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Topics in this digest: Ekev 5764
by Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Deuteronomy 11:13.
And it shall come to pass, if you shall give heed diligently to my
commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and
to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14. That I will
give you the rain of your land in its due season, the first rain and the
latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, and your wine, and your
oil. 15. And I will send grass in your fields for your cattle, that you
may eat and be full. 16. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not
deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; 17.
And then the Lord’s anger be kindled against you, and he closed the skies,
that there should be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and
lest you perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord gives you.
18. Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your
soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as
frontlets between your eyes. 19. And you shall teach them to your
children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk
by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20. And you shall
write them upon the door posts of your house, and upon your gates; 21.
That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the
land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of
heaven upon the earth.
V’haya im shamoa – and it will be if you
give heed…
Thus begins the second paragraph of the
Shema, which we recite twice a
day. Those words appear in this week’s
parsha, Ekev.
These words were so important that the
rabbis decreed we should recite
them twice a day, morning and evening,
along with the Shema and the
v’ahavta. Yet, when we recite them, we
virtually never recite them out
loud: the custom is to recite them
silently.
This paragraph says if we obey the
commandments we will have all sorts of
good things—material well-being, security
in the land. And if we disobey
the commandments, we will suffer their
opposite.
The reason we recite the paragraph silently
is because we don’t want to
speak too loudly of the terrible things
that follow from not obeying all
the rules, since none of us is perfect.
This idea of justice—follow the mitzvot and
get rewarded, disobey and get
punished—is an attractive concept. But if
we look at the world around us,
it pretty quickly becomes apparent that the
world does not appear to work
this way. The most pious and observant
person we know is not always the
most prosperous. Wicked people are not
necessarily poverty stricken.
Even in the world of the Torah, the book of
Job is a direct contradiction
to this paragraph – Job is the most
righteous person of his generation,
and God loads him up tzuras (grief)! The
story of Job is clearly a huge
challenge to anyone who would take a simple
approach to the teachings in
this week’s parsha that reward and
punishment is directly tied to
observance of the commandments.
In the Mishnah, in Pirkei Avot, the
Teachings of our Ancestors, it says:
“Rabbi Yannai said: it is not in our power
to explain the reason
of either the security of the wicked or the
afflictions of the righteous.”
This is what is called the problem of
theodicy – why is there evil in the
world? Why do righteous people suffer and
wicked people prosper? Even
Moshe didn’t understand; the midrash says
when Moses said to God, harani
na et k’vodecha, please show me your Glory,
what he was asking for was for
God to explain this to him: how can
righteous people suffer and wicked
people prosper? The Talmud (Menachot 29b)
says that God showed Moses the
beit midrash (study hall) of R. Akiva – and
they were discussing things so
advanced they were over Moses head. Moses
was in awe—and wondered why God
gave the Torah to someone like him when
there was a scholar like Akiva.
God showed Moses the death of Akiva – his
flesh being stripped from his
bones with an iron comb—a scene which if
you made a movie of it would make
Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” look
like a walk in the park – and
Moses said, “such Torah and this is his
reward!!”
God responded: Be silent (or, “SHUT UP!”),
that’s my decree! … in other
words, you cannot understand it.
This paragraph, “if you will heed” is not
only troubling because of the
obvious issue that the world doesn’t seem
to work that way – but also
elsewhere the tradition tells us NOT to do
the commandments because we
expect a reward. The Slonimer rebbe
teaches: A Jew needs to establish the
Torah and the mitzvot, lishmah, for their
own sakes, not because he
expects to receive a reward. The Talmud
(Avodah Zara) brings an
interpretation of the first verse of Psalm
112:
“Hallelujah! Happy is the man who fears the
Lord, who delights greatly in
His commandments.” “Who delights greatly in
His commandments,” was
explained by R. Eleazar thus: ‘In His
commandments,’ but not in the reward
of His commandments. This is just what we
have learnt. ‘He used to say,
‘Be not like servants who serve the master
on the condition of receiving a
reward; but be like servants who serve the
master without the condition of
receiving a reward.’” --who serve out of
love and devotion to the master.
The great Chasidic rabbi, Rebbe Nachman of
Bretslav takes this idea even
further, and tells us that we should serve
God with so much joy that we
don’t even want any reward, other than the
opportunity to do another
mitzvah.
So how do the rabbis deal with these issues
raised in this section of this
week’s parsha?
Elsewhere in the Talmud, the story of the
death of R. Akiva is told again,
only this time with the angels questioning
God instead of Moses. God
tells the angels that Akiva’s reward is in
the world to come. In other
words, we may not understand it, but
SOMEHOW there is justice; the scales
may be balanced in the future, we just
don’t see it here.
This paragraphs in some ways is more
difficult for us today than it was in
the past – because we are very focused on
individuality. We tend to think
as individuals, not as a community. This
was not so much the case 2,000
years ago.
The Hebrew for the “v’haya im shamoa” is
written in second person PLURAL –
not individual. It was never thought God
would make it rain on your
field, but not rain on your neighbor’s
field because he violated Shabbat –
the verses were understood to be speaking
to us communally. If we as a
community obey the commandments, we as a
community will be rewarded with
these things.
Notwithstanding these explanations, this
paragraph has a lot of
difficulties – given these problems, which
the rabbis recognized, why did
they decide to put it in?? Would you make
this one of the paragraphs we
recite every day if you were editing the
prayerbook? The Reform have
taken it OUT of their prayerbooks!! Do you
agree? Is it better to take
it out?
In his introduction to the last chapter of
Mishnah Sanhedrin, Perek
Chelek, The great rabbi of the 12th
century, Rambam (Maimonides)
concludes that the whole notion of reward
and punishment for doing the
mitzvot is really for people who are at a
simple level of development,
like children who will only learn their
lessons because the teacher or
their parents promise them treats. They
don’t appreciate the intrinsic
value of their studies. Rambam says the
same thing applies to mitzvot.
This week’s Torah portion talks about
reward and punishment for those who
need an external motivating force to do the
right thing, who are not yet
on a sufficiently high spiritual level to
appreciate that we don’t do the
mitzvot for promise of reward, rather we do
them out of love of God and a
desire to know God.
I respectfully disagree with Rambam … this
paragraph NOT just for kids, or
“spiritually underdeveloped people.”
The rabbis’ definition of an atheist was
someone who would say “ain din
v’ain dayan,” there is no judgment and
there is no judge. It was obvious
to EVERYONE back then that there was a God
– but this aspect of God being
a just God was fundamental to the rabbis’
world view. The great rabbi
Elisha ben Abuya, a student of R. Akiva and
colleague of R. Meir, saw a
boy fall out of a tree and get killed as he
was chasing away the mother
bird to get the eggs – obeying TWO
commandments which promise as reward a
long life! The rabbi said “ain din v’ain
dayan” and became an apostate—he
gave up on being observant, and quit
believing in a just God.
“V’haya im shamoa” is not about bribing God
for a reward by obeying the
mitzvot. Rather, the Slonimer rebbe says
it’s not a promise of a reward
for obeying, but is a description of the
consequences. We don’t obey the
commandments out of expectation of a reward
– we obey for many other
reasons, but most especially as described
in the v’ahavta – because we
love God and want to serve him. If we obey
the mitzvot, we will have a
better life.
Most of the mitzvot have some kind of
intrinsic reward or at least a
purpose, if we but examine them closely.
Shabbat is perhaps the finest
example of this. Many people think of all
of the rules and restrictions
surrounding Shabbat as a great burden,
something very difficult to do,
something that interferes with our
enjoyment of life. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Shabbat is the
greatest gift that God gave the
Jewish people. Observing Shabbat can
transform your life. It will deepen
your connection with God, your family, and
the Jewish people. It will add
meaning to your life, and recharge you
spiritually and physically in a way
no vacation could hope to compete with. My
wife Lauri describes Shabbat
as a 25-hour spa for the soul.
When this week’s Torah portion cautions us
that failure to observe the
mitzvot will result in our destruction, it
is also making a simple
statement of fact. Observing the mitzvot
is, over the long run, what
makes us Jews. What makes us a unique
people. Where are the seven
Canaanite nations described in the Torah?
Gone, every one of them. Where
are the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the
Parthians? Where are the Romans?
Even though there are still people called
Greeks and Egyptians, classical
Greece and Egypt are long gone. Greeks and
Egyptians are now simply
people who live in those places, not
followers of ancient religions,
living their lives in accord with ancient
traditions. If we abandon the
mitzvot, within a generation or two we have
abandoned Judaism. If we give
up our mitzvot, give up our customs, give
up our Jewish way of life, the
prophecies in this week’s portion would
surely become true: we would
perish, at least as a distinct people if
not individually.
The Ishbitzer Rebbe, a Chasidic rabbi of
the 19th century, tells us that
the opening word of this week’s parsha
v’haya, it will be, tells us that
the rewards that will ekev, that will
follow, will follow in the future
when we understand the purpose of the
mitzvot. The Ishbitzer teaches that
in the future, Israel’s patience in doing
the mitzvot without
understanding why will be rewarded with
understanding the deep goodness of
all of those mitzvot that to our eyes today
seem without any good rhyme
nor reason.
And that, I think, is the real message of
this parsha. We should be
patient, and have faith that the things God
has commanded us are not for
His sake, but for OUR sake. If we follow
the teachings of the Torah, our
lives will be enriched.
Shabbat Shalom. |