher things. However, if God's laws are rejected and laid aside, the place itself will eject its inhabitants. The land will not withstand wrongdoing.
Let's return to Vayikra 26:9 and continue the connection with the Garden of Eden:
Compare the above verse with what we read in Bereshith/Genesis:Vayikra/Leviticus 26:9 "'I will turn to you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.
Bereshith/Genesis 1:27 So Elohim created man in His own image; in the image of Elohim He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then Elohim blessed them, and Elohim said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it
To "parah", is to "be fruitful, bear young, increase with offspring." Notice that after Elohim created Adam and Eve, His first blessing and His first commandment were to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." Comparing that with Vayikra 26:9, we see that this His intention is to return them to the covenant He made with them in the Garden! And He never forgets His desire. We see His blessing and command to be "fruitful" again with Noach:
Bereshith/Genesis 9:1 So Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
And again "fruitfulness" with Avram, only this time Elohim says "He" will do it:
Bereshith/Genesis 17:2 "And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly." 3 Then Avram fell on his face, and Elohim talked with him, saying: 4 "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. 5 "No longer shall your name be called Avram, but your name shall be Avraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 "I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be Elohim to you and your descendants after you.
YHWH repeats His faithfulness to Ya'acov, the command for "fruitfulness" and also speaks of the Land:
Bereshith/Genesis 35:11 Also Elohim said to him: "I am El Shaddai. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. 12 "The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your descendants after you I give this and."
Ya'acov tells Yosef of these same promises:
Bereshith/Genesis 48:3 Then Ya'acov Yosef: "El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, 4 "and said to me, 'Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.'
Now interestingly enough, there are only two places in Shemot where we are told the children of Israel kept the commandment to "be fruitful." The first place mentioned is when they are in Egypt:
Shemot/Exodus 1:7 But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
The context of the second instance in Shemot is when YHWH promises that upon entrance into the Promised Land, they will drive out the inhabitants and become "fruitful."
Shemot/Exodus 23:30 "Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you are fruitful, and you inherit the Land.
And then, the very next place we find "fruitful" is in our Torah portion where YHWH promises that when the people obey His Torah and keep is with all their heart in the Land, He will "make them fruitful and increase their numbers." The only other place in the Torah we find "fruitfulness" is in Devarim where YHWH warns the Israelites that the result of disobeying the commandments will bring a "root fruitful of gall and wormwood," not blessings. If you continue to read, you will see that this person deceives himself, thinking he will be blessed when in truth he will inherit the curses:
Devarim/Deuteronomy 29:15 "but with him who stands here with us today before YHWHourElohim, as well as with him who is not here with us today 16 (for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by, 17 and you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them -- wood and stone and silver and gold); 18 "so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today fromYHWH our Elohim, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root fruitful of gall and wormwood: 19 "and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, 'I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart' -- as though the drunkard could be included with the sober. 20 "YHWH would not spare him; for then the anger o YHWHand His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him,and YHWH would blot out his name from under heaven. 21 "And YHWH would separate him from all the tribes of Israel for adversity, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Torah, 22 "so that the coming generation of your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, would say, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which YHWH has laid on it:
Yet, our covenant keeping Elohim...
Just one more thing. It is YHWH's desire that His people will be "fruitful." Jeremiah provides us with a beautiful illustration of the outcome of trusting in the Almighty:
He will "turn to" His people, make them "fruitful," and keep His covenant with them. Remember in the blessings of Vayikra 26:9, YHWH said He would "turn to them?" That phrase in Hebrew is "paniti elechem." (It literally means He will turn His face toward them. Consider the words of the Aharonic blessing) In fact, the only other place you read "paniti elechem," is in reference to how He will "turn" toward the mountains of Israel when He restores His people. Also notice that now it is the mountains who are being "fruitful," blessing the children of Israel:
Ezekiel 36:8 And you, O mountains of Israel, You shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit for My people Israel, For they have drawn near to come. 9 For, lo, I am for you, and have turned to you (paniti elechem), And ye have been tilled and sown.
Jeremiah 17:7 "Blessed is the man who trusts inYHWH, And whose hope is YHWH 8 or he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
These words are similar to the words in Psalm 1:
Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2 But his delight is in the Torah ofYHWH, And in His Torah he meditates day and night. 3 He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.
There is quite a difference, however, in the contexts of these verses. While the Psalmist speaks of a healthy life, Jeremiah tells of a person who will "not be anxious in the year of drought, nor cease from yielding fruit." This person is surviving drought...not just surviving, but continuing to be "fruitful!" His roots have gone deep and he is trusting in YHWH. His "hope is in YHWH!" This is a picture of a person who has learned to fully trust YHWH with His circumstances. When things get tough, it will be evident what kind of "roots" he has! He doesn't just survive, he thrives!!
Yeshua spoke often about "fruit," and it was a common theme in His parables. Following are a couple verses:
Luke 8:15 "But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.
John 15:8 "By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
In fact, consider how the problems of man began with "fruit" in the garden, and the Bible ends with this glorious picture of "fruit":
Revelation 22:2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
It seems appropriate to end with a prayer from Colossians:
Colossians 1:9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy ofAdonai, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge ofElohim;
Amen!
Now, for an amazing opportunity. The new blog, Ani Yosef (I am Joseph), is offering a very unique opportunity to spend time in Israel before and during Sukkot. In a service trip that includes touring, participants will be literally cleaning up Jerusalem before the Feast. Find the details here -
https://aniyosef.com/2018/05/07/jerusalem-on-50-a-day-at-sukkot-no-kidding/Please continue your prayers for Israel as Iran continues to establish itself in Syria with intent on attacking Israel. The north and the Golan are on high alert with every precaution being taken.
Psalm 121:4 Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep.
Shabbat Shalom!
Ardelle