Parshat Behar-Bechukotai
There are times when life isn’t particularly difficult, and yet something still feels off.
You’re moving through your days.
Doing what needs to get done.
Things are functioning.
But somewhere along the way, life can start to feel strangely disconnected.
Like things are happening, but not really landing.
Like the days are full, but somehow not connected to anything deeper.
In this week’s parsha, the Torah introduces the idea of living with keri — experiencing life as chance, coincidence, something random rather than something meaningful and connected.
And what’s striking is that the deeper danger described in the parsha is not only suffering itself.
It’s the possibility of slowly beginning to experience life as arbitrary.
Because when life starts to feel random, even good things can begin to lose their weight.
One of the quietest ways a person falls apart is when life starts to feel disconnected.
Not because they no longer matter, but because we no longer experience them as part of something meaningful.
The Torah this week pushes against that state.
It reminds us that our lives are not just a collection of disconnected moments.
That our choices matter.
That the direction we are moving in matters.
And that losing our sense of meaning and connection affects us more deeply than we often realise.
As Shabbat approaches, it’s a chance to step back from the pace of the week and reconnect to that deeper sense of meaning — to remember that our lives are not random, and were never meant to feel that way.
