A misplaced peroration? – B’chukkotai
“These are the statutes, ordinances and laws which HaShem gave the Children of Israel” (Lev. 26:46).
The Alshich finds it strange to have a summing up of this kind placed at the beginning of a section of the Torah. It seems more logical, he thinks, to make this the peroration of the whole Torah.
The explanation is that it is the heading of the solemn message which Moses has brought down the mountain with him. It is the introductory announcement of the agenda that both he and the people of Israel will henceforth have to live by in the wilderness and then in the Promised Land.
There was certainly a case for a good peroration at the end of the Torah but the list of the laws needed a heading.
