Cycling the Covenant

This morning, I participated in the Sovev Yerushalyim Second Annual Bike Race. More than 1500 people showed up from around the country to participate in either the 40km or 20km ride, a beautiful trip around the hills and parks of Jerusalem. We rode on streets and roads, paved bike paths and rocky 4x4 trails. Except for about 100m, I was always riding with other people, other Israelis, who were either busy discussing plans or the difficulty, or intensely concentrating on the path in front of them. About halfway through the ride, we came to a sharp turn, where a logistics man was standing with a sign, directing us where to go. Instead of him cheering us on, we were the ones cheering for his efforts and thanking him for his contribution. I commented to the woman riding next to me that that isn't likely to happen in America. She said it's because in Israel, we're all family and cannot stay out of other people's business.

Two kilometers down the road, I saw this almost prophecy come to fruition. A man had been riding in front of me and I started following him closely, because his technical skills for certain parts were strong. After a bit of that, we began talking and he started to ask me about myself. Before I knew it, we had finished the hardest uphill part for the ride. I was shocked. This man, a complete stranger, made my ride easier, helped pass the time, and gave me some food to tide me over for the rest of the ride. More importantly, he shared my conviction that Israel is a land where you can really connect to nature, where people care about nature, where you can interact with nature not fifteen minutes from your front door, almost everywhere in this country! He demonstrated the principle כל ישראל ערבים זה לזהץ, all of Israel is responsible for one another.

His kindness and awareness of Israel reminded me of this week's Torah portion. Behukotai (tilchu), walk in my ordinances, is the last parsha in Vayikra, verses 26:3-27:34. God commands Moses to tell the people about what shall happen if they do keep God's commandments, immediately followed by what happens if they disregard the commandments. The positives are a successive inflation of good things, from the basic needs of food, to safety, to peace, to fruitfulness (having many descendants), to the high point, a spiritual connection with God, as God will dwell among the people (26:4-13). These blessings seem simple enough, especially as they follow Maslow's hierarchy of needs (God may have preempted Maslow by a few years).

Next comes the curses, what will happen to the Jewish people if they choose not to follow God's ordinances. The successive verses (more than double the space it takes to spell out the blessings) vividly dictate the problems that will befall the Jewish people if they err and fall away from God's ways. This description gets increasingly more graphic, the apex in Vayikra 26:29 with parallel imagery to Eicha, with humans consuming their own flesh and blood. Yet the punishment does not stop there. The punishment ends with the Jewish people being scattered among the people's of the earth (26:33), constantly having other people's fighting them. And the land will lay fallow (26:34-35). However, the very end of the parek, the chapter, has God decidedly saying that God will not forget the Jewish people, or the covenant God made with us.

Indeed, today I bore witness to that covenant in action. There I was, an American who is part of this scattered people, in the land. I spent my morning accompanied by a mass of individuals dedicated to this land, to this people. They come from all different ideologies and personal ways of living, yet all of them came out this morning to revel in nature (as well as work on their physical fitness). The man who rode alongside me spoke about the slope we must travel in order to become physically fit. We cannot simply go out and run a marathon. Rather, we must train and work towards that final goal, beginning with short distances and eventually working our way up to the full 40km run.

Such is the message God wanted to give us: we will never receive all of God's bounty in one go. Rather, we must demonstrate that we deserve it. We must work our way up to the final stage, the spiritual connection with God. If along the way we slip, there is a potential for negative consequences (but as any two-year-old learns, these too pass). Even in those hard times, even when we have failed to keep God's ordinances, God will remember us. This morning, I saw how God has remembered us, after so many years of exile from this country. We Jews have finally returned home. I have come home. And I will do my best to guard this land and help fulfill God's covenant, in whatever way I can.

Shabbat Shalom!