Lead Tidbit
Expanded Tochacha
If you will follow My laws... thus begins 11 p'sukim of what will happen if and when the People of Israel keep the Torah and observe its mitzvot. What follows those p'sukim are 33 more p'sukim vividly describing what will happen if we don't. Seems kind of imbalanced, with three times as many "negative" p'sukim as positive.

Until you realize that the previous several hundred p'sukim are filled with the same message as B'chukotai's opening eleven. Keep the Torah. Follow G-d's Words. Do Mitzvot. Shun sin. G-d has been telling us of the great things that will be ours, since His promises to Avraham Avinu. And mixed in with the "up" messages, theTorah has shown us the bad things in store if we don't follow Him.

So the Tochacha is much larger than the 33 p'sukim in B'chukotai, and the upbeat 11 p'sukim are really much greater in number.

And the ratio of good: bad p'sukim isn't really significant.

This is so because we can consider all the p'sukim - the good and the bad, the rewards and the punishments, to be Tochacha.

If a sensitive Jew sins, then a pasuk that tells him what will happen if he sins, we be a reproach, but so will a pasuk that tells him of the beautiful reward for keeping mitzvot. That sensitive Jew will find reproach, lower his head in shame, and hopefully repent with either kind of promises.

May we be motivated by Yir'at HaShem and Ahavat HaShem to increase our Torah learning and teaching, and the practice of mitzvot, to become better Jews and better people, to healp others become better Jews and people, thereby hastening to Complete Redemption.