The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

Yep, time to start a new book. We just finished Vayikra, wrapped up in a tidy little package all those laws about sacrifices and the like (well, not so tidy – see last week's Pshat!), and it's time to move on. But, to where? Where are we going? And where are we now? Oh, yeah, those last couple of parashiyot of Vayikra reminded us that, despite all the emphasis on the MIshkan and, by implication, its permanent successor, the Beit Hamikdash, we are still firmly planted at Mount Sinai . And standing (and sitting, and camping, and waiting) at Sinai, we are still dreaming of returning to a land that returns to each of us every fifty years. Marching instructions? None, yet. We're still stuck in the middle. Indeed, Josh, my weekly Ramban chevruta , adamantly insists that we are still in Vayikra, still in a process that began toward the end of Shemot and won't come to a conclusion until Hashem "gets those doggies movin'" in Beha'a...

With this week's parashah, Bechukotai, the central (in both senses of the word) book of the Torah comes to a close. Recent years have produced much study, in many circles, of Sefer Vayikra, and the various results all seem to converge on a profound appreciation of the fullness, complexity and profoundity not only of the book's content, but of the structure which imparts to that content its richness and resonance even today, when we are, seemingly so much at a remove from so many of it's clauses. Bechukotai, as the Ramban has pointed out, is the bringing to a close of the statement of the brit between Hashem and Am Yisrael - a statement which was begun way back toward the end of Shemot. Its provisions - blessings for covenant fulfillment and unspeakably horrific punishment for willful violation - serve as a formal conclusion for the momentous, history-shaping compact between the Infinite One and His self-created finite partner. Except that the book doesn't end there. ...

Yesterday I was in the market, choosing vegetables. This particular store offered two type of tomatoes - Heter Mechira and Hothouse. I suddenly was reminded of all the various possibilities and nuances, stringencies and leniencies of Shemitta observance, and I was at once elated and exasperated. Why, I wondered? Once every seven years, we come to Parashat Behar thoroughly immersed in its headline provision - Shemittah. Here in the Land of Israel, the Shemitta is not just a theoretical construct, as it had been for most of our people for almost two thousand years. Rather, it's a complex of mitzvot that impact many aspects of life on a daily basis - especially for those of us blessed to live outside the cities, with a dunam or two of holy land to try and wrest from the thorns and thistles that are happy to take over at the drop of a seed. But even here in Israel, the Shemitta as we presently observe it is but a shadow of the full-blown social/agricultural/spiritual structure p...

Parashat Kedoshim is, structurally, the climax of the Torah. The Jewishly-critical seventh parashah of the middle book of the Torah, Kedoshim turns from the Kohen Gadol on Yom Hakippurim in the Kodesh Hakodashim to the people, gathered formally and addressed as an entity. The seemingly arbitrary interweave of ritual and ethical mitzvot which it presents is introduced with the famous state, "You shall be holy, for Holy am I, Hashem your G-d"! The series of mitzvot that follow include some of the most basic - indeed, the midrash shows how all ten of the Ten Commandments are restated in Kedoshim. This restatement is now in the context of communal and corporate holiness, and is punctuated by multiple repetitions of the concluding phrase, "I am Hashem". At one point, Rashi interprets this interjection to mean, "don't think I don't know what's in your heart, what your true intentions are - I am Hashem". Over and over, "I am Hashem", ...