For over one year, the American people have experienced a daily deluge of the Covid numbers: how many positive cases, how many hospitalizations, how many deaths. The news details the human misery of the disease that has gripped the world. No one has been immune from its effects in one way or another. National, state and local governments have responded to this plague with Herculian mitigation efforts while rarely stopping to assess if any of our efforts have had any real impact, or if this disease is just running its natural course despite all of our efforts to stop it. The truth is, we really don't know. But of course, we must do something, right?
This week's torah portion is called B'chukkotai (By my regulations), referring to the verse 3 in Leviticus 26: "IF you live by My regulations..." I purposely put emphasis on the word "IF" because this word is the key to understanding the entire torah portion.
This portion describes what God will do for His people if they obey His regulations and what He will do if they do not obey His regulations. On the upside, obedience brings God's version of prosperity: namely, abundant food, peace and safety, lots of children, and God's continual presence in the midst of His people. Note specifically what God's version of prosperity does NOT include: popularity, power or money. While there is an entire lesson on this point, that is not what I am focusing on today.
After all of these great blessings are described and everyone is feeling pretty good about themselves, the portion takes a 180 degree turn to describe what happens when we don't obey God's regulations: terror, hunger, the sword and disease. We might call these "curses" or perhaps more appropriately they should be called "consequences."
What is interesting is that this portion describes increasingly bitter consequences of disobedience with the phrase "...and IF in spite of all this, you refuse to listen and still go against me, then...." It is as if there are rounds of curses/consequences and at each round, the people have a chance to return to God and start being obedient.The Hebrew word for this idea is "teshuvah" and it means to make an about-face and go the other way. The implication is that not only will the curses stop, but that the blessings will return.
God has a pattern of using this type of warning system, one that increases intensity in order to get our attention. The pagues in Egypt were such a warning system to Pharaoh and the people of Egypt. The plagues (probably more acurately called "strokes" since not all of them were plagues per se) did not happen all at once. They happened in sequence over the course of less than a year, but with enough time in between to give Pharaoh a chance to "repent." Each was a warning leading up to the final cataclysmic consequence of failing to heed God's instruction to let His people go. In a way, God was demonstrating his mercy through each of these strokes against Egypt. Each was horrible in its own way, some even deadly, but not as horrific as the final judgment-- the death of all of the firstborn of Egypt.
What is tragic is that Pharaoh and most of the Egyptian people failed to understand that with each stroke upon Egypt, God was sending up a warning flare, sounding an alarm, telling them to turn back from this path that they had chosen that would lead to certain death--physical and spiritual. They failed to see God's hand of mercy in these "plagues."
Perhaps this is how we should view the Covid plague-- as a loving God's merciful attempt to turn us back from a path of destruction. I haven't heard any of our political leaders suggest a return to God as the "vaccine" against this plague. Instead, we hear the rather pitiful human attempts to slow it down with colorful cotton masks, social distancing and vaccine shaming.
Folks, if you think Covid is bad, read Leviticus 26. If we don't read this Covid warning sign correctly and respond appropriately, we may look back and see that Covid was a "walk in the park" compared to what is coming.
If we want to "do something," we should listen to what God is saying to us rather than listening to the futile exhortations of human beings.
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