https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1566095
Shock, horror, and deep sadness: That is the primary reaction most of us will likely have when studying this week’s Torah portion or hearing it read in shul.
There is a lot that happens in this week’s Torah reading, but a big chunk of it is taken up by what is traditionally referred to as the tochacha, Moshe’s recounting of the severe punishments God promises to inflict on the Jewish nation if they do not adhere properly to God’s laws and commandments.
It is harsh and relentless.
The tochacha section is 51(!) verses long. And in them we are threatened with every form of death, tragedy, and calamity; terrible things that will happen to ourselves, our possessions, and our families. Impressionistically, these verses read like the words of someone who is filled with rage, spewing round after round in a spiral of curses. They unfold as follows: First we are told that something terrible will happen to us. A few verses later, we are told, “never mind”—what was just mentioned is too tame, and it will actually be much worse than that. And then, even much worse than THAT.— And so on and so forth for several rounds.
This, however, is not the only time a set of harsh verses such as these appears in the Torah. It happens once before in Parashat Bechukotai, the last parasha in Sefer Vayikra. There, too, are we told about the brutal consequences of refusing to submit subserviently to God’s will.
It is important to note though: While, generally speaking, the two tochachot—in Bechukotai and in this week’s parasha—are similar, they are not exactly comparable. Their essence is the same but the particulars differ significantly in the following three ways.
- The tochacha in Bechukotai is much shorter than the one in this week’s parasha. (Significantly so. Bechukotai’s tochacha is only 24 verses long, while the one in this week’s parasha goes on for more than double.)
- A close comparison shows that Bechukotai’s is much milder than ours. The punishments mentioned this week have an element of rage and vindictiveness that one does not sense in the earlier version.
- Finally, and most importantly, the tochacha in Bechukotai ends with an uplifting coda, while in this week’s there is none of that.
Almost counterintuitively, in Bechukotai, at the end of the litany of punishments, God concludes with the following comforting words: “Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob; I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land … Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, annulling My covenant with them: for I Hashem am their God.”
This week’s version lacks that reassuring conclusion. It ends abruptly: Fifty one verses of bone-chilling threats and … that is it. When done, the Torah moves on to other matters. Just like that.
Taken together these differences combine to illustrate how this week’s Deuteronomical tochacha is a much harsher articulation of those very admonitions in Vayikra.
These differences are not just happenstance. They are there for a reason and carry a powerful and complex lesson, informed by an extremely important distinction between our current book, Sefer Devarim, and the other four books of the Bible.
While we believe that all five books are dvar HaShem, the word of God, there is a difference between Devarim and the other four books.
The first four books are God speaking in God’s own voice: God spoke and Moses recorded the words God dictated. However, in Devarim God speaks in Moses’ voice. It is still God speaking, but here God dictates verbatim to Moses exactly how to describe his own experience of the preceding forty years: how Moses experienced the events, and how he perceived that which God spoke.
In Bechukotai we therefore encounter the tochacha the way it was actually said, while in this week’s Torah portion we are reading about the way Moses heard it.
And that explains the above-mentioned differences.
As we know, quite often, when two entities are in a conversation, there is potential for a significant gap between what the speaker intended and what the listener perceived.
Perhaps that is what we are seeing here. There is a discrepancy between what God actually said and the way it was received by Moshe. What Moses heard was far harsher than what God actually said.
There is, however, something unique here.
Normally when that happens the speaker will try to correct the listener’s misunderstandings. In our case, the Speaker accepts them and moreover offers God’s imprimatur on Moshe’s perception of what was said. In Devarim, God dictates the tochacha in words that belong to Moshe, knowing that what Moshe heard was far harsher than what God had said originally.
This suggests a rather fascinating insight.
Of course we are dependent on prophets and intermediaries to convey God’s messages to us, but the dual versions of the tochacha preserved in the Torah make us aware that something happens to God’s utterances when filtered through a human’s personal perception. They possibly could end up coming across imprecisely, the particulars exaggerated or deflated.
Consequently, whenever possible, we should strive as best we can to encounter the divine word directly, unadulterated by intermediaries, messengers, or perhaps even translators(!). Hearing from a middleman will inevitably cloud the message, to one degree or another.
To read this post in Spanish, click here
Daf of the Day
