Bechukosai

The sicha for parshas Bechukosai is in Vol. III of Likkutei Sichos.

On the posuk, im bechukosai t’lechu,  if you will go in My statutes, the Midrash says, and Rashi also quotes it, I could assume that statutes means mitzvahs. The Talmud says, if you will go in My statutes is not referring to all the mitzvahs mentioned earlier in the Torah but instead it means to strive to learn Torah. How do we know this? Because a few sentences later it says “keep My mitzvahs” which shows that the earlier statement of “if you will go in My statutes” must be referring to something other than keeping mitzvahs. So what does it refer to? It refers to studying the Torah diligently.

Now we need to understand, the Rebbe says, if going in My statutes was referring to mitzvahs then we could understand a little bit why they are referred to us “chukosai”. We know there are three kinds of mitzvahs - adus, chukim and mishpatim. Chukim are those mitzvahs for which we have no reason, and all mitzvahs, even the ones we do understand and the ones the Torah gives a reason for, Chassidus teaches us that we should fulfill those mitzvahs only because G-d told us to do it, and not because of the reason we discovered or because of the reason that is given.

In essence all mitzvahs should be treated as chukim, as that which G-d commands us to do and that is reason enough for us to do them. So if it were referring all the mitzvahs, it would make sense that the Torah refers to all mitzvahs as chukim, because all mitzvahs have this element of chukim in them.

But now that the Torah tells us that going in My statutes is not referring to mitzvahs but to studying Torah, we need to understand why would Torah is described as chukim, when in fact Torah is something you are supposed to understand. And particularly when the biggest part of Torah, the Oral Torah, is the part that you need to understand, as there is a difference between the written Torah and the Oral Torah. In the written Torah, if you read the words but don’t understand the meaning, you are still fulfilling a mitzvah. That’s why even an ignorant person can be called up to the Torah and can make the bracha on the reading of the Torah even though he won’t understand the meaning that will be read.

But in the Oral Torah, you have to understand, and if you don’t understand you can’t make a bracha on it, it would be a bracha made in vain. The Oral Torah is also much greater in quantity than the Written Torah. So the greater portion of Torah is that part of Torah that must be understood. Another difference is that the Written Torah is a fixed quantity – you can’t add to the Chumash or to the Neviim. But when it comes to the Oral Torah, beginning with the Mishnah and the Gemarrah and so on, here the quantity is endless. Any valid insight that any student in the future will have in the Oral Torah becomes part of the Oral Torah, so the Oral Torah continues to grow and increase, whereas the Written Torah is fixed and closed and cannot be increased.

Now even in the Chumash itself, that part of the Chumash that deals with mitzvahs that can be understood versus that part that deals with chukim, here also the part that deals with mitzvahs that can be understood is a greater part in quantity than the part that deals with the chukim, that can’t be understood.

So why would the Torah be described as chukosai when in fact chukosai is such a small part of the entire Torah?

The Alter Rebbe in Likkutei Torah explains that bechukosai, statutes also has the meaning of chakika, engraved. The posuk here is trying to tell us that the manner in which we should study Torah is in such a way that the words of Torah become engraved in our mind and heart.

What is the virtue of engraved letters compared to other letters? The great virtue of the engraved letters is that the letter themselves have no substance of their own, but are made of the material in which they are engraved, whereas the written letters are bonded to the parchment and connected to the parchment, yet it is a substance separate from the parchment. With engraved letters, not only are the letters joined to the substance that they are engraved in, but they are made of the substance that they are engraved in.

And this is lesson of the word bechukosai, referring to the study of Torah. The Torah is trying to tell us that in the study of Torah, the person who is studying needs to be so united with the Torah itself, it has to be the kind of a learning where the student and the subject, the Torah, do not remain two separate entities, two separate substances, but rather that they should become so joined and united that they should become one.

It is not enough that a person is united with Torah in the way that letters are united with parchment on which it is written, which is because of a devotion for the Torah, but it has to be the kind of oneness that is expressed in the engraved letters, whereby the student becomes one with Torah because he has no substance of his own, he is not something separate from the Torah but he becomes the Torah. He is not just joined with the Torah but becomes the Torah itself, just as the engraved letters are the substance in which they are engraved.

We find for example Moshe Rabbeinu, who is the first one to receive the Torah, was so totally bittul, so completely transparent and not an entity on to himself, that he was able to say, “if you do the commandments, I will make the grass grow and the rain come…”, and he didn’t have to stop and say that he is quoting G-d. He didn’t have to say it, because he didn’t experience himself as something separate from Torah, so that when he spoke, it was Torah was speaking.

We find this also with Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who said that they are very few truly saintly people and if there are two, “it is my son and I, and if it is one, it is I”. Although he was not capable of priding himself, he had no pride at all, and tzaddikim in general have no pride and are not given to boosting, yet the Rashbi was able to say this in all innocence because he never experienced himself as something separate from G-dliness – he was an engraved G-dliness, and therefore when he said that I am what I am, it was without any self-awareness at all.

All explanations in Torah, although there are many on the same subject or the same word, are connected and related to each other. And so the Alter Rebbe’s explanation that bechukosai means engraved, that teaches us that we should become so united and merged with Torah that we shouldn’t be any other than Torah itself, how does that fit with the simple meaning of bechukosai which means a commandment that you don’t understand? This would seem to be telling us that we should study the Torah with kabboles ole, without the need to understand, meaning that although it is true that Torah needs to be understood with human intelligence, we study and understand Torah with our intelligence only because that’s the way G-d wants us to study the Torah, and not because we enjoy it more that way.

And that is why we should be striving to study the Torah, meaning that we should study the Torah more than our nature or desire permits. If a person studies Torah only to the degree that he enjoys the study, then he is doing it for his own purposes, but if he is striving in the study of Torah, he is studying more than his personality or his character permits, then we know that he is studying Torah because of the Torah and not because it is his enjoyment. In this way we bring together the two explanations. When you study the Torah in such a manner that you treat it as chukim, you study beyond your natural tendency and natural comfort level, then you reach this level of chakika, you become engraved in the Torah, you become letters of Torah, and not something separate from it.

What remains to be explained is, what is the expression “t’lechu”  “if you will go in My statutes”. Going implies progress from level to level, so it would apply to that which comes in many levels and you are commanded to proceed and grow in these levels.

There are examples in human emotions. You can grow from level to level, from a lower level love to a greater level love, and the same is true in intelligence, to go from a minor, childish understanding to a more mature understanding. But what does it mean to grow and to proceed from level to level in those mitzvahs that you accept without questioning and without need to understand. Where are the levels there?

So again in Likkutei Torah, the Alter Rebbe says the word t’lechu implies a reward. There is for the efforts that we make in bechukosai, and the reward is t’lechu, you will proceed, you will grow infinitely. The simple meaning is that if you will follow the mitzvahs, then G-d promises that He will give the rains in their time and so on, and the t’lechu refers to the efforts of the person.

But the Alter Rebbe turns it around and says that the t’lechu is the true reward. For studying Torah properly, you will receive the t’lechu, you will progress endlessly. In Likkutei Torah, the Rebbe says, that the essence of emunah, the true faith that a Jew is supposed to have, is in those parts of G-d, which we cannot understand. That part which we can understand, we must work hard to understand and not get by on faith. It is only when we have understood everything that we are capable of understanding, and we have reached the outer limits of our intelligence, there emunah takes over and we believe in what lies beyond our intelligence.

That is the difference between the belief of a Jew and the belief of other nations. All nations believe in G-d but their belief is not the same. They believe in those things that their intelligence tells them exists. That is why they can only believe in that part of G-d that is associated with creation. The part of G-d that is associated with creation is to some degree is within the grasp of human intelligence. That which precedes creation completely, in this, there can be no understanding and in this the nations of the world have no belief.

Since in intelligence there are many levels and you can grow from level to level, therefore the higher the understanding is, the higher the faith will be. The more you understand, the more you move your faith to an even higher level, to that which is beyond what you have understood today which was what you didn’t understand yesterday. If what you needed to believe yesterday you now understand, what do you use your emunah for? You use it for that which is even higher than what you believed yesterday. And so we understand how it is possible to grow in faith, to grow in chukim.  The higher your understanding of mitzvahs is, the more you appreciate that which the mitzvah has that you can’t yet understand. As you move higher in the acceptance of the mitzvah as a mitzvah for its own sake, the more you understand what can be understood about the mitzvah, and the more you appreciate the part of the mitzvah that cannot be understood.

And so we find that G-d said to Moshe Rabbeinu, to you I will reveal the purpose and the meaning of the red heifer, which is the ultimate of the chukim, a mitzvah that we cannot understand at all. Yet G-d says to Moshe, to you I will explain it. And from then on, for Moshe Rabbeinu it was no longer part of the chukim. Certainly Moshe had no lack of chukim in his experience and service of G-d. In the way he served G-d, there were chukim in his world as well, even though the parah adumah was not part of it. So we have to say that even after G-d explained to Moshe the reason for the parah adumah, he found in that mitzvah itself, in the red heifer, a higher level that the explanation didn’t cover and so the mitzvah remained on some level also part of the chukim.

And this is what it means “im bechukosai t’lechu”, that if we study Torah properly, and we continue to strive in understanding the Torah, we will grow not only in the understanding but also in the level that is beyond understanding, in the chukim part of the Torah. So there can be an actual growth even in those areas that are bigger than the human being.

What is the reward for all of this? The world itself also becomes G-dly and we progress to the ultimate redemption at which time, there will be an endless growth of increased goodness without an end. That is why it is called, “l’yom sheculo Shabbos u’menucha l’chai hay olamim” – a time of Shabbos, a permanent Shabbos that is the world to come, when there will be a constant increase in goodness.

Shopping cart

0 Product(s) in cart

Total $0.00

» Checkout

It's Good News