(3) If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, (4) I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. (5) Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and your vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land. (6) I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land. (7) [Your army] shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. (8) Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand; your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. (9) I will look with favor upon you, and make you fertile and multiply you; and I will maintain My covenant with you. (10) You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make room for the new. (11) I will establish My abode in your midst, and I will not spurn you. (12) I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people. (13) I יהוה am your God who brought you out from the land of the Egyptians to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
(14) But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, (15) if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, (16) I in turn will do this to you: I will wreak misery upon you—consumption and fever, which cause the eyes to pine and the body to languish; you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for your enemies shall eat it. (17) I will set My face against you: you shall be routed by your enemies, and your foes shall dominate you. You shall flee though none pursues. (18) And if, for all that, you do not obey Me, I will go on to discipline you sevenfold for your sins, (19) and I will break your proud glory. I will make your skies like iron and your earth like copper, (20) so that your strength shall be spent to no purpose. Your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. (21) And if you remain hostile toward Me and refuse to obey Me, I will go on smiting you sevenfold for your sins. (22) I will loose wild beasts against you, and they shall bereave you of your children and wipe out your cattle. They shall decimate you, and your roads shall be deserted. (23) And if these things fail to discipline you for Me, and you remain hostile to Me, (24) I too will remain hostile to you: I in turn will smite you sevenfold for your sins. (25) I will bring a sword against you to wreak vengeance for the covenant; and if you withdraw into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into enemy hands. (26) When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven; they shall dole out your bread by weight, and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied. (27) But if, despite this, you disobey Me and remain hostile to Me, (28) I will act against you in wrathful hostility; I, for My part, will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. (29) You shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. (30) I will destroy your cult places and cut down your incense stands, and I will heap your carcasses upon your lifeless fetishes. I will spurn you. (31) I will lay your cities in ruin and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not savor your pleasing odors. (32) I will make the land desolate, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled by it. (33) And you I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheath the sword against you. Your land shall become a desolation and your cities a ruin. (34) Then shall the land make up for its sabbath years throughout the time that it is desolate and you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land rest and make up for its sabbath years. (35) Throughout the time that it is desolate, it shall observe the rest that it did not observe in your sabbath years while you were dwelling upon it. (36) As for those of you who survive, I will cast a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight. Fleeing as though from the sword, they shall fall though none pursues. (37) With no one pursuing, they shall stumble over one another as before the sword. You shall not be able to stand your ground before your enemies, (38) but shall perish among the nations; and the land of your enemies shall consume you. (39) Those of you who survive shall be heartsick over their iniquity in the land of your enemies; more, they shall be heartsick over the iniquities of their forebears; (40) and they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forebears, in that they trespassed against Me, yea, were hostile to Me. (41) When I, in turn, have been hostile to them and have removed them into the land of their enemies, then at last shall their obdurate heart humble itself, and they shall atone for their iniquity. (42) Then will I remember My covenant with Jacob; I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. (43) For the land shall be forsaken of them, making up for its sabbath years by being desolate of them, while they atone for their iniquity; for the abundant reason that they rejected My rules and spurned My laws. (44) Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, annulling My covenant with them: for I יהוה am their God. (45) I will remember in their favor the covenant with the ancients, whom I freed from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God: I, יהוה.
Is the human relationship with God this conditional? Why or why not?
The Gemara suggests: Come and hear a proof from that which Rabbi Akiva says in the mishna: Even with regard to the poor of the Jewish people, they are viewed as though they were freemen who lost their property and were impoverished, and their humiliation is calculated according to this status, as they are the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and are all of prominent lineage. Conclude from Rabbi Akiva’s statement that the first tanna says his opinion as a leniency, meaning that while the first tanna states the principle that payment for humiliation is in accordance with the honor of the one who was humiliated, and therefore a poor person will receive less than the fixed sums listed in the mishna, Rabbi Akiva responds that even a poor man is deserving of those fixed sums by virtue of his esteemed lineage. The Gemara affirms: Conclude from the mishna that this is so.
Context: this comment from Rabbi Akiva comes after much debate over how to compensate someone for humiliation.
Connection: What is the connection between Rabbi Akiva's commentary and the Torah portion?
Eliezer Berkovits: Faith After the Holocaust, p.106
We have great understanding for the fact that God is merciful and forgiving, that God does not judge humans harshly and is wiling to have patience with them. God is waiting for the sinner to find their way to God. This is how we like to see God. This is how we are only too glad to acknowledge God. But we never seem to realize that while God waits for the sinner to turn to God, there is oppression and persecution and violence among humans. Yet, there seems to be no alternative. If humans is to be, God must be long-suffering with them; he must suffer humans.
This is the inescapable paradox of divine providence. While God tolerates the sinner, God must abandon the victim; while God shows forbearance with the wicked, God must turn a deaf ear to the anguished cries of the violated. This is the ultimate tragedy of existence: God's very mercy and forbearance, God's very love for human, necessitates the abandonment of some people to a fate that they may well experience as divine indifference to justice and human suffering. It is the tragic paradox of faith that God's direct concern for the wrongdoer should be directly responsible for so much pain and sorrow on earth.
We conclude then: the one who demands justice of God must give up humans; the one who asks for God's love and mercy beyond justice must accept suffering.
"...we assume that drab impression is what religion necessarily entails: specifically, the kind of theology that most Christian theologians call “classical,” by which they mean Augustine, Aquinas and the broad spectrum of medieval philosophy – which presupposes that God must be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Based on this presumption, God has – and must have – all the power (that is
what omnipotent means). God has – and must have – all knowledge, knowing everything that is, was, and will be. God is omnibenevolent - pure good. The challenge for many contemporaries is that certain intolerable consequences result from these three axioms."
--Rabbi Bradley Artson, "BA-DEREKH: On The Way —A Presentation of Process Theology"
אמרי אין חבוש מתיר עצמו מבית האסורים רבי אליעזר חלש על לגביה רבי יוחנן חזא דהוה קא גני בבית אפל גלייה לדרעיה ונפל נהורא חזייה דהוה קא בכי ר' אליעזר א"ל אמאי קא בכית אי משום תורה דלא אפשת שנינו אחד המרבה ואחד הממעיט ובלבד שיכוין לבו לשמים ואי משום מזוני לא כל אדם זוכה לשתי שלחנות ואי משום בני דין גרמא דעשיראה ביר א"ל להאי שופרא דבלי בעפרא קא בכינא א"ל על דא ודאי קא בכית ובכו תרוייהו אדהכי והכי א"ל חביבין עליך יסורין א"ל לא הן ולא שכרן א"ל הב לי ידך יהב ליה ידיה ואוקמיה.
They say: A prisoner cannot free himself from prison.
Rabbi Elazar fell ill. Rabbi Yoḥanan visited him and saw that he was lying in a dark room. Rabbi Yoḥanan exposed his arm, and light came out.
He saw that Rabbi Elazar was crying, and said to him: Why are you crying? ...
Both cried over the fleeting nature of beauty in the world and death that eventually overcomes all. Meanwhile, Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: Is your suffering dear to you?
Rabbi Elazar said to him: Neither this suffering nor its reward. Upon hearing this, Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: Give me your hand. Rabbi Elazar gave him his hand, and Rabbi Yoḥanan stood him up.