Reply To: Short & Sweet

Bechukosai: Seeing the Big Picture 🖼

Our Parsha begins with 11 pesukim detailing the berachos that will come to us if we do what Hashem wants, followed by 29 pesukim that detail the curses that will come upon us if we disobey Hashem. Why does there seem to be more curses than blessings?

The Ibn Ezra forcefully writes that in fact, the brachos are more numerous. He points out that each of the brachos is a general statement, which applies to many different scenarios. However, each of the curses is only one specific difficulty.

Perhaps we can glean an insight into human nature from this. We tend to focus on every individual thing that goes wrong, without paying any attention to the many things that Hashem is making sure are going right in our lives.

We should not ignore what is going wrong on our lives. As the Parsha makes clear, these are messages from Hashem about what we need to improve in. But it’s important to put our difficulties in the proper context. There is more good in this world than evil.

לע״נ דוד חיים הן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום