This week’s Torah portion, Bechukotai (Lev. 26:3 – 27:34) is the final
portion in the book of Leviticus. The
bulk of the portion consists of a list of blessings which will come if the
people follow God’s laws, and a list of curses which will come if the people
disregard God’s laws. Notwithstanding
the severity of the curses, at the end of the passage, we receive the
reassurance that God will not reject or destroy Israel, because of the covenant
(Lev. 26:43-44).
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in an essay on this Torah portion, writes that
the only other nation in the world besides ancient Israel which sees its fate
in terms of covenant is the United States of America. He quotes John Schaar’s book Legitimacy and the Modern State,
describing the faith of Abraham Lincoln:
We are a nation formed by a covenant, by dedication to a set of
principles and by an exchange of promises to uphold and advance certain
commitments among ourselves and throughout the world. Those principles and commitments are the core
of American identity, the soul of the body politic. They make the American nation unique, and
uniquely valuable, among and to the other nations. But the other side of the
conception contains a warning very like the warnings spoken by the prophets to
Israel: If we fail in our promises to each other, and lose the principles of
the covenant, then we lose everything, for they are we.
This coming week will bring the last of the primary elections for
president of the United States, an election in which the principles of the
American covenant are in peril. I urge
everyone in those states holding elections on Tuesday to vote, and until the
November elections, to work to keep American principles and promises alive and
well.
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