RABBI WEIN ON PARSHIOS BHAR – BECHUKOTAI

The book of Vayikra concludes with a description of Jewish destiny and a foretelling of dire events that that will befall the Jewish people. The clear message in this parsha, and as repeated later in the book of Dvarim and in the words of the prophets of Israel over the next millennium, is that the Jewish people and its behavior and society are held to a high standard of loyalty and piety. The consequences of backsliding from these Torah standards are major and painful. God’s relationship with the Jewish people is serious business and the unbreakable covenant between the Jewish people and the Creator is eternally present and binding. Ramban and others ascribe the events portrayed in Vayikra to the times and destruction of the First Temple. The descriptions in Dvarim – which are longer and more intense – refer to the times and destruction of the Second Temple and its millennia long aftermath in the exile of the Jewish people.