This week’s Perasha is Behukotai.
By and large, each year we read Perashat Behukotai two weeks before Shavuot (this year in Israel happens to be an exception). This is no coincidence. The rabbis arranged it this way based on a Gemara in Masechet Megillah, in which Ezra HaSofer made an enactment that we should read the parashot of the blessings and curses, once in Parashat Ki Tavo before Rosh Hashanah and now before Shavuot we read Behukotai.
Why? The Gemara says,
תכלה שנה וקללותיה
Let the year and the curses end.
The Gemara explains that Shavuot, in a sense, is like Rosh Hashanah in that it’s a new beginning of learning Torah, so we want to let the year and its curses end.
The Hida explains
אם בחקותי תלכו ואת מצוותי תשמרו
Walk with “My״ statutes, and keep “My״ Mitzvot are the cause of all blessing and all curses.
It seems simple and obvious. What’s the question?
He says the stress is on the “My”
Because it’s possible that the mitzvot are done out of habit and by rote; we may be doing these mitzvot because we inherited them from our parents, but they are no longer alive in us.
He quotes a pasuk where Hashem told Yeshaya the Navi that the Hurban (destruction of the Bet Hamikdash) occurred because, “They honor Me with mouths and lips but their hearts are far away from Me.
The Hida says the secret to receiving the blessings is not just doing the Mitzvot but putting our heart into them. He then gives us a few examples:
1- Berachot: Are our hearts in it? Do we think for second when we say shehakol on our tea, about the leaves that grew on a celestial mountain somewhere and were placed in an organic bag that G-d provided for us?
I know I thanked the man who once offered me a shot of $1,000 scotch. We felt thankful for that!
It’s human nature. The Gemara says, “The Master owns the bottle but we say thank you to the waiter.”
Lonnie the bartender gets the thank you when he serves a drink at a wedding, but the Baal Simcha (host) paid for it.
That’s life. We can go through life saying berachot without feeling.
The same for is true for our tefillot.
Rabbi Yehezkel Levenstein, of the giants in Emunah, wrote about how he woke up and realized one day that he was putting on his Tzizit because that’s what his father did, that he was kissing the mezuzah, and doing many other Mitzvot like a robot without thinking. That realization is what started him off.
So our prayers and Mitzvot need heart but the Hiddush of the Hovot HaLevavot is that our Bitachon needs heart too.
We can listen to class all day and put the bumper stickers all over the car, but when push comes to shove and your neighbor blocks the driveway and you get stuck for half an hour do you explode?
Or to the ladies: if on Erev Shavuot, the housekeeper quits, and then you tell your husband and he says,”So what? Calm down,” Do you explode or want to throw a pot at him?
Where’s the Bitachon then? Can you say “This is what Hashem wants”? Do you turn to G-d then? Do we fix ourselves then?
We have to be real. That’s the lesson of Behukotai, says the Hida.
And BeH we will be real, and we’ll get all the blessings.