By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz
As we learn the parsha each week and study the words of different meforshim, there are, invariably, ideas in the Torah that feel less like commentary and more like a quiet unveiling of history itself. The Meshech Chochmah in Parshas Bechukosai offers one of those. In a few penetrating lines, he not only explains the Tochacha, but maps the spiritual psychology of golus and the conditions that make the geulah possible.
The Tochacha is like a cascade of consequences: If Klal Yisroel follows the mitzvos, there will be brocha and hatzlocha. If not, chalilah, there are curses of increasing severity. In the posuk that discusses our period of golus (26:44), “V’af gam zos behiyosam b’eretz oyveihem lo me’astim velo ge’altim lechalosam lehofer brisi itom,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu promises that even when we are dispossessed and forced to live in foreign lands, He will not forsake us or allow us to be obliterated, nor will He annul the bris that He has with us.
The Meshech Chochmah explains that golus is not simply random suffering. It follows a tragic but recognizable progression. The way the Hashgocha works is that after being settled in a country for a few hundred years, a storm erupts and we are blown out of that place where we have grown comfortable. We move to a new exile. There is pain, instability, and dislocation. We feel like strangers. And then we come together, strengthen ourselves, and build up our Torah institutions. The foreign land becomes familiar. Livelihoods stabilize. Houses are built. Children who have never seen anything else are raised there. And then something subtle but seismic occurs: The Jew begins to feel at home.
The feeling of comfort in golus is the turning point.
Because once Jews feel comfortable in a foreign country, golus stops feeling like golus. The longing to return home, the yearning for the Bais Hamikdosh, begins to fade. The tension between what is and what should be disappears. And at that moment, history begins to move again, not gently, but forcefully.
And then, sometimes painfully, the illusion breaks. The Jewish people once again begin hearing those hate-filled voices that shout at them to leave and go somewhere else.
So has it been throughout the ages.
In recent days, Jews in England, particularly in London, have been reminded of this pattern in a most jarring way. A stabbing attack in Golders Green left two Jewish people who were walking on a street wounded. It was declared a terrorist incident.
Leading up to it, there were arson attacks targeting Jewish individuals, shuls, and even Hatzolah ambulances.
Authorities have raised the national threat level to “severe,” meaning further attacks are considered highly likely.
This is not fringe discomfort. It is a shift in atmosphere. Reports indicate thousands of antisemitic incidents a year, with many Jews expressing fear about openly living as Jews. And not only in England, but throughout Europe, Jews do not feel safe.
In this country, as well, there has been a marked increase in antisemitic incidents. Not too long ago, it was political suicide to speak against Jews and Israel, but today, there are Democrats who do so without jeopardizing their standing in the party.
What is perhaps most haunting is not only the violence, but the sense that something once assumed to be stable no longer feels so.
And here, the Meshech Chochmah’s words echo with unsettling clarity. Golus contains within it a built-in instability. When Jews begin to feel fully at home, Hakadosh Boruch Hu has a way of reminding them that they are not.
There is no justification for hatred or violence. Those who commit such acts are responsible, morally and humanly, for what they do. But we must know that it is not random. There is a pattern, a rhythm, and it is meant to keep us connected to where we belong, to remind us who we are, to keep alive the bris, the connection, with Hashem.
Golus begins with distance, moves toward comfort, and then, when that comfort becomes too complete, it is disrupted, because golus, by its very nature, cannot become permanent.
And so, what we are witnessing, painful as it is, carries a message that Jews have heard before across centuries and continents. We are not home. These reminders come to spark us to work toward geulah, to do what we must to bring about the redemption. Recognizing that golus is inherently incomplete is the first step in preparing to leave it.
In earlier generations, when the Jewish people were blessed with leaders who could discern and convey the Yad Hashem in all that transpired, people were not as confounded by events at home and abroad. In the times of the nevi’im, people were often forewarned before a calamity would strike, so that they could accept teshuvah upon themselves and prevent the tragedy. And even when they did not, afterward they were taught that it was the Yad Hashem that had struck, and they would engage in whatever was necessary to correct their ways.
Even after our people lost nevuah and Hashem began conducting the world through hester, people still had enough faith to recognize that nothing happens on its own and that everything takes place through Hashem.
As time went on and people became increasingly less learned, they lost the ability to see Hashem’s Hand in the various manifestations of His din. They began attributing events to natural causes, without recognizing that what they were witnessing were Divine messages directed at them.
We read the news and wonder what we can do to affect the situation. What can we do to temper the hatred for Jews? What can we do to bring about peace in Eretz Yisroel and peace in the world? What can we do about the internal war on the chareidi community in Israel? What can we do to bring stability and prosperity to our suffering brethren?
We won’t get the answers to these questions by following statuses, scrolling through pundits, or reading popular columns of analysis, interpretation, and speculation.
The answers are found in this week’s parsha, Bechukosai.
The posuk states quite simply, “Im bechukosai teileichu v’es mitzvosai tishmeru va’asisem osam.” If you will follow the chukim and mitzvos of the Torah, you will be blessed.
The Torah promises that if you follow the chukim and mitzvos, “vishavtem lovetach b’artzechem…venosati shalom ba’aretz ushechavtem v’ein macharid…v’cherev lo saavor b’artzechem, you will live safely in your land, there will be peace in the land, and you will sleep with no fear.”
Everything that is happening today is clearly prescribed in this week’s parsha. The history of the Jewish people is all in Parshas Bechukosai. When we were good, life was good. And when the people sinned and strayed, then what the pesukim say will happen (26:14–44) happens.
The posuk states, “Im bechukosai teileichu v’es mitzvosai tishmeru va’asisem osam.” The Toras Kohanim expounds on the words “Im bechukosai teileichu” that “Melameid sheHakadosh Boruch Hu misaveh sheyihiyu Yisroel ameilim baTorah…” From here we see that Hashem desires that the Jewish people be ameil in Torah.
Chazal teach us that “Im bechukosai teileichu” is not only a promise of brocha for those who observe the chukim, but the words contain a deeper charge, namely, “shetihiyu ameilim baTorah,” that we must toil in Torah. The brachos are a reward for observing the mitzvos, but they also flow from immersing in Torah, from laboring over it and living with it.
When we study the Torah, we are connecting with Hashem in the most direct way possible. We are engaging with His word, and it shapes us, our neshamos, our thinking, and the way we live. Through Torah, we become refined, purposeful, and more aligned with what we are meant to be.
“Shetihiyu ameilim baTorah” is the heartbeat of yeshivos and kollelim, those unique places where Torah is not just studied, but lived with intensity and dedication. It is there that ordinary people rise beyond themselves, where human beings, through effort and persistence, elevate themselves and become connected to something far greater. It is through that striving that we merit the brachos of Heaven.
That connection to the Torah strengthens us in the face of a world filled with distractions and pressures. Ameilus gives a person clarity and resilience, enabling us to withstand the constant pull of a society that often leads in the opposite direction.
This avodah is especially relevant during these days of Sefirah. As we count toward Shavuos, we are preparing ourselves to receive the Torah anew. Each day of the count presents an opportunity for growth, for refining our middos, for becoming more fitting recipients of the Torah.
We, maaminim bnei maaminim, are meant to see the Yad Hashem in everything that unfolds around us—in every bomb, in every missile, in every mission, in every antisemitic act, and in everything we have been blessed with.
But that vision does not come automatically. It is sharpened and deepened through Torah. The more a person is immersed in Torah, the more clearly he perceives Hashem’s presence, in moments of challenge and in moments of brocha.
What we must do is clear. We need to increase our Torah learning, approaching it with greater focus and depth. We need to strengthen our observance of mitzvos, performing them with more care and awareness. We need to daven with more kavonah, paying attention to the words and thinking about what we are saying. We need to be more mindful of what we allow into our lives, what we read, what we watch, what we bring into our homes, where we go, and what we put into our mouths.
We take pride in our mesorah, in the harchakos and takanos that preserve our distinctiveness and elevate us. We do not seek to mirror the world around us or mimic it. We are striving toward a different goal, aware that we are away and remaining focused on getting home.
Foreigners who cannot find meaningful employment in their home country travel to countries such as ours, working hard and sending money back to their families and saving for the day they can return home. The same way, through Torah, mitzvos, and teshuvah and correcting the failings that caused us to be sent into golus in the first place, such as lashon hora and sinas chinom, we get closer to the day we can return. Each word of Torah, each mitzvah, brings us nearer to the geulah.
As we are maavir sedrah this week and study the combined parshiyos, we should take the time to work on understanding the pesukim and their eternal messages about us, about the world, and about life.
Because the message of Parshas Bechukosai is not only a warning, it is a direction. Golus is meant to be transient. The instability, the discomfort, and the reminders that are repeated throughout our history are not there to confuse us, but to awaken us. They push us to ask not only what is happening, but what is being asked of us.
The answer is as clear today as it was when it was first given: “Im bechukosai teileichu.” To live with the Torah. To toil in it. To allow it to shape us, elevate us, and reconnect us to where we truly belong.
If golus begins when we forget who we are, then geulah begins when we remember.
The parsha of the tochacha also contains nechomah, for just as we are told that if we sin we will be struck down by our enemies and chased out of Eretz Yisroel, we are promised that Hashem’s bris with the avos will not be forgotten and we will be brought back home.
May it happen speedily in our day.
{Matzav.com}
