Parashat B’huqqotai

Torah Sparks

Parashat B’huqqotai
Leviticus 26:3 – 27:34

The image of walking opens our Torah portion. “If you will walk in My regulations and keep My commandments, and do them,” (Lev. 26:3) says God, then the world will operate naturally in a beneficent way. The rains will fall in due season and the land will be productive. The Torah also promises peace and, when necessary, military victory against evil aggressors. Such promises are found elsewhere in the Torah. They emphasize material well-being as a reward for keeping God’s commandments.

But the image of walking includes something else. It reappears at the conclusion of this promise of well-being, as the promise takes on a distinctly spiritual quality. “I will place My dwelling in your midst […] And I will walk along with you and be, for you, your Almighty, as you will be, for Me, a people.” (vv. 11-12) The walking of Israel is given a mirror reflection in God’s own walking, as it were. If we walk with God’s statutes (verse 3), then God will walk with us (verse 12).
Furthermore, God explains that such walking does not entail a subjugation of our personalities or stature. When we walk with God we will not be walking obsequiously. God proceeds to explain that She took us out of Egypt so that we should not be enslaved to anyone: “I smashed the rods of your yoke, and I had you walk proudly.” (v. 13) God restored our autonomy and self-respect by liberating us from Egypt in order to have a worthy partner who could walk together with God.

God’s desire is that we walk side by side with God, in dignity and confidence. Such companionship has been God’s desire from the beginning. Rashi’s comment on verse 12 puts it beautifully: “I will stroll with you in the Garden of Eden, like one of you, and you will not be shaken by Me.” This image returns us to the early moment in the Garden, when the first humans heard “the voice of God walking in the Garden in the breeze of the day.” (Gen. 3:8) At that time, consumed with shame, they were shaken by God’s walking in the Garden and they fled. Since that time God has yearned for the maturation of the human being, so that we might be able to resume that stroll, broken off so long ago.

How can we recover our place as walking-mates with God? Our Torah portion tells us that we need to take the lead: “If you will walk in My regulations and keep My commandments…”

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Greenstein


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