There‘s nothing better than a great question, and I’m pleased to say, that we have one in this week’s parashah – Bechukotai!
G-d promises the following blessings if we live according to his laws:
The parashah reads: “I will provide peace in the land, and you will lie down with none to frighten you; I will cause wild beasts to withdraw from the land. And a sword will not cross your land. You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword.”
There seems to be some repetition here in this list, and here’s the question: If G-d promises us peace in the land, what is all this mention of swords and enemies later on? If it’s real peace he’s 
serving up, surely the only thing passing through the land should be doves, hippies and the occasional tambourine? Hmm…
Luckily Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsh has an answer. He says the peace spoken about in the opening words of the blessing is not actually a military peace, but rather he says: “This is referring to the social happiness of internal peace.”
Society often feels so far from this idea – hearing about other’s success doesn’t always conjure positive feelings for us. Sometimes there is jealousy, envy, begrudging and instinctive negativity – these are all very natural reactions
But according to Rabbi Hirsch, to break this trend, we need to feel G-d’s blessing in the world. Without this, we just see that person A is a success, and person B is more successful, and if we are not as successful there can be resentment.
If we see clearly that blessing in general is from the hand of G-d, then we will soon see the spark of holiness in each of our personal blessings and achievements as well. A Chassidic perspective says that every generation takes the shape of a human body. There are people with knowledge and vision who are the head, doers who are the hands, and shleppers who are the feet etc…
As soon as we see things as part of the same system, we should only want the good for every other parts of the whole.
With that, I wish you a shabbat shalom
A Thought for Shabbat 