Audio Summaries of the daily Chumash portions In loving memory of Ousher Zelig ben Myer HaLevi Z”L
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Blessings and Warnings
Your fruits will preserve well so much so that three year old fruit will taste better than fruit from the previous year. Your threshing floors will be so full of new crop that you will need to make room in your storehouses (which will also be full).
G-d says that He will place his Temple (Beis Hamikdash) with us (the Israelites) and His spirit will not be repelled by us so as to expel us.
G-d says that He will walk as one of us in the Garden of Eden and we will not fear because of Him.
G-d says that He is deserving of our faith in Him after having taken us out from Egyptian slavery and done great miracles for us.
However, G-d says, if one does not labor in learning the commentaries of the sages on Torah, and is aware of G-d yet rebels against Him, and thus in neglecting to study, this will cause one to neglect to keep His commandments. Thus one will have done two sins (neglecting to study Torah and keeping commandments).
And then if in addition to this, one feels disgust towards people who keep G-d's commandments, this will lead him to commit seven sins in total, each one leading to the next: 1)If he neglects to study Torah, this will lead him to 2)Neglect to keep the commandments, which will lead to 3)Disgust towards people who keep G-d's commandments will lead to 4)Hatred towards Torah scholars which will lead to 5)Preventing others from keeping the commandments which will lead to 6)Claiming that G-d did not command these which will then ultimately lead to 7)Renouncing belief in G-d which is the essential thing.
If the Jews act in this way, G-d will bring an illness which involves swelling and then wasting away of the flesh (Rashi refers to it as Anpoles) and a burning and inflammatory illness causing such a person to yearn in vain to be healed. Additionally, G-d will cause them to sow seeds which do not sprout in the first year, and then in the second year when they do sprout the enemies will lay siege to them and take these crops and the Jews won't have any crops from the previous year in storage. Alternatively, "sowing seeds which do not sprout" means that they will work hard to raise their children only to have these children annihilated.
And G-d will focus all of his attention (just as He did out of love - see earlier in the parsha) on harming the nation if they sin as described above.
He will cause the enemies of the Jews to strike them down and those who hate the Jews will rule over them, as will G-d rule over them with harshness. They will be besieged within their own city and struck down from within. Their enemies who usually only try to take that which is out in the open will now take from the Jews' hidden storage as well.
The Jews will then flee out of terror though their enemy won't even bother chasing them due to the Jews' having no more strength.
At such a time, G-d will bring plague upon plague bringing panic and ultimately death.
And if all of these torments don't lead to them obeying G-d, He will inflict seven new punishments for the seven sins described above: 1)He will destroy the Beis Hamikdash ("the pride of your might") and He will bring a drought to the world - 2)The sky will not "sweat", like iron which does not sweat ("your heavens like iron"). 3)But your land will "sweat" (like copper which does sweat ("your land like copper"), thus destroying its fruits.
If a person does not work the land and does not see results from it, it is no big deal, but G-d will make it such that 4)when they do work the land, it will be in vain, as 5)the land will not even produce the same amount of seed which they plant into it 6)And the fruits will not ripen when they are meant to, or 7)if they do, they will fall to the ground and become unfit to eat.
G-d then speaks of seven additional punishments which He will bring: He will incite animals to attack their children. These animals will include 1)Naturally wild animals and 2)Animals which are usually tame which will then become wild. In addition to attacking them, these animals will 3)bite them and their venom will kill them. 4)This will cause the parents to be bereaved. 5)Their cattle, which is on the outside will be exterminated, and 6)they who will be inside, will grow smaller in number (but not totally extinguished). And 7)all of your roads, both major and minor will become empty.
If in spite of all of this, they will still not repent and act casually towards G-d, then G-d will respond by acting casually as well and bring another seven punishments: He will 1) exact revenge upon them with a sword for not keeping the Torah (alternatively, the revenge He brings will only be one which is mentioned in Torah, which excludes putting out one's eyes as Nevuchadnezzar did to king Zedekiah (the last king of Yehuda); 2)They will have to go under siege; 3)They will be stricken with pestilence by which they will be driven into the enemy's hands - because Jews would not leave a corpse overnight in Jerusalem so they would have to take the corpse out to bury it and thus be given over to the enemy; 4)They will lose their sustenance ("staff of bread"); 5)They will lack wood and thus 10 women will need to share the same oven; 6)The grain of the bread which the 10 women bake in the oven will rot and the bread will break apart and they will have to divide the pieces amongst themselves; 7)Their internal organs will be cursed in so far that they will not feel satisfied after eating.
And if in spite of all of this they still don't listen to G-d and behave casually with Him, He will respond with seven more expressions of anger: 1)The will eat the flesh of your sons and daughters; 2)Their towers and castles will be destroyed causing their "sun images" to fall down (these were idols that would be placed on rooftops underneath the sun); 3)They would become so swollen from hunger that when they would take out an idol from their chest to kiss it, the idolator's belly would burst and he would fall dead on top of the idol; 4)The Divine Presence will leave; 5)Their cities will be emptied even of people passing by; 6)The Beis HaMikdash will be emptied of crowds; 7)And G-d will not smell their sacrifices.
G-d will make their land desolate and thus unappealing to Israel's enemies (this is a good thing for Israel).
Usually when a nation is exiled from somewhere, they find comfort in seeing their kind in the exiled place. In the case of the Jews however, G-d will separate them as a winnowing basket sifts and sorts barley so they are separate from one another.
Enemies who draw their sword towards you (i.e chase after you) will not relent quickly (i.e their sheath will be empty).
If someone is exiled but knows that they will soon return home they find comfort in knowing that their home will not be ruined. However when G-d exiles the Jews the way he describes here, they will not return so fast so their home will be seen as ruined to them.
G-d then states that He will exile them from their land for 70 years to make up for the 70 sabbatical years which they will neglect to keep.
Rashi goes into a detailed analysis of how to reach this calculation of 70 sabbatical years, concluding that it came out to 2 years of Yovel and 68 actual years of Shmitta which they missed. G-d exiled them at the start of the next shmitta cycle so that they would not neglect to keep this final shmitta making it 70 years in total, which would have resulted in them being punished with being extinguished as a nation. Nevertheless, for the sake of calculating the number of years that the exile served as a rectification for, it is included.
The number of years in which this sin of 70 sabbaticals were neglected totals 436.
Here's how this number is arrived at:
The Beis Hamikdash was completed 440 years after the Israelites entered the Land of Israel. It was then destroyed 410 years later. Making for a total of 850 years.
The Israelites were sinful for 390 of these years and were eventually exiled more than 40 years before the destruction of the temple (referred to as the Babylonian exile which lasted for 70 years).
In exile, the Jews had a series of kings from the tribe of Yehudah, bringing many more sinful years.
During the reign of Yosef they did not sin.
King Menashe was born right after the ten tribes were exiled and he ruled for 55 years, however he repented for 33 of those, so the years of his sins amount to 22.
King Amon ruled for 2 years (which counted towards the sinning years).
King Yehokyakim and King Zedekaia each reigned for 11 years (22 years total - all sinful).
There were two other kings (Yehoyachaz and Yehoyachin) however they only ruled for 3 months each so they are not included in the count.
So if we add it all up, this amounts to 390 years in Israel + 22 +11+11 = 436.
During 436 years there would have been 2 Yovel years and 67 Shmitta years = 69 Sabbatical years in total + 1 additional shmitta year which they would have neglected had they not been exiled.
To any who survive in exile, G-d will bring fright and softness of the heart and they will run away from the sound of a rustling leaf and run away as if people are trying to kill them and will fall as a result even though no one is actually chasing them.
They will stumble over one another in confusion in trying to escape an imagined pursuer. Having a constant fear that someone is trying to chase them. Another understanding of "falling over one another" is that they will stumble through one another's sins, i.e. each person is responsible for every other person.
When you are exiled you will be scattered and lost to one another and some will die in this diaspora.
Those who persist with the sinful actions of their ancestors will fall apart.
They will confess their sins and those of their ancestors.
And G-d will respond in kind to their acting casually towards Him by putting them in the land of their enemies though (to their benefit) not let them mimic the behavior of their enemies. And in so suffering, perhaps their hearts will be humbled and their suffering will atone for their sins.
G-d will remember His covenant with Yaakov, and with Yitzchak and remember His covenant with Avraham* and He will remember the Land.
*Side note: The patriarchs are listed in reverse order to show that just remembering Yaakov the youngest patriarch would have sufficed. And if that's not sufficient, then Yitzchak, and if still not then Avraham. Also, "remember" is not written in relation to Yitzchok since the ashes of Yitzchak (either the ram which was offered in his stead or the ashes which Avraham envisioned as a result of sacrificing him) appear before G-d so He does not need to remember him.
In retribution towards not keeping G-d's shmitta laws, the land will be empty of them.
However even while they are in exile, G-d will not hate them or reject them to the point of extinguishing them or annulling His covenant with them. Rather He will remember the Covenant He made with the 12 tribes who were taken out of Egypt.
G-d concludes this section saying that these are the two Torah's which G-d gave to the Israelites through Moshe on Mount Sinai (i.e. both the written and oral Torah) both of which were given on Mount Sinai.
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