Rabbi Yaacov Haber's Torah Insights

A Thought for the Week

Bechukotai

Hashem speaks to us about the blessing and the curses that can come upon the Jewish people. He speaks to us like a father speaks to his children explaining to them the importance of their decisions and dispositions in life. He says, 'Your whole life stands before you. Make the right decisions and you will be blessed. Make the wrong decisions and your life will be miserable.'

Sadly these verses read like a history of our people. As a people we have been tortured, killed and humiliated. We have been tossed from country to country. Today we can also see the blessings. For the first time in 2000 years Israel is green and flourishing. There are yiddishe simchas every day and there are more children studying Torah then perhaps any other period in history. This Parsha is alive and mind-boggling.

Yet, it still hurts to reread the curses of the Torah, it still brings tears to our eyes to think about how our grandparents suffered and died. Why on Shabbos? Better on Tisha B'Av!

I believe that there is a deep lesson in this portion of the Torah.

Rabbi Mordechei Kaminetsky tells the following story:
After the Nazis invaded the small village of Klausenberg, they began to celebrate in their usual sadistic fashion. They gathered the Jews into a circle in the center of town, and then paraded their Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusial Yehuda Halberstam, into the center. They began taunting and teasing him, pulling his beard and pushing him around. The vile soldiers trained their guns on him as the commander began to speak. "Tell us Rabbi," sneered the officer, "do you really believe that you are the Chosen People?" The soldiers guarding the crowd howled in laughter. But the Rebbe did not. In a serene voice, he answered loud and clear, "Most certainly."

The officer became enraged. He lifted his rifle above his head and sent it crashing on the head of the Rebbe. The Rebbe fell to the ground. There was rage in the officer's voice. "Do you still think you are the Chosen People?" he yelled. Once again, the Rebbe nodded his head and said, "yes, we are." The officer became infuriated. He kicked the rebbe in the shin and repeated. "You stupid Jew, you lie here on the ground, beaten and  humiliated. What makes you think that you are the Chosen People?" From the depths of humiliation clouded in dust, the Rebbe replied. "As long as we are not the ones kicking and beating innocent people, we can call ourselves chosen."

The Parsha is about our chosenness! We must conduct ourselves as a chosen people. When all is well, when blessing abounds, it feels good and easy to feel chosen. But when life turns tragic, when the chips are down, chosenness becomes a challenge. 

Do we maintain our dignity and our character when life takes a downturn? Do we maintain our composure when others would lose their temper? Can we refrain from taking revenge when we are being persecuted? Can we hold our "middos level" when we seem to be lone rangers? If we can we are
chosen. That was the message of the Klausenberg Rebbe. This difficult
portion of the Torah ends with the ultimate charge from Hashem, "I will
always remember the Avos. I will always remember Eretz Yisroel. Even
during the worst times when you are in the land of your enemies I will
not detest you and retract on the covenant that I made with you. You are
chosen!" Hashem's challenge is to remember that we are chosen; our
challenge is also to remember that we are chosen, even during the most
trying times.

Rabbi Yaacov Haber

Rabbi Haber is the OU's National Director of Jewish Education and the spiritual leader of the OU's Pardes Program