Ekev – Digging in your heels

“עקב" is not a word that we come across often in the Torah, and even those few times have different meanings. As it appears in the beginning of this week's parasha, it can mean because, part of an if-then proposition. Usually, it refers to something after the fact:

והתברכו בזרעך כל גויי הארץ עקב אשר שמעת בקלי.

All the peoples of the earth will be blessed by your seed because you listened to My voice. (Gn 22:18)

This verse comes at the conclusion of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Abraham's progeny would be a source for blessing as a consequence of his obedience to Hashem's will.

והרביתי את-זרעך ככוכבי השמים ונתתי לזרעך את כל-הארצת האל והתברכו בזרעך כל גויי הארץ. עקב אשר-שמע אברהם בקלי וישמר משמרתי מצותי חקותי ותורתי.

I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars in the heavens, and I will give your descendants all these lands. All the peoples of the land will be blessed through your offspring, as a consequence of Abraham listening to My voice, keeping my watch, commandments, statutes and teachings. (Gn 26:4-5)

ועבדי כלב עקב היתה רוח אחרת עמו וימלא אחרי והביאתיו אל-הארץ אשר-בא שמה וזרעו יורשנה.

My servant Caleb, because he possessed a different spirit and remained loyal to Me, him I will bring into the land that he entered, and his progeny will possess it. (Nu 14:24)

And so, our parasha opens with a passage that begins and ends with this word:

והיה עקב תשמעון את המשפטים האלה ושמרתם ועשיתם אתם ושמר ה' אלקיך לך את-הברית ואת-החסד אשר נשבע לאבתיך.

If you obey these laws, keeping and observing them, then Hashem your God will keep the covenant and kindness that He swore to your forefathers. (Dt 7:12)

והיה אם-שכח תשכח את-ה' אלקיך והלכת אחרי אלהים אחרים ועבדתם והשתחוית להם העדתי בכם היום כי אבד תאבדון. כגוים אשר ה' מאביד מפניכם כן תאבדון: עקב לא תשמעון בקול ה' אלקיכם.

If you forget Hashem your God, following after other gods, serving and prostrating yourselves before them, I bear witness today that you will certainly perish, just like the peoples Hashem will cause to perish before you, so you will perish, because you will not have heeded to the voice of Hashem your God. (Dt 8:19-20)

So, it seems a little strange to refer to a parshah “if” or “because”. What's more is that Hebrew has another, simpler word for if – אם, and for because – מפני. What is it about this word that makes it different?

Let's recall, for a moment, another situation where this word also appears, dealing with the birth of Jacob:

...ואחרי-כן יצא אחיו וידו אחזת בעקב עשו ויקרא שמו יעקב

Afterwards his brother came out, his hand grasping on to the heel of Esau, and his name was called Jacob... (Gn 25:26)

עקב has another meaning – the heel of the foot.

What is interesting about the heel is that if one wants to stay put, they exert pressure on the heel to insure that they do not move. And when one is stubborn and unmovable, we refer to them as “digging in their heels.”

What do heels have to do with our parasha?

There is a message here about human qualities that go beyond a simple “if” or “because”. Keeping the mitzvot, living the life that we, as Jews, are expected to lead in fulfilling our covenants may seem somewhat counterintuitive. After all, if what humans seek out in life is pleasurable fulfillment, then restrictions on our freedoms and instincts is not something ideal. We have something of an animal soul in us. Our covenantal obligations impose burdens on us, and there is so much that tempts us away. Keeping that commitment requires us at times to be stubborn, to dig in our heels with a mind towards doing the best that we can to fulfill the mitzvot.

But there is also another side of the coin. We can also be obstinate in our refusal to maintain the covenant. We can come up with every possible explanation and rationalization to dismiss and disregard expectations. When we go beyond the simple lack of fulfillment, when we are obdurate in our objections, we run tremendous risk, as we find at the close of this passage at the end of chapter 8.

Our heels do not hear, but they can help, or hinder, our ability to heed.

Va'etchanan: Worshipping sticks and stones

On Tish'ah b'Av, we recite from the Torah a passage that is found in this Shabbat's Torah reading. (Va'etchanan is always read on the Shabbat following Tish'ah b'Av, which is also known as Shabbat Nachamu from the first words of the Haftarah.) We read the following words:

כי-תוליד בנים ובני בנים, ונושנתם בארץ והשחתם ועשיתם פסל תמונת כל ועשיתם הרע בעיני ה'-א-להיך להכעיסו. העידתי בכם היום את-השמים ואת-הארץ כי-אבד תאבדון מהר מעל הארץ אשר אתם עברים את-הירדן שמה לרשתה לא-תאריכן ימים עליה כי השמד תשמדון. והפיץ ה' אתכם בעמים ונשארתם מתי מספר בגוים אשר ינהג ה' אתכם שמה. ועבדתם-שם אלהים מעשה ידי אדם עץ ואבן--אשר לא-יראון ולא ישמעון ולא יאכלון ולא יריחן.

When you bear children and grandchildren, once you are long-established in the land, if you should act wastefully, making sculpture of any image, doing evil in the eyes of Hashem, your God, to anger Him. With heaven and earth as my witness, you will be quickly and utterly lost from the land to which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. Your days on it shall not be lengthened, for you will be utterly wiped out. Hashem will scatter you among the nations, and you will remain, in small number, among the nations to which Hashem will lead you. There you will worship gods that are the works of human hands: of wood and stone – that cannot see, hear, eat or smell. (Dt 4:25-28)

Now, this is not the first time that we come across this opposition to idolatry in this chapter. See v. 3:

עיניכם הראות את אשר-עשה ה' בבעל פעור: כי כל-האיש אשר הלך אחרי בעל-פעור השמידו ה' א-לקיך מקרבך.

Your eyes have seen what Hashem did at Ba'al Pe'or, for Hashem destroyed from your midst every man who followed after Ba'al Pe'or.

Likewise, vv. 16-18:

פן-תשחתון--ועשיתם לכם פסל תמונת כל-סמל: תבנית זכר או נקבה. תבנית כל-בהמה אשר בארץ תבנית כל-צפור כנף אשר תעוף בשמים. תבנית כל-רמש באדמה תבנית כל-דגה אשר-במים מתחת לארץ. ופן-תשא עיניך השמימה וראית את-השמש ואת-הירח ואת-הכוכבים כל צבא השמים ונדחת והשתחוית להם ועבדתם--אשר חלק ה' א-לקיך אתם לכל העמים תחת כל-השמים.

Lest you make waste of yourselves and make for yourselves a graven image, the likeness of any form, the image of a male or female, the likeness of any animal on land, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish in the waters under the earth. Lest you raise your eyes skyward, see the sun, moon, and stars, all the hosts of heaven, and be pushed to prostrate yourselves before them and worship them, that which Hashem, your God, allotted to all the nations under the heavens.

And v. 23:

השמרו לכם פן-תשכחו את-ברית ה' א-לקיכם אשר כרת עמכם ועשיתם לכם פסל תמונת כל אשר צוך ה' א-לקיך.

Be on guard, lest you forget the covenant that Hashem, your God, made with you, and make a graven image, the likeness of anything, which Hashem, your God, forbade you.

It seems repetitive, but in fact, it isn't. Verse 3 recalls the incident where men were driven by their lust for Moabite women to serve Ba'al Pe'or. Verses 16-18 speak of the deification of anything found in nature. Verse 23 extends the idea further, forbidding the deification of anything that could be captured in any image, or the attempt make an image of anything that could be venerated in some way.

What does this section, verses 25-28, tell us that we haven't already heard?

Those gods that are the work of human hands are not necessarily what one would think of as gods. They are the works of our hands, the things we make, the possessions we crave, the objects we seek to acquire that become the focus of our attention and our veneration. They become our focus on earnings and our materialistic yearnings, the things that supplant the sublime with the superficial.

This passage begins with an interesting phrase: ונשנתם בארץ, once you are long-established in the land. The word ונשנתם derives from the ישן, which means old, and also connotes sleep, tiredness, boredom, things that can be easily lead to complacency. Under these circumstances, the restless heart seeks something new, something beyond the established, the familiar. It is under those conditions that values break down, ideals disintegrate, and restless souls seek out creature comforts. Often, this does not occur in a single generation, not in the days of the founders, but after generations, כי-תוליד בנים ובני בנים, when one can look back on the privations of the builders with little more than a sense of nostalgia. By then, the ideals, or more specifically, the covenantal commitment, is all but lost. They are no longer in the land of promise, but in the land of premise, based on the supposition that our satisfaction with creature comforts is all we need to keep us fulfilled. But these things are inanimate. We find ourselves in a vicious cycle of trying to keep up with the newest fad and fashion, the things that lack any staying power because they are אלהים מעשה ידי אדם עץ ואבן--אשר לא-יראון ולא ישמעון ולא יאכלון ולא יריחן, gods that are the works of human hands: of wood and stone – that cannot see, hear, eat or smell.

And then something happens...

ובקשתם משם את-ה' א-לקיך ומצאת כי תדרשנו בכל-לבבך ובכל-נפשך. בצר לך ומצאוך כל הדברים האלה באחרית הימים ושבת עד-ה' א-לקיך ושמעת בקלו. כי א-ל רחום ה' אלקיך לא ירפך ולא ישחיתך ולא ישכח את-ברית אבתיך אשר נשבע להם.

From there you will seek out Hashem, your God, and you will find Him, because you have sought Him out with all your heart and with all your being. In those later times, when in your straits and you find these words, you will return unto Hashem, your God, and listen to His Voice. For Hashem, your God, is a compassionate God, He will neither forsake nor destroy you, nor will He forget the covenant that he swore to your fathers. (vv. 29-31)

The spiraling quest for materialistic meaning leaves us bereft of meaning, but we do have a way out.

The challenge is not to get ourselves to that point where we are in the straits. We cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of the notion that unfettered materialism is nothing less than a form of idolatry, something we must avoid in the first place. We should be able to live lives where our needs are met, without deprivation, hunger or want. But there are limits. When life becomes more focused on stuff than on meaning, on the people in our lives, our fellow man, and our relationship with the Provider of all, we are at a loss. When we start to believe the words of the bumper sticker that says “Whoever dies with the most toys wins,” it is time to stop and reflect on where we are, where we are heading, and what it all means.

Devarim: Where to begin?

Devarim is a very different book from the other books of the Torah. Its time span is short; it opens with a note that Moshe begins this recitation on the first day of the eleventh month (Shevat) in the fortieth year of the exodus. It concludes with the death of Moshe, which, according to tradition, took place on the seventh day of the following month, Adar. It lacks historical narrative in time, but recapitulates events within the context of sermons. Besides that, it does state numerous mitzvot, many of which are new to Devarim.

Parashat Devarim opens one of Moshe’s discourses, starting in verse 6. He begins with these words:

.ה’ אלקינו דבר אלינו בחרב לאמר רב־לכם שׁבת בהר הזה

Hashem, our God, spoke to us at Horeb saying: Enough of you dwelling by this mountain.

This seems like an unexpected place for Moshe to begin his address. For we all know that Moshe’s activity began in Egypt. The Exodus from Egypt is a foundation point for Israel in its relationship with Hashem as redeemer. Why does Moshe begin with this moment, when Hashem tells Israel to leave Sinai, and not from when he stood up to Pharaoh?

The answer, as I see it, has everything to do with the very reason for taking forty years to wander the desert, the story that Moshe soon discusses. Those who left Egypt were unable to leave the slavery mentality, and the dependency it entailed, behind them. Forty years later, the salve generation dead in the wilderness, a new generation stood before Moshe, one that did not know slavery, one that did not remember the watermelons and the garlic of Egypt. The task at hand for this new generation was to conquer and build up a homeland. They had to learn the responsibilities of statecraft and self governance. This was not a task for slaves, or a slave mentality. So Moshe begins at a point where the people are told to move forward to inherit the land. Moshe protests that he, alone, cannot handle the needs of all the people, and so he establishes a bureaucracy of sorts. (Yes, the order here is not in sync with the narrative in Shemot, where this division is made before coming to Sinai, and is made at the recommendation of Yitro, Moshe’s father in law. But we will find numerous accounts in Devarim that will not sync exactly with earlier books of the Torah, which is not an issue to deal with here.) There is no reminder here of slavery whatsoever. They are reminded of the lack of faith of their parents’ generation, both out of fear brought on by the report of the scouts, and of bravado by those who who went ahead, against Hashem’s command, and sought to conquer the land on their own.

The lesson to be gleaned from this has to do with limits to how and when we use our sense of history, our past experience. If Israel were to continue to think of itself in the context of its slave past at a time when they had to think of establishing their new home, they would be mired by that modality. Slaves think reactively, they are not free to take matters into their own hands. This generation had to learn responsibility, and they had to learn trust and faith. In chapter 2, Moshe recalls when they could and could not attack others, when to negotiate. They were learning important lessons that could serve them well in their future situation.

There is a terrible temptation to look back at past weaknesses and exploit them in the present, to use them as an excuse for current problems. When the Torah has us look back on that painful past, it is more often to teach us to be the opposite - be kind to the stranger because of your experience as strangers in Egypt. Our mission is to build a collective life of hopeful purpose, not one of fearful reaction.

Mattot-Masaei: Destroying Images

This week’s parshiot bring us to the end of a forty year long journey through the wilderness. Israel is preparing for the next stage in its journey to settle its divinely ordained home, and receives some important instructions regarding its settlement. Much can be said about the details of these instructions,  but my focus will be on two words in a phrase that seem redundant, and to attempt some understanding of them. After all, every word of the Torah has its place and its meaning; nothing is superfluous.

Towards the end of chapter 33 we read that pagan cult objects are to be destroyed:

וְהוֹרַשְׁתֶּם אֶת־כָּל־ישְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ מִפְּנֵיכֶם וְאִבַּדְתֶּם אֵת כָּל־מַשְׂכִּיֹּתָם וְאֵת כָּל־צַלְמֵי מַסֵּכֹתָם תְּאַבֵּדוּ וְאֵת כָּל־בָּמוֹתָם תַּשְׁמִידוּ

You shall take possession of all the inhabitants of the land before you, and you shall destroy their cultic handiwork, all the images of their molten images destroy, and all their altars destroy. (v. 52)

The translation seems awkward only because some of the words used here are not exactly clear. We do know that the verse is very clear about one thing in particular: ridding the land of any pagan influence.
What is striking is the phrase צלמי מסכתם, the images of their molten images. We are talking about idols, images of false deities. It would have been sufficient to say מסכתם, their molten images. What is gained by the seemingly superfluous צלמי?

When hearing the word צלם, one verse instantly comes to mind:

וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹקִים | אֶת־הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמו,ֹ בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹקִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בָּרָא אֹתָם

God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him, male and female he created them. (Gn 1:27)

Clearly, we are not physical representations of Hashem. When we use anthropomorphisms, it is for the purpose of giving some substance to the unimaginable nature of Hashem, who is beyond the ken of human understanding. And yet, this verse is not something that we are saying about ourselves; it is what Hashem is saying about His creation.

Without going into the ramifications of this verse in any great detail, let us say that there is some scintilla of connection here, that the human being possesses some quality that is supposed to remind one of Godliness, of the nature of Hashem, as it were...

Looking back at our lemma, the verse in question, we might derive the following. It is not enough to destroy the symbols of paganism. Demolishing altars and idols does not do enough to eradicate the reality of paganism. It will take much more to rid the land of its pervasive idolatry. The challenge to Israel is to overcome the culture, the mindset, the ideologies the underlie the paganism of those in the land. The culture of the Torah is supposed to replace that culture, and when it is properly lived, it will offer an incentive in the form of a better, more meaningful life, to those who are there.

The consequences of failure to realize this will be seen in verse 55:

וְאִם־לֹא תוֹרִישׁוּ אֶת־יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ מִפְּנֵיכֶם וְהָיָה אֲשֶׁר תּוֹתִירוּ מֵהֶם לְשִׂכִּים בְּעֵינֵיכֶם וְלִצְנִינִם בְּצִדֵּיכֶם וְצָרְרוּ אֶתְכֶם עַל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם ישְׁבִים בָּהּ 

And if you do not possess the inhabitants of the land before you, that which remains of them will be like stingers in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land where you dwell.

Allowing for the remnant of that culture to remain, not conquering the hearts and minds of the other, will make it impossible Israel to make for itself the home that Hashem had intended through the covenants. It was a challenge to Israel in the days of the First and Second Temples, a challenge that our ancestors have largely failed. The challenge remains in our generation; how to meet it may be a matter of debate, but remains a matter that we should consider with great care.

Pinchas: Offerings for ourselves, and offerings for the world

Sacrifices are incredibly uninteresting. They have no relevance to the lives that we lead, even if we strive to fulfill all our religious obligations. Despite that fact of life, the most often repeated sections of the Torah deal with sacrifices. The second half of Parashat Pinchas deals entirely with the cycle of sacrifices for special days: Shabbat, Rosh Hodesh, and all the holidays; we read the appropriate passages from these chapters on every applicable holiday (except for Shabbat, when it is recited as part of the Tefillat Musaf.)

We likely pay little attention to the specifics of these sacrifices, but there is something interesting about the pattern that we find here.

A couple of notes are in order. First, the daily offering was made on all of these days. If any holiday fell on Shabbat, then the Shabbat offerings were included as well. Rosh Hashannah included both the daily and Rosh Hodesh offerings, as well as the Shabbat offering if it were to fall on Shabbat. Second, the goats are for the Hattat (sin) offering, which explains why they remain a constant.

Most of these offerings seem very simple in structure. But then we get to the seven days of Sukkot. What can explain this enormous sacrificial inflation that we see in the sacrificial scorecard above?

Sukkot celebrates the fall harvest and the onset of the winter rainy season in Eretz Yisra’el. It is understandable why Israel would want to celebrate with all its bounty, in the hope that Hashem will bless the land with appropriate rains for the year ahead. Yes, that may be a factor in the increase.
But there is something interesting about the Sukkot pattern that is hard to ignore. The numbers of rams and lambs offered are doubled on these days from those offered on all other holidays. And then we get to the bulls. On day one we start with 13, and on each successive day we reduce the amount by one.  This adds up to 70 bulls offered during these seven days. Finally, on Shmini Atzeret, we return to the schedule that applied to the holidays that took place at the beginning of the month.

Of course, the Torah never explains specifics of sacrifices, but rabbis looked for clues in the text to explain the oddity here. Jewish tradition, based on the genealogies of Gn 10-11, maintained that 70 nations descended from Noah. Next, Nu 29:35 describes Shmini Atzeret in an unusual way:

בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם

The eighth day shall be an assembly for you...

Why is this day for you? Rashi’s comment on this verse explains:

ומדרשו באגדה: לפי שכל ימות הרגל הקריבו כנגד שבעים אומות ובאין ללכת, אמר להם המקום: בבקשה מכם עשו לי סעודה קטנה כדי שאהנה מכם

Its explanation in the aggada: because during each day of the festival they made offerings to correspond with the 70 nations of the world and they would go, Hashem said to them: I ask of you, make a small feast so that I can enjoy you.

This is an abridgment of the explanation found in the Talmud (bSukkah 55b):

א"ר <אליעזר> [אלעזר] הני שבעים פרים כנגד מי? כנגד שבעים אומות. פר יחידי למה? כנגד אומה יחידה. משל למלך בשר ודם שאמר לעבדיו: עשו לי סעודה גדולה. ליום אחרון אמר לאוהבו: עשה לי סעודה קטנה כדי שאהנה ממך. א"ר יוחנן: אוי להם <לעובדי כוכבים> {לאומות העולם} שאבדו ואין יודעין מה שאבדו! בזמן שבהמ"ק קיים מזבח מכפר עליהן, ועכשיו מי מכפר עליהן

R. Eleazar stated, To what do those seventy bullocks correspond? To the seventy nations. To what does the single bullock correspond? To the unique nation. This may be compared to a mortal king who said to his servants: Prepare for me a great banquet; but on the last day he said to his beloved: Prepare for me a simple meal that I may enjoy you’. R. Yohanan said: Woe to the {nations of the world}, for they lost something and they do not know what they have lost. When the Temple was in existence the altar atoned for them, but now who shall atone for them?

I have no way of knowing if any other people in the ancient world would adopt a practice of engaging in worship on behalf of other peoples. But here we have a tradition where the word of Hashem was interpreted to demand such engagement on behalf of every nation. The comment of Rabbi Yohanan elaborates that these offerings served an expiatory function for those nations, but it is more likely that it had a more general function. If it were strictly for the purpose of atonement, then we might expect the offerings to be made of goats, not bulls, as the goats were used for the Hattat offerings as mentioned above.

The context of this section makes this even more interesting. A few chapters earlier, in last week’s parasha, we read about the failed efforts to curse Israel by a neighboring nation, and then the efforts to lead Israel into apostasy through lust. This parasha opens with a commendation of Pinchas for his act of zeal against a flagrant act of apostasy by spearing the Israelite man and Midianite woman. The sacrificial calendar follows a census and the allocation of tribal lands, all of which are mentioned in preparation for the impending arrival in their patrimonial land. If anything, all these things would point more towards an inward focus, not an outward one.

Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah (21:24) offers an interesting twist on the verse:

זש”ה: תחת אהבתי ישטנוני ואני תפילה. את מוצא בחג ישראל מקריבין לפניך שבעים פרים על שבעים אומות העולם. אמרו ישראל: רבונו העולמים, הרי אנו מקריבין עליהם שבעים פרים והיו צריכים לאהוב אותנו, והם שונאים אותנו, שנאמר: תחת אהבתי ישטנוני. לפיכך אמר הקב”ה: עכשיו הקריבו בעצמכם ביום השמיני עצרת תהיה לכם

The verse says: In return for my love they are my accusers; but I give myself to prayer. (Ps 109:4) You find that on the festival [Sukkot] Israel offers You seventy bulls for the seventy nations of the world. Israel said: Master of Worlds, we offer seventy bulls for them and they should love us, but they hate us, as it says: In return for my love they are my accusers. Hence, the Holy One, Blessed Be He, said: Now,  offer on your own behalf on the eighth day, an assembly for you...

The verse in Psalms is interpreted as a reference to Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret, that the offerings of the  seven days of Sukkot were on behalf of the nations who, despite this, despised Israel, but the eighth day focused on Israel alone.

The lesson is fairly evident. As Jews, we cannot ignore that we live in a world inhabited by other peoples, and to some extent, especially today - for better or worse - we will interact, perhaps become interdependent, on others. Yes, there are times when we are in conflict with others, but the welfare of others, even those who despise us, is also our concern. Why bother? Because all these peoples were created by Hashem, and eventually they will all come to recognize Hashem and adopt a Godly way of life. Zechariah (14:16) foresaw Sukkot as the holiday that would be eventually celebrated by all peoples:

וְהָיָה כָּל־הַנּוֹתָר מִכָּל־הַגּוֹיִם הַבָּאִים עַל־יְרוּשָׁלָם וְעָלוּ מִדֵּי שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֹת לְמֶלֶךְ ה’ צְבָאוֹת וְלָחֹג אֶת־חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת

It will be that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall make pilgrimage there from year to year to worship the King, the Hashem of hosts, and to keep the festival of Sukkot.

We will live in a world that suffers from conflict, and sometimes we will be party to those conflicts. It is nevertheless our responsibility, even in our own communities or our own land, where some might choose to cloister themselves from all others, to not do that, to not engage in cursing others as Balak and Bilaam tried, but the opposite: to be a source for blessings for all peoples, whether or not they like it, and whether or not they realize it.