I'm Desperate to Get Back to Normal
A young father once came to the Beis Yisroel of Ger and asked him for a bracha for his son. The Rebbe replied “I give you a bracha that your son should be like all the other boys.”
The young man was taken aback. “Rebbe!”, he exclaimed, “that's not a bracha at all! I want him to be a talmid chacham, a Chassid and a tzadik!”
The Rebbe replied: “If you would only know what life is like when your child is not like the other children, you would understand the importance of my bracha.”
We might well have the same response as that young man as the Torah in our Parsha details the great Brachos of listening to Hashem and observing the Torah. The rewards listed are completely anti-climatic and, I dare say boring:
If you listen to My laws, and follow my statutes, you will have rain, and grain, and peace in the land. You will be victorious over your enemies. Your food will not rot, and you'll have leftovers...
There's a little feeling of “is that it?” That's the reward for shabbos and kashrus, and taharas hamishpacha? That's what we get for a life of self sacrifice and dedication to Torah and Tefillah (and Tuition bills)?! What about being wealthy, and being smart, and not having enemies at all? What about the great miracles of having Hashem in our midst? How about some plagues for our enemies? Or a sea-splitting from time to time? And what happened to a Lichtige Gan Eden an enlightened life in the World to Come? Why are we being short changed for our Avodas Hashem?!
But perhaps this year, for the first time in recent memory, we can all understand the great bracha of life being normal. And perhaps more than ever, we know how easy it is for normalcy to be totally derailed. When we consider every possible way that life could go wrong, it's a miracle that anything ever works out ever.
And so, every step of the recent “return to normalcy” in the past weeks and months has been greeted with sighs of relief. A normal meal with friends. A normal shabbos. A normal minyan. Wow!
But along side is also the anguish of not being normal enough soon enough.
And this week, so acutely, we cannot help feel the horrifying pain of the forty-five families who wished for a normal lag ba'omer. And are now sitting shiva. How much would they give for life to be boring again? And there is so much blame, and so much pain. So much confusion and brokenness.
In the deepest ways, we as Klal Yisrael want to return to normal. We want to ensure that our children can learn and play and smile and be happy. That they can spend a year in Yeshivos and seminaries and come home healthy and well. (Or make Aliya, which we should all be encouraging.)
And yet the world is still so broken. And so much is outside of our control. We are powerless in the face of infinite, terrible potentials. And yet, despite all of it, we know that normal is possible. There have been moments, weeks, months, or even years, where we have tasted the sweetness of a calm and boring life. From the depths of our souls, we yearn for it regardless of the improbability of achieving it.
How can we cure the pain of our world? How can we return to normal? And what should that normal be?
That's the question that the Torah is addressing in Bechukosai. And we should listen closely because these are the words of our Toras Chaim. They are speaking to us, right here and right now. The Torah is telling us that the great Brachos of that come along with commitment and connection to Hashem are available to us today, as Dovid Hamelech tells us (תהילים צה ז):
הַיּוֹם אִם בְּקֹלוֹ תִשְׁמָעוּ – Today! If we listen to His voice.
If you would ask me, “Where should Hashem begin to heal the world?”, I would say Moshiach. Reach for the stars, start at the top. “Hashem”, I would ask, “Please bring Moshiach and rebuild the Beis HaMikdash. Ensure that there is a Sanhedrin of competent, empathetic, respectful Talmidei Chachamim making the difficult decisions, verified by prophecy and the Urim V'Tumim. That would be the first step to us all being ok.”
Perhaps your tefillah would be similar. Why is it then, that the first Bracha is listed as rain? In all likelihood, it would not have been first on my list. Perhaps not on yours either.
The Ramban explains (ויקרא כו ד):
The Torah speaks of rain first of all the brachos, because if the rains come in their proper season, the air is pure and good and the springs and rivers are clear. And so the rain is the primary cause of physical health, and so all produce will increase and be blessed by it, as Hashem says, “and the Land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will yield their fruit.” And so if the we live in a perfectly healthy environment, people do not become sick, women do not miscarry, and are not infertile. For when our bodies are healthy, they can endure, as in the days of Adam and Eve. So this bracha — the rains in their seasons – is the greatest of all blessings and so it is given first place.
All this is to say: The world Hashem made is good and healthy. Hashem's greatest blessing for us is not that He should miraculously solve our problems. Or even that we should miraculously solve our problems. But instead, that the world should be healthy as He intended. And that people should be healthy and happy and well fed. Because healthy, happy, well fed people, perpetuate positivity and kindness in the world. Positive and kind people make good decisions, with sound judgment, with care, patience, concern and empathy. And all of us are interconnected in myriads and multitudes of ways that cannot possibly be parsed out and separated.
How do we achieve this magnificent normal? The Rambam explains: > It is necessary for person to set his heart and all his efforts solely to be cognizant of Hashem. So that his sitting down, his rising up and his speech shall be towards this goal. How may he accomplish it? When he will buy, or sell, or do work for wages, he should not have in his heart the accumulation of money only but he should perform these duties as a means to acquire the necessities of the body, food, drink, a home and marriage...
The Or HaChaim HaKadosh explains that this understanding of the Rambam is what the Torah means “אם בחקתי תלכו” – If you walk in My Ways.
Effectively, the Torah is telling us that when our perspectives are aligned with Ratzon Hashem, then our actions resonate and reverberate with the great Vision that Hashem has for humanity. This is the optimal way for the world to work. When are plugged in to a relationship with Hashem, it enables us to make good decisions. We increase positivity, we activate the potential of the world. Quite literally, we make it rain. It is our thoughts and actions that open windows and wellsprings of Bracha, of normalcy, health and happiness.
The Beis Yaakov of Izbitz explains how our individual actions impact the world. He writes that the Mitzvah of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is a כלל גדול בתורה – a great rule of the entire Torah; including, the relationship with have with Hashem! What does my kashrus have to do with you? Because if I truly love you, I would never do anything to jeopardize or mess up your world. So I should make sure to be bringing Godliness in as much as possible.
Reb Simcha Bunem of Peshischa said, devastatingly, that one day Hashem will question us as why we were poor. Because it's not supposed to be that way. We're supposed to be wealthy and healthy and at peace. That's our normal. And it doesn't come from miracles. It comes from a deep and profound understanding that we have a God given purpose to bring Him into our lives, in every moment and every action. And then Hashem will be in our midst, and then the world will run smoothly. And then the rains will come.
In Yeshayahu's vision of Moshiach, he sees a person inspired with Ruach Hashem. What does such inspiration offer? The Navi explains (ישיעהו יא ב):
וְנָחָה עָלָיו רוּחַ י״י רוּחַ חׇכְמָה וּבִינָה רוּחַ עֵצָה וּגְבוּרָה רוּחַ דַּעַת וְיִרְאַת י״י And the spirit of the Hashem will rest upon him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Hashem.
This is our hope. This is our dream. This our great goal. That we ensure that Ratzon Hashem inspires us to make wise, true and just choices, in middos, in speech and in action, that will bring Him more and more into our world. And the rains will finally fall. And we can finally return to normal.