From Aleph to Tav (A to Z)

If (im) you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them, I will give your rains in their time, the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit.                                                Leviticus 26:3-4

            Parashat Beḥukotai, the parasha of the rebuke (tochaḥa) commences with the blessings Israel will receive when the nation observes God’s mitzvot. The blessings presented prior to the tochaḥa end with verse 13:

I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt from being slaves to them; and I broke the pegs of your yoke and led you upright (komemiyut).

            Midrash Eicha Rabba notes that the blessings commence with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph, and conclude with the final letter, tav, commenting:

(God said) “I shall bless them from aleph to tav, as is written ‘If (im) you follow My statutes …’ through ‘komemiyut’ (the final letter of which is tav.)”

That is, the blessings are all-encompassing. “from a to z.”

            Toledot Yitzḥak (Rabbi Yitzḥak Karo [1458 – 1518], uncle of Rabbi Yosef Karo, author of the Shulḥan Aruch]) suggests the practical implication of the comment of Eicha Rabba:

In the blessing, He began with aleph and concluded them with tav to indicate that Israel will be blessed only when it fulfills Torah from aleph to tav.

The, realization of God’s blessings, which are from aleph to tav, is dependent upon strict observance of God’s Torah, from aleph to tav.

            Based upon Eicha Rabba’s comment, we may note that since the tochaḥa itself is not from aleph to tav, it is limited. Indeed, the concluding verses of the tochaḥa are:

But despite all this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them, thereby breaking My covenant that is with them, for I am the Lord their God. I will remember for them the covenant [made with] the ancestors, whom I took out from the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be a God to them. I am the Lord. [44-45]