Parashat Behar-Bechukotai (Revised May 8, 2026) This week's double parashah, Behar and Bechuotai, bring to a close the book of Vayikra, a book the all-consuming focus of which is, undoubtably, KEDUSHAH, holiness. The last chapter is concerned largely with the kind of vows people make in dedicating something to the service of Hashem in the Mikdash. There are many laws regulating this seemingly noble motivation and its accompanying action, but my attention was taken this time around by the following law: "If (the devoted thing) is an animal of the kind from which an offering is brought to Hashem, any one which is given to Hashem shall be kodesh . One shall not exchange it ( lo yachalifenu ) nor shall one substitute for it ( yamir oto ), good for bad or bad for good; now if one DOES substitute for it, it will be that it and its substitute will be kodesh ." Vayikra 27:10-11 This mitzvah turns out to be very curious, because one is lashed for its intentional violation...
Some thoughts which pushed their way to the surface with the help of a shiur by Rav Daniel Kohn yesterday (as usual in such matters, credit is his, responsibility is mine). "You shall rejoice in your festival...and you shall be altogether happy". Thus we are commanded regarding Sukkot. But aside from the usual questions that arise when it seems that the Torah commands an emotion, there's another more pressing questions that is all but asked by the holiday itself - what is there to be happy about? Yes, it is true, we are finally gathering in our hard-earned harvest, for which we toiled and over which we fretted a thousand different worries during the last year agricultural year. But we can hardly help but notice that we have arrived at this auspicious moment because yet another year has passed, and, as we look at the fields around, as the plants wither, as the weather turns a colder shoulder to our hopes, as we begin to gather our lives into the structures which we call...