Likkutei Torah · Sefer Shemos · Shabbos May 29
פרשת בחוקתי
Parshas Bechukosai
7 maamarim of the Alter Rebbe on the parsha, in the Hebrew of the Kehot edition, with every marei makom opened right where it appears. Each small section with a faithful English translation and a short explanation.
Begin with maamar 1 ContinueThe parsha as a PDFPDF · 3.8 MBText onlyThe Hebrew and the translation · PDF · 991 KBThe parsha as an EPUBEPUB · 514 KB
Your progress in Parshas Bechukosai
The maamarim 7
- אם בחקותי תלכו “If you will walk in My statutes” Angels, created from Divine speech, “stand” at one fixed level, while the souls of Israel, rooted in the supernal thought, are “walkers” whose love and awe can grow without end. G‑d’s “if” is a plea that a person walk this way in prayer, and the mitzvos are the vessels that keep the light so that the walking lasts.
- ביאור אם בחקותי An Explanation of “If You Walk in My Statutes” Like the Torah, every soul has written letters, which clothe it as ink clothes parchment, and engraved letters, one with their source as an engraving is one with a gem. “If you walk in My statutes (bechukosai)” is G‑d’s plea that the soul’s boundless ascent in prayer go through its engraved root, the Patriarchs’ attributes in Keser, and that the mitzvos keep its light.
- אם בחקותי תלכו כו׳ “If you walk in My statutes” The G‑dly soul descends into a body, joined to the animal soul through the tzelem, so that by refining it a person can reach love “with all your might,” the boundless light of Tohu. “If you walk in My statutes” is the way there: the animal soul is engraved from outside by Pesukei DeZimrah and from inside by the chukim, the mitzvos keep the Infinite Light, and the Torah, falling like rain, makes that love grow.
- בשברי לכם מטה לחם ואפו עשר נשים לחמכם… “When I Break for You the Staff of Bread” The curses of the rebuke are, in their hidden dimension, blessings. “When I break for you the staff of bread” is the Torah’s descent, through the breaking of the Tablets, into physical laws; and “ten women shall bake your bread in one oven” teaches how that Torah becomes one with a person: baked in the hidden fire of love for G‑d, by a soul that knows its good is not its own.
- אלה החוקים והמשפטים והתורות אשר נתן ה׳ בינו… These are the statutes, the ordinances and the teachings The blessings and curses of Bechukosai belong to the commandments themselves: the blessings reveal G‑dliness to Israel and the curses remove the forces that hide it. They are given “between Himself and the children of Israel” because the curses deal with a screen that sin has already made.
- אסור לאדם שיטעום עד שיתן מאכל לבהמתו שנאמר… A Person Is Forbidden to Taste Until He Feeds His Animal The law that one may not eat before feeding one’s animal describes the order of prayer: Pesukei deZimra first “feeds” the animal soul with the contemplation of G‑d’s light within the worlds so that it too can rise, and only then does the G‑dly soul “eat” in the Shema by giving itself over to G‑d. The Torah is the food that strengthens the soul for that self-giving, received at Sinai in a “marriage” of complete self-nullification.
- וילך ראובן בימי קציר חטים וימצא דודאים בשדה… “And Reuven went in the days of the wheat harvest, and found dudaim” Beyond the wisdom of “man,” gained through the “wheat” of the Torah, there is a higher “animal”: self-nullification above reason, which a person must be trained in from youth and never leave, so that he is wise like a man yet drawn after G‑d like an animal, “Man and animal You save, Havayah.”
The Rebbe’s maamarim on this parsha 4
The Rebbe built 4 of his maamarim (5716–5746) on the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim of this parsha. Each maamar’s page summarizes them, with what the Rebbe adds; or see them all together.
Learn it in seven days Sunday to Shabbos
The Rebbe asked that all the maamarim of the week’s parsha be learned in that week, spread over its seven days. Here is the parsha in seven portions of about equal length.