Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its partners assume any responsibility for them. Please contact us in case of abuse. In case of abuse, The second of this week’s parshiyot sets up a remarkably simple paradigm: if we do X, then Y will occur. Action leads to reaction; cause leads to effect. If you follow My laws and observe My commandments, Hashem tells us, great things will happen: you will have rain, crops, peace, all with Hashem in your midst. And the opposite is true too: if you don’t keep the laws, then (and we whisper or lower our pitch for this part) terrible things will happen. In Neil Simon’s