Rabbi's Sermons

Shabat Shalom!

The great Israeli writer and poet, Yehuda Amichai, wrote an interesting prose entitled: “דיוק הכאב וטשטוש האושר” – “The precision of the pain and the vagueness of the happiness”. The text translated into English reads as follows:

“I think about how accurately humans describe their pain in doctors' offices. Even those who have not learned to read and write are quite accurate: It is a very strong pain, it is a tearing pain, and it is like a saw, or it is burning, it is a sharp and excruciating pain. ‘It's here, right there, yes, right there it is!‘. Happiness seems to obscure all the details. I have heard from those who enjoyed a night of love or after enjoying celebrations, that it was good, that it was wonderful, that it felt like heaven. Even that man out there in space floating, in the void from the spaceship I just read that he said: It was wonderful, great, I have no words.

The precision of pain and the vagueness of happiness. I also want to accurately describe a sharp pain I feel, for not being able to express the faint happiness and joy. Apparently, I too, learned how to speak with the pain”.

During a Shabat service in Israel, some kids from the school participated in a song at the end of the religious services. For me, it was very emotional to be able to hear them sing “Salaam, Shalom”, about the so much needed peace in the world. At the end of the services I asked them excitedly about how they felt, and their answers were no more emotional than: “it was ok”, “good”, “I think it was good”. When my children were young, something similar used to happen to me when I tried to ask them how they had done in school and I hardly received an answer of no more than 3 to 5 words. On the contrary, when a fight or something serious happened, they came directly to tell me how the fight had started, the chairs that had been blown from one floor to another (and I'm not exaggerating), the screams, and how everyone ran to help, others to escape the tumult, the reactions of the teachers and when finally security came, etc. Again "The precision of pain and the vagueness of happiness". It seems that this human psychology of accepting happiness in a certain natural way and focusing on unpleasant or bad things is part of our nature. Read the news! Or maybe it's better to say: please do not even read the news! In Israel and CNN news apps, I counted, out of pure curiosity, the proportion of positive news, such as scientific discoveries, new products, sports achievements, and technological advances, against the news about disasters, wars, massacres, and others. The disparity is quite large. It seems that reading the news only leaves us with a bitter taste of what is happening in the world. I'm not against knowing about all kinds of events, but it seems that the statistical approach is the same: "Precision about the pain and vagueness regarding happiness".

The curious thing is that this trend, which would be expected to be only human, also appears in this week's portion of Parashat B'hukotai, with which we close the book of Leviticus. In the divine text, we see the same trend. The Torah readings, B'hukotai along with the Ki Tavo portion, which appears in the book of Deuteronomy, are both known as the “Parashot of Blessing and Cursing” or “Parashot of Rebuke”. The B'hukotai portion is known as "The Little Rebuke" and the Ki Tavo portion is known as "The Great Rebuke". Both readings describe the blessings that will come upon the people of Israel if they keep the Divine laws and on the other hand the curses that will fall on their heads if they violate God's commandments.

In both portions, the difference between the number of blessings and the number of curses in each is also very noticeable. In this week's Bechukotai portion, ten verses are dedicated to indicate the blessings and 28 verses detail the curses. In Parsha Ki Tavo from the book of Deuteronomy, there are 12 verses to indicate the blessings and 54 verses dedicated to the curses, almost five times as many!

The difference is even more significant when we look at not only the quantity but also the "quality" of the curses in each reading. The blessings in this week's Parsha are generic and not defined, just as Yehuda Amichai said: "The vagueness of happiness", for example: "⁴ I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit… ⁶ And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down” and ends in verse 13: “I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright”. However, when talking about curses, the details are truly terrifying: “¹⁶ I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ¹⁷ ...and ye shall be slain before your enemies; they that hate you shall reign over you… ¹⁸ …I will punish you seven times more for your sins. ¹⁹ ...and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass. ²²  I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children and destroy your cattle and make you few in number... ²⁵  I will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of My covenant…  I will send the pestilence among you, and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. ²⁹ And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. ³⁰ And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. ³¹ And I will make your cities waste… ³² And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell therein shall be astonished at it; ³³ And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste”. My God! After this reading, you will surely feel tremendously motivated! I just need to finish as the priests do in a Catholic mass: "The words of the Lord, Amen".

I wonder if this millenary trend, so human and, as we see, also Divine, of emphasizing bad things, punishments, and curses, as we read in our Parsha B'hukotai, is a form of motivation that works. Some indicate that this text is not motivational at all, but that it was a prophecy about what would happen in the future. The prophet Jeremiah describes in the book of Lamentations, during the hermetic closure that the Babylonians made to Jerusalem, that the inhabitants inside the walled city, in moments of despair due to hunger, came to use the bodies of their dead sons and daughters for food. Let us also remember that the people of Israel were exiled among the nations after the year 70 CE and that the city and the Land of Israel remained, over the centuries, truly converted into a desert.

Nowadays this trend of “Precision of the pain and vagueness of happiness” is reflected daily in the sections of the newspapers and on social media. There are few occasions that we read in publications from various sources, something positive or joyful. Perhaps it is because we take the good for granted and do not tend to give it much importance. When the good is trivial, we tend to forget that goodness and friendliness require work and continuous work, and that is why it is necessary to scare us so much with excessive curses. But is this a good way for the Torah to offer us this motivational message?

The motivation to fulfill the commandments or to have an achievement in any field is a very complex issue. Surely at some point, we have wondered about how to motivate our children, or if we lead teams, our collaborators, or if we are teachers, our students. You may have used this ancient technique of "carrot and stick with the donkey", but it may be the right way if you are dealing with donkeys... and not with human beings. Currently, seems that whoever was using this technique has probably already run out of carrots and only may use the stick: "Either you do this or that or we will have to close the company". So the method that Parashat B'hukotai offers us, perhaps no longer works. We will have to find a way in which our children, collaborators or students will be motivated by their own principles, forget about “carrot and stick” techniques and promote fair and balanced rewards. We have to change our basic ideas about motivation if we want people to truly perform, for our members to live up to our traditions, and for us to grow closer to our faith. All the blessings and curses written in Parashat Bechukotai are ultimately theoretical. Many of us have sadly realized that in real life, there have been many cases where “Tzadik vera lo, Rasha veTov lo” - “the righteous receive afflictions and the wicked receive good”. So the determination to keep commandments, or traditions, or customs, or get closer to the community, depends solely on ourselves. True motivation does not come from a stick or a carrot, neither punishment or reward, but must be internal. There is no way to offer a “carrot or stick” in a religious community, so the desire to participate in our traditions must come from our hearts, the interest in approaching the community must be sincere, our desire, and that does not depend on blessings nor curses, it depends only on ourselves.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi David Laor

May 31^st, 2024