Parshas Behar-Bechukosai - Customized Consequences

Thoughts on The Parsha

Parshas Bechukosai

Customized Consequences

By: Daniel Listhaus

אִם בְּחֻקֹּתַי בחוקותי תֵּלֵכוּ וְאֶת מִצְו‍ֹתַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם: וְנָתַתִּי גִשְׁמֵיכֶם בְּעִתָּם וְנָתְנָה הָאָרֶץ יְבוּלָהּ וְעֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה יִתֵּן פִּרְיוֹ

וְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי בְּתוֹכְכֶם וְהָיִיתִי לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ לִי לְעָם

“If you will go in My decrees and observe My commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit….I will walk among you….”

-Bechukosai 26:3-4;12

After the Torah describes the great rewards which come to those who perform the mitzvos, Hashem tells us, “I will walk among you and will be a G-d to you and you will be a people unto Me.” Rashi¹ explains that this passuk (verse) is in allusion to the reward of Olam Habbah. Hashem is promising here that He will stroll in Gan Eden with those who keep the mitzvos.

The obvious question on the passukim here, which the Kli Yakar² raises, is why is it that the reward of Olam Habbah is not stated explicitly anywhere in the Torah? The Kli Yakar offers seven answers which he compiled by the many earlier meforshim (commentaries) who were bothered by the same question.

The first approach is that of the Rambam³ who writes that the reason that the reward of Olam Habbah is not mentioned is because had the Torah described the incredible pleasures of Olam Habbah, we would be so inclined to do good that it would be impossible for us to do mitzvos l'shma (mitzvos for the sake of listening to Hashem alone) because we would be so focused on trying to attain the unbelievable reward.

The second answer is from the R'av'a⁴, who simply says that Olam Habbah is too great to be put into words that a person could comprehend on earth. Therefore, the Torah chose to only list the various mundane incentives and leave out the ikkur (main) rewards.

Rabbeinu Bechayei and the Ramban have a very different perspective. They are the opinion that it is indeed self evident that there is Olam Habbah because after all, most people in the world are smart enough to realize that there is something spiritual inside our body that is combined with the elements of dirt and water of which we are made. We have personality, ability to think and reason, and have the tremendous power of intelligent speech. There is an inherent sensation that the generator that keeps our bodies running and alive is something literally out of this world. Therefore, anyone who stops to think about this logically could easily come to the conclusion that just as our bodies, comprised of earth, are returned to dirt, so too the spiritual side of us must return to its place at the time of death. Furthermore, Olam Habbah is essentially discussed in Torah because for many serious aveiros (sins) that a person does, the punishment is kareis – which literally means that the person gets cut off. This implies that as long as one does not transgress on those sins that there must be at least a baseline level of a spiritual world for each individual's neshama to return. What is not so obvious, though, is that nature itself is actually fully controlled by Hashem, and is easily taken off its programmed cycles in order to correspond to how we are keeping the mitzvos. This is how Rabbeinu Bechayei and the Ramban reason that it was actually more important for the Torah to state what is the more mundane reward instead of explicitly describing Olam Habbah.

The Kli Yakar proceeds to offer two more answers based on the Kuzari⁵, which was focused on in a previous year's d'var Torah⁶, as well as an answer based on the Rambam's Moreh Nevuchim⁷. However, let us focus on the seventh, final approach he brings. The Kli Yakar writes that the reason that the Torah was not able to mention the rewards of Olam Habbah becomes clear after taking a moment to think about the following. How is it that the Torah could say that if we keep the mitzvos then we will experience blessings but if we do not listen then we will no? What if one person is good and his neighbor is not so good? Will it rain over one of their fields and not the other? Rather, the way to understand the passukim is that whether berachos (blessings) or klalos (curses) come is dependent on what the majority of people are doing. If overall we are doing what we should, Hashem will reward us in many ways in this world as the Torah describes, and if we are generally not doing what is good in the eyes of Hashem, then we will suffer the consequences as a nation. Olam Habbah, however, works on a completely different system. When it comes to one's reward in Olam Habbah, it is completely individual based. Each person experiences a completely different world of Olam Habbah depending on his accomplishments according to his level and life situation.

The Medrash⁸ brings the following story. One time, Rebbe Shimon ben Chalafta realized on erev Shabbos that he had no money to buy food for Shabbos. He went to the outskirts of the city and davened to Hashem to give him what to buy food with for Shabbos. Hashem answered his tefilla and sent him a precious stone from shamayim (heaven). Rebbe Shimon ben Chalafta immediately brought the stone to a jeweler and exchanged it for enough money to buy food. When he brought the money home to his wife, she demanded that he tell her where he got the money from. Rebbe Shimon told over what had occurred. However, she responded that she refuses to derive any benefit from it at all. Rebbe Shimon asked why, and she answered, “Do you want your table to be lacking in Olam Habbah?” In other words, she was telling him that she did not appreciate him giving up some of his reward in the next world for some money in this world. Rebbe Shimon went and told what had happened to Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi, who in turn told him to tell his wife that if indeed anything would be lacking from Rebbe Shimon's “table” in Olam Habbah, that he would personally replenish it from his own. When Rebbe Shimon relayed the message to his wife, she insisted that he go back with her to Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi. When they arrived she said to him, “How can you make such a promise? Does a person necessarily see his fellow in Olam Habbah?” When she made this argument Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi realized she was indeed correct.

The Kochvei Ohr⁹ comments that this response of Rebbe Shimon's wife is very mysterious. What does it mean that a person does not necessarily see his friend in Olam Habbah? He answers that she was saying as follows. The mishna in Avos¹⁰ states that Ben Hey Hey used to say “l'phum tza'ara agra”. This literally means that one's reward is proportional to the amount of exertion required to put in. Unlike any job in the world where it is really irrelevant how much effort one puts in because one will only get paid when the job gets done, one who tries learning Torah will receive reward in proportion to what is expected of him personally and the amount of effort he puts in.

Although the conventional understanding of this mishna is that it is referring to the amount one must toil to learn Torah, the reality is that the concept applies to every mitzva. Each person's reward in Olam Habbbah is completely unique based on how hard it was for each individual to do the mitzvos. This, the Kochvei Ohr explains is exactly what the wife of Rebbe Shimon explained to Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi. Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi was extremely wealthy whereas Rebbe Shimon ben Chalafta was very poor. Therefore, Rebbe Shimon had a constant struggle to spend his time learning and doing mitzvos because of his financial hardship. Therefore, his success as a tremendous Torah scholar was (possibly) worth much more than someone like say, Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi, who was wealthy and did not have to overcome the same problems in life. So, Rebbe Shimon's wife told Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi that he could not be so confident to ensure that nothing will be lacking from the table of Rebbe Shimon in Olam Habbah because it could very well be that Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi will not have the means to make such a commitment in the next world since the value of Rebbe Shimon's mitzvos was so high.

This is precisely what the Kli Yakar is coming to explain as to why it is not possible for the Torah to describe Olam Habbah in our parsha – because it comes in so many different forms. Each person will experience a customized Olam Habbah based on his or her own life situation and what he was able to accomplish, taking into account the amount of exertion necessary for the particular individual.

The Kochvei Ohr continues to explain that the same is true when it comes to aveiros (sins) as well. The Gemara¹¹ mentions one who refuses to wear the white strings of tzitzis (which is an extremely easy and inexpensive mitzva to do) will have more to answer to than the one who wears tzitzis, but without techeiles (the rare, expensive blue dye). As the Gemara explains, imagine a king who commanded one of his servants to fetch him some gold and the other he asks to get a cup of dirt. When they both come back later empty-handed, there is no doubt that the king will be much more upset with the servant he asked to get the cup of dirt. After all, his task was so easy to accomplish, there could be no valid excuse as to why he was unable to accomplish this command. So too when it comes to aveiros, the aveiros which are easiest to stay away from we get punished much more for, whereas for the aveiros with a high level of desire to do them, we are punished less.

The problem with this approach, as the Kochvei Ohr points out, is that it is not true. There are some aveiros such a arayos (illicit relationships) and gezel (theft) which are often very hard for people to stay away from, yet the punishment for these serious aveiros are quite harsh. So how could we understand the reciprocal “l'phum tz'a'ra agra” when it comes to aveiros?

The Kochvei Ohr answers that there is another level to the system when it comes to aveiros. One's punishment for the aveiros he does is measured not only based on how easy it was to stay away from the aveirah, but also how much benefit he received from doing the particular aveirah. The sequence of the axis – how hard it was to control myself along with how much benefit was realized creates a combination with a customized punishment.

Hashem gave us the Torah with its mitzvos to keep. It is our job to learn the Torah and keep these mitzvos and there is really no excuse – some of us may be meizidim (sin purposely), some shogegim (sin based on lack of knowledge – not fully on purpose), and some on'sim (complete accident) but there is a category that each of us fall under and will have to answer to. This is a chesbon (calculation) that each person has to make for himself. The answer to what is expected of any individual is not to look to what the people around you are doing because everyone's situation is completely different and their punishment and reward system is unique to them.

Although the mitzvos in the Torah could often seem daunting and hard, we have an obligation to keep them nonetheless, because being hard is not an excuse to not do a mitzva, rather only a reason to receive more reward. May Hashem help us be honest with ourselves to understand where we are supposed to be so that the quality of our customized consequences could indeed be priceless.

1Vayikra 26:12

2Ibid.

3Hilchos Teshuva 9:5

4R'av'a Devarim 32:39

5Kuzari 1:104-106

6See Thoughts On Parsha, Parshas Bechukosai – Recognizing Real Rewards (2011)

7Moreh Nevuchim 3

8Shemos Rabbah Parshas Pekudei

9Kochvei Ohr 8

10Avos 5:26 (though actual number mishna may vary per edition, it is the last mishna in the 5^th perek)

11Menachos 43b
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