INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA

PARASHAT BECHUKOTAI

Reward and Punishment in This World

by Rabbi Barry Kornblau

            The first half of Parashat Bechukotai (Leviticus 26:3-46) presents an extensive list of rewards for observing the commandments of the Torah and punishments for their violation.  (Chapters 28 and 29 of Deuteronomy provide similar, but even more extensive lists.)  These rewards include agricultural prosperity, military victory over stronger enemies and lasting peace, many children, and a close relationship with God.  Punishments, which are more detailed, include bodily suffering, famine, death, uncontrolled wild animals, national defeats before weaker enemies and ensuing subjugation, eating one's children, destruction of places of worship and of the Land of Israel generally, exile from the Land, and utter rejection by God.

            These vivid promises pose two significant problems in Jewish thought, which generally understands that reward and punishment are distributed only after death, in the World to Come.  First: for what purpose are these, this-worldly rewards and punishments included in the Torah?  After all, the Talmud teaches, "There is no reward for mitzvot in this world," and Rabbi Tarfon teaches in Ethics of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot 2:16): "Know that the righteous are given their reward in the World to Come."  Furthermore, why are the spiritual rewards of the afterlife omitted?  In his commentary on our parasha, Rabbi Don Isaac Abarbanel, (Spain, 1437-1508) elaborates upon several approaches to these questions found among classic commentators on the Torah.  Here, we will detail some of those answers, as well as another, more recent answer.

            The view of Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Spain and Egypt, 1138-1204) is perhaps the most well-known, and is based upon the Mishna (Pirkei Avot 2:4): "Ben Azzai says: Run to perform [even] the easiest commandment [mitzva] and flee from sin, because one mitzva leads to another mitzva, and one sin to another sin.  For the reward of a mitzva is a mitzva, and the wages of sin, sin."  Obviously, Maimonides points out, one can properly fulfill the mitzvot of the Torah and thereby achieve spiritual perfection and knowledge of God only if impediments such as war, disease, and hunger are not in one's way.  And, conversely, when one's physical needs are provided for, one can more easily achieve these goals.

            Combining this observation with his understanding of Ben Azzai's principle that "the reward of a mitzva is [an improved opportunity to perform another] mitzva," Maimonides understands our Parasha and similar Biblical passages to teach that, if you fulfill the Torah's mitzvot, then God will reward you by providing your physical needs, thereby allowing you to more easily fulfill other mitzvot.  Similarly, God's punishment for your failing to fulfill His will is that He places obstacles in your path, thereby making it more difficult to fulfill other mitzvot.  As a result, God makes it easier or harder, respectively, to achieve the Torah's ultimate purpose, which is knowledge of God in this world as well as in the World to Come.

            In contrast to Maimonides, Ibn Ezra's (Rabbi Avraham ben Ezra, Spain, 1092-1167) approach is simple:  "[Since] the Torah was given to the entire Jewish people and not only to one [wise] person, [it therefore does not mention the World to Come because] not even one person in a thousand can understand the nature of the World to Come."  Therefore, Abarbanel amplifies, the physical rewards and punishments of our Parasha are promised by God, in addition to the reward and punishment of the afterlife.  In this way, even a person of ordinary intellect, for whom imagining such a non-physical reward and punishment would be too difficult, can be confident of ultimate justice.  Nonetheless, continues Ibn Ezra, the Bible discreetly hints at various points at the ultimate spiritual reward so that "hamaskil yavin" - the discerning intellect will understand the truth.

            Although Ibn Ezra's view (Maimonides also expressed similar thoughts) may seem elitist, it nonetheless behooves one to dispassionately assess whether, in fact, an average person (and, perhaps, even oneself) would be satisfied with, say, Maimonides' description of the eternal reward in the World to Come, which he describes as a place where "one's soul and the Divine Intellect are indivisibly one," and where worthy, disembodied "souls take pleasure in what they perceive and understand of the Truth of the Creator;" and conversely, whether most people could grasp that "the most complete evil and the greatest revenge" possible is that one's soul perish after death, never to receive that reward.

            Perhaps motivated by a similar understanding of the mind's limit in imagining a non-physical, purely spiritual world, Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi (Spain and Israel, 1074-1141), in his polemical and philosophical work "The Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith of Israel," pushes Ibn Ezra's view to its extreme.  While clearly affirming the vivid reality of the afterlife, HaLevi nonetheless argues that the this-worldly promises found in our parasha and elsewhere are not merely a concession to the weakness of human imagination, but rather are to be legitimately anticipated.  Furthermore, these promises are more reasonable than the exclusively next-worldly promises of other religions.

            Writes HaLevi: "[Although] the promises of other faiths are more luxurious and sensuous than [those of Judaism,] they are all realized only after death while nothing during this life points to them...  We don't find written in the Bible: 'If you keep this law, I will bring you after death into beautiful gardens and great pleasures.'  On the contrary, [you will receive rewards or punishments in this world, as detailed in Parashat Bechukotai and elsewhere.]...  How can [members of such other faiths] boast of their expectations after death to [us Jews], who already enjoy their fulfillment in life?"  With these words, HaLevi upends the entire basis of our original questions: There is, he maintains, reward for mitzvot in this world!

            Unlike the views expounded above, Nachmanides (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, Spain, 1194-1274) propounds his view based upon a close reading of the Hebrew verses of our parasha, which refer repeatedly to the Land of Israel.  Additionally, they are consistently couched in the second person plural: "If all of you shall follow My laws and all of you shall keep and do My mitzvot, then I will provide your collective rains in their due times..."  The Torah uses similar phrasing in the familiar passage which begins the second paragraph of the Shema (Deuteronomy 11:13 ff., here translated literally in order to emphasize Nachmanide's point): "It shall be that, if all of you diligently obey My mitzvot which I am now commanding all of you, by loving the Lord, the God of all of you, and by worshipping Him with all of your heart[s] and with all of your soul[s], then I will provide rain in the land which belongs to all of you..."

            Nachmanides reasons, therefore, that these rewards and punishments pertain to the collective obedience (or lack thereof) of the entire Jewish nation in its home, the Land of Israel.  Obviously, he points out, it can't rain on a righteous person's property but fail to rain on the property of his wayward neighbor, or vice-versa!  Furthermore, because these promises are clearly supernatural miracles (weather patterns in a country, for example, are not normally discernibly contingent upon the moral behavior of that country's citizens), they needed to be written down explicitly so that when the rest of the world sees how the Jewish nation's material welfare depends upon its adherence to the Torah, they will recognize the hand of God in the world.  This is important because God's ultimate purpose in His creation and in His selection of Israel as His nation is to be recognized by all of humanity.

            As evidence for his view, Nachmanides cites the curses in the passage parallel to our Parasha in Deuteronomy (Chapter 29:23-24):  "Then all the [rest of the world's] nations shall say: 'Why has Hashem done this [i.e., wreaked destruction] to this land [of Israel]?' ... And they shall answer: 'Because they [the Jewish people] abandoned the covenant of Hashem, the God of their fathers...'"  (See also I Kings 9:8-9, in which God repeats this message nearly word for word to King Solomon upon his completion of the building of the Temple, the spiritual center of the Jewish nation.)  Others point out that only this-worldly rewards and punishments could fulfill this intent of God's; for if He had specified only next-worldly rewards and punishments, then humanity - and perhaps even non-believing Jews, as well - would fail to see His direct guidance of this world.

            Each individual person, on the other hand, receives ultimate spiritual reward and punishment according to his or her owns deeds.  Moreover, while Nachmanides understands the national reward and punishment as requiring clear Divine intervention (as highlighted above), he explains that the soul requires no such specific intervention in order to achieve its reward in the World to Come.  This, he argues, is implicit in the Torah's most severe punishment - 'karet,' or a spiritual 'cutting off.'  This punishment - which the Torah applies exclusively to a person's soul (as opposed to one's body or property) - would be meaningless unless the soul can be 'cut off' from something else.  That 'something,' he concludes, must be the individual soul's ultimate reward after physical death in the World to Come.  In this way, Nachmanides answers the second question with which we began ("Why are the spiritual rewards of the afterlife omitted from the Torah?"): They aren't omitted at all.  Rather, they appear elsewhere.

            While not directly addressing our original questions, the novel approach of the Netziv (R. Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin Lithuania, 1817-1893) to our parasha nonetheless provides an interesting contrast to many of the ideas we have considered so far.  The Netziv argues that God requires the fulfillment of His will for the continued existence of the universe.  Since non-Jews generally fail to keep the seven commandments which God gave them, He exempted them from this responsibility, lest His Creation be destroyed.  He therefore yearns, so to speak, for us, the Jewish people, to fulfill the Torah's mitzvot so that His Creation will continue to exist.  In keeping with this theme, the Netziv understands the opening word "if" of our Parasha as a plea: "If only you would follow My Laws and keep My mitzvot, then..."

            In contrast to many of the answers discussed above, the Netziv understands reward and punishment in general as part of the natural order of God's creation.  Therefore, they do not require His special intervention in the manner of a mortal king who must explicitly reward or punish particular individuals.  Rather, just as a doctor who merely informs a patient of possible outcomes which depend entirely upon the extent of the patient's future adherence to the doctor's prescribed regimen and not upon the knowledge or action of the doctor, so too God tells us that reward and punishment are naturally latent in the fulfillment or violation of His mitzvot.

            If so, wonders the Netziv, then why does God care whether or not we fulfill the Torah?  He replies that just like the doctor will urge and even promise presents to his only child to follow his advice more than another child because the doctor's personal future depends entirely upon his own child's survival, so too God's own future in this universe depends, so to speak, upon the fulfillment of His will by His children, the Jewish nation.  Therefore, God designed the universe so that the Jewish people receive not only the natural reward or punishment for their deeds but also the special presents (or punishments) of our Parasha, as well.  "This," writes the Netziv, "is the meaning [of Ben Azzai's] dictum that 'the reward of a mitzva is a mitzva,' for the Holy One, Blessed be He desires that Israel receive a special reward; i.e., the existence of the universe, which itself is a mitzva.  The converse ['the wages of sin are sin'] is true as well, for when a Jew anguishes over his punishment, the Divine Presence cries out, so to speak, in empathy - "Woe to Me!"  Thus, the punishment is also a sin."  [Take a moment to contrast the Netziv's understanding and use of Ben Azzai's dictum with those of Maimonides.]

            In our discussion, we have seen the many attempts to respond to the questions with which we began.  Some, like Nachmanides and HaLevi, rejected or modified premises of these questions while others directly wrestled with the problems as stated.  We have also encountered different views of how God rewards and punishes in this world and the next: 'naturally' (Netziv, Nachmanides [regarding an individual]) or with specific intervention in each case (Maimonides, HaLevi, Nachmanides [regarding the Jewish nation]).

            Additionally, we have seen that the answers to our questions also shed light upon various views regarding another pair of equally weighty questions: What is the function of the Torah and its mitzvot to us, the Jewish people and to God Himself?  For Maimonides and Ibn Ezra and perhaps even Nachmanides, God's ultimate purpose is for us as individuals to come to know Him.  For Nachmanides, however, our purpose as a nation is to be God's vehicle for broadcasting knowledge of His existence to all of humanity.  Finally, according to the Netziv, our national purpose is even more crucial: to permit the continued existence of the entire universe and the continued pleasure of God, so to speak, in His very existence.