Rabbi Heller's Blog

Parashat Behukotai stands out as one of two Torah portions that contain significant passages of blessings and curses. The blessings of Levticus 26, offered as a promise provided the Israelites follow the right path, are beautiful and inspiring, but follow an odd structure. The blessings begin and end with agricultural success, plenty so great that there will be too much to store , let alone eat.  The middle blessings focus on war and peace. It is not surprising that peace would be among the blessings. Peace is the concluding theme of the Amidah and the Kaddish, two of our three most important prayers. However, the way we ask for peace is puzzlingly out of order, and how we read that passage raises important questions for those who seek peace and see it as a value, and how we define that goal, let alone attain it

Leviticus 26:6 says “I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no-one shall trouble you, I will remove vicious beasts from the land, and the sword shall not pass through your land. Verses 7-8 describe the Israelite armies putting their enemies to the sword, with just a handful of soldiers chasing off a multitude of foes. Rabbi Asher Wasserthiel, (a 21^st century commentator) points out the discrepancy: If there is already peace, with the sword hidden from view, why does the next verse have our armies wielding it against our foes? Should peace not already imply the end of war? Wasserthiel , in answering his own question, cites several interpretations of this passage.

Wasserthiel begins with a literal answer rooted in miliary reality. The sequence indicates that as a first step there will be peace within the land of Israel proper, even while our fighters continue the conflict beyond our borders until enemies are routed. Being able to fight a war on someone else’s turf is a great luxury. As Americans, we are used to having our wars fought at a distance. While we may worry about our soldiers fighting overseas, we will not experience it firsthand. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were the two great exceptions, and the fear of nuclear attack seems very remote, so on a day to day basis most Americans are not worried that the enemy will attack on our own soil, let alone their own homes. In the rest of the world, war impacts civilian populations. If you tour the great cities of Europe, you pass the sites of neighborhoods and landmarks that were destroyed during WWII (whether by axis or allies). On October 7, Israeli civilians learned in a horrific way what it meant to have the most barbaric attacks, brutality for its very own sake,  come to their homes. The people of Gaza are now living the tragedy of war coming to their homes, for even a war fought with honor and restraint still cannot help but cause destruction and pain.  Their individual experiences are no less tragic for being the result of a war that their leaders provoked and choose to continue to pursue each day.  According to one legend, the promise “the sword shall not pass through your land” indicates a promise that even those who are going to fight war elsewhere will not transit through your land- when armies  are on the march, there is always danger and damage, even to those who might consider themselves to be bystanders.

Wassertheil notes that the great commentators, Ramban and Ibn Ezra, (who rarely agree on anything) concur on a more metaphorical read of the passage. Verse 6, which speaks about peace in the land, refers to peace among the Israelites: “no man shall fight against his brother.” The next verse refers to the conclusion of conflict with others. Only once there is peace within one’s own people can one contemplate peace with others. A nation cannot find a diplomatic solution to external conflict if there is not a shared understanding within. Just as surely, if an enemy must be fought with force, a divided nation will not be up to the task.

Indeed the Siftei Chachamim, a commentator who typically seeks to clarify and expand on Rashi’s explanations, proposes that the passage It is not meant to be interpreted as a chronological sequence. Rather, it has what is a called a “chiastic” structure, where the most important idea is in the very middle of the passage, surrounded by less important ideas. This explains why there are blessings of plenty both before and after the blessing of peace. The passage is structured to tell us that peace is “equal to all other blessings .” Wasserthiel concludes with an answer from the medieval Rabbein Bachya that perhaps assumes this literary read. Living in peace in the land of Israel is a the most powerful blessing of all, since there are only some who merited to live in the land, even fewer who did so with financial stability, let alone plenty, and even fewer who did so without fear. Few generations of Jews have known that blessing.

If the passage is not chronological, perhaps verses 7 and 8 are not a description of what happens after there is peace in the land, but rather how it is to be achieved. The verses might indicate that sometimes peace is only achieved with the sword, by bringing about the surrender of the enemy.   A non-linear read of the passage also provides ground for the mystical commentators that the word “ba’aretz”- “in the land,” does not refer to just the land of Israel, but to the whole earth, The removal of wild beasts corresponds to the ultimate peace described by Isaiah- where the very desire to prey upon or harm others is eliminated from the world. The wolf's very nature changes so that it does not seek to harm the lamb.  Similarly, perhaps this blessing anticipates a time where, throughout the world, humans no longer seek each other’s harm.

One does not have to be a particularly astute reader to come up with ways that these different understandings of peace might be applied to the situations that weigh on our hearts at this moment.  However, as is often the case in our tradition, there is not single resolution to this question of how we define peace, and so the questions remain: Can there be peace with others when conflict still smolders within? Is it sufficient to have peace in one’s own land, or is the biblical promise only fulfilled when there is peace everywhere? Is the military defeat of an enemy enough to create true peace, or does there need to be a fundamental change in human understanding as well?