There is a tradition of studying Pirkei Avot during this period of the Omer, between Pesach and Shavuot. In the first chapter we read that the world stands on three things: Torah, sacred service and acts of lovingkindness. It is in simple acts of kindness that we can make the world a better place.

Bechukkotai, an epilogue to  the whole book of Leviticus, is at the very end of what is called the Holiness Code. These are rules for  enabling a close, ongoing relationship with God. The question that is really being asked is: how can we be a holy people in our new home? There’s a short list of blessings and a much longer list of curses. The two lists are symmetrical, every promise in the blessing is reversed by a curse — a fertile land if you follow God’s ways, a fruitless land if you don’t.

The commentator Nechama Leibowitz points out that blessings and curses were an early form of prayer. They expressed what  people hoped for and they connected the moral order to the natural order. Behaving ethically was felt to be intrinsic to the proper functioning of the cosmos. Is this still true?

I don’t think being cruel to another person will blight the apple trees, but I do think there is something about the wellbeing of a society that makes a difference to the world and the wellbeing of a society is governed by individual human acts.

We are reminded that God brought us out of Egypt. We are reminded of our previous experiences, which may have been negative, but have also given us a chance to see how the world works. We are created in God’s image. God is holy and so are we, so how  we treat each other and how we look after ourselves matters.

We are promised that the rains will come in their season and that God will walk among us – a vision of the future. It’s a chance for us to repair the world. The vision of Bechukkotai is that collective human effort can mend the broken world that we are responsible for.

We need to look after each other and we need to look after ourselves. We need to share our stories and admit our vulnerability.  And then we can truly rebuild our world with kindness and restore our vision of community as a sacred canopy under which everyone can feel safe and whole and connected.