Parashat Eikev - The Beginning of Wisdom

BS"D

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

Oscar Wilde

“All things are in the hands of Heaven, save the Fear of Heaven.”

Gemara – Berachot

“And now, Israel, what does the L-rd your G-d ask from you, but to fear the L-rd your G-d… for your own good.”

Parashat Eikev –
Devarim, 10:12, 13


The word Eikev – meaning “because” or “since” – occurs at two points of immense significance in the Torah. Words live by their contexts. Words, no less than humans, are communal beings. No less than ourselves, they draw their meaning from the contexts in which they appear. And, similar to the development of human personalities, the meanings of words accrete as they obtain new layers of significance.

The word Eikev appears for the first time in Parashat Vayeira, at the scene of the Akeidah – the Binding of Isaac. Bereshit 22:15-18: (my own free translation) And an Angel of G-d called to Abraham, a second [problem of the original language: A second Time (the usual translation)? A second Angel? A second Abraham?] one, from the sky and said: by my self I have sworn, the word of G-d, that because that you did this thing, and did not withhold your son, your only one, that I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your seed like the stars of the sky and like the sand that is on the seashore, and your seed shall inherit the gate of their enemy, and all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves in your seed, Eikev because that you listened to my voice.”

We have already seen that, as his career draws to a close, Moshe is compared to Abraham. There are both parallels and contrasts that make it clear the Torah is completing the Abraham story with the denouement of the Moshe story. In this context, the literary interplay of this brief text in the Moshe narrative is critical and forceful. In Bamidbar 20:12, G-d informs Moshe and Aharon of their punishment after the incident of striking the rock (Parashat Chukat). The reason Aharon and Moshe must die in the Wilderness is introduced with the Hebrew word Ya’an – also meaning “since” or “because”, and the other “because” word that has its origin in the Akeidah narrative. “… by my Self I have sworn, the Word of G-d, that Ya’an because you did this thing…” And, in Parashat Chukat: “… ya’an because you did not believe in me…”

The sequence in the Akeidah is: Ya’an because you took an action; and Eikev because you listened to my Voice. This is the pinnacle of ‘Am Israel’s devotion to Torah. On the eve of Moshe’s ascent of Sinai – the eve of the Giving of Torah – we stand up and announce (Shemot 24:7) Na’aseh ve-nishma’! “We will do and we will listen!” Let us not put too fine a point on the flaw in the Rabbinical interpretation of this passage, which sees in our unison shout an overwhelming zeal for Torah, such that we were willing to accept upon ourselves all the Mitzvot, even though we do not hear them until afterwards. (This is, in fact, the formula required of the Convert.) In the section in question – Parashat Mishpatim – we are told that Moshe wrote all the words of G-d in a book, and read the book before all the people, whereupon we responded “We shall do and we shall listen!” Only thereafter does Moshe ascend Sinai for his forty-day encounter. And this passage comes well after the Ten Commandments section in Parashat Yitro. If, like Ramban, we read the text sequentially, then we have already heard. Indeed, given Moshe’s redaction and reading-aloud, we have heard twice. It may be argued that we are not, in fact, throwing ourselves with wanton faith and love into the arms of a mysterious Torah - an attitude which strikes me as distinctly non-Jewish! Rather, we have already been introduced to proper instruction. Like Hillel’s converts, we have been shown the truth of Torah and said Na’aseh! And, like Hillel’s converts, we are eager to learn more. Nishma’!

And so we come to the opening of this week’s Parasha. “And it will be, eikev you will listen to these ordinances, and you will keep them and you will do them...” Action and listening. Hear and perform.

Abraham, too, heard, and acted thereafter. And G-d rewards him, first for the act itself, and only second for the hearing. Moshe and Aharon heard, but failed to act. G-d punishes them for the failure to act, then G-d tells us that G-d will keep G-d’s side of the contract if we keep ours. If we listen.

(Agenda alert: I have written elsewhere of the great use I have made of the ArtScroll publications in my coming to, and deepening into, Yiddishkeit. Unlike some, for whom the world is made up of Heroes and Villains, I believe there are many people who do a great deal of good, yet who also suffer from flaws. I am open to the possibility that I may be one of them: I hope and pray BS”D that the good I do will in some measure balance the rest of this tangle of personality G-d has seen fit to bless and curse me with! To point out people’s flaws is not to vitiate the value of their good works. Like the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, Klal Israel would benefit enormously from a little self-honesty. From Letting The Sun Shine In. We can criticize faults without finding fault; we can reject problematic parts of a person’s makeup without rejecting the person. As Jews, I am bound for you, whether I admit it or not. It is my obligation to correct you with love. Vayikra 19:17 [quoting directly from the ArtScroll translation] “You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall reprove your fellow and do not bear a sin because of him.” And so I wish to point out – gently, not harshly, and with respect for the impact ArtScroll and Mesorah Publications have had on the world – that the translation of the first Pasuk of this week’s Parasha is very misleading. The ArtScroll translation reads, “This shall be the reward when you hearken to these ordinances…” Readers of Hebrew will note that there is no word “reward” in the original text. Granted, given the original source of Eikev, one can argue that the word itself is pregnant with the notion of Reward. I agree, I accept, yet I demur: a pregnancy is not a child. To be continued on the other side of the parenthesis…)

To the extent any Reward is offered, it is stated as nothing more than G-d’s keeping to G-d’s own side of the Brit, the Promise that was made to our ancestor, and that continues to apply to us.

Which brings us to our point.

In and among all the description of the Land we are about to inhabit, a small but critical piece of this week’s Parasha is the notion of Yirat Shemayim – the Fear of Heaven. Nehama Leibovitz quotes Yosef Albo saying that the soul inhabits the body for the unique purpose of acquiring Yirat Shamayim, and that, once this has been acquired, the soul is then prepared for eternal life. And, as last week’s Parasha drew a distinction between the Letter of the Law and the inner, abiding principle, it also appears that the notion of Fearing G-d, or Fear of Heaven, is given, both as a specific Mitzvah, and as a general principle.

The Rabbinic literature addresses the notion of Yirat Shamayim from two perspectives: there is the one who genuinely fears that G-d will punish the person who does not obey the Law – or even the one who tries, yet who obeys imperfectly. The general view of Chazal is that this type of attitude is better than no Yirat Shamayim at all: that, if it takes the threat of punishment to bring people to observance of Mitzvot, it is still better than if they do no Mitzvot. The corollary to this attitude is the person who performs Mitzvot out of hope of Reward, for Reward and Punishment are two sides of a coin, one which is of highly common circulation, yet of questionable value.

The second type of Yirat Shamayim is the sense of spiritual awe that we experience when we become cognizant of G-d’s vastness – or, conversely, which can be ignited by our becoming aware of our own insignificance. Most perfectly, I would argue, it is the sense of awe we experience when we become aware of our own very great importance, and yet G-d’s importance overshadows us infinitely – and yet, G-d has given us Torah and Halacha, this infinite gift, whereby we can commune directly with G-d, find our way back. The sense of awe we experience when we realize that G-d has offered us the ability to become G-d's partners in the vast enterprise of Torah and human history.

Let us postulate two types of Yirat Shemayim – Fear of Heaven. They may be categorized as the Fear of the Invisible, and the Fear of the Visible. This week’s Parasha mentions the miracle of the Man – the Manna – twice in close proximity: 8:3,: “And G-d afflicted you and made you hungry and made you eat the Man which you did not know, and which your ancestors did not know, in order to make it known to you that: Not by bread alone does the person live, but upon all that comes out of the mouth of G-d – from this does the person live.” And eight verses later, 8:16: “Who made you eat Man in the Wilderness, in order to afflict you and in order to test you in order to improve you at your end.” And, indeed, the Rabbis accept the notion that the Man is actually a Test, and not merely a gift.

Rabbeinu Bahaye says that, through being placed in a position of complete dependence upon G-d day by day, we are intended to come to trust that G-d will meet our needs the moment they are manifest – or perhaps before. This is the message of the Man, that we learn to trust in G-d. And it is the test: we initially fail it, when two people go out to collect Man on Shabbat.

The Ramban says that the purpose of visible miracles is to open our eyes to the hidden miracles. For the hidden miracles are around us all the time. The Hidden Miracles, writes the Ramban, are the foundation of all Torah. The Ramban goes so far as to state that no one has a portion in the Torah until and unless that person regards everything that happens as a miracle. This, then, is Fear of the Visible: Yirat Shamayim arising from the awareness of the Miraculous – of G-d’s influence or presence in all the world. And let us remember, too, that the word Yira comes from the word meaning To See.

What does this mean for us in practical terms? For the Torah is a book to live by, not merely a collection of pithy spiritual aphorisms. Reshit chochmah yirat Ha-Shem, it says in Tehillim: “The beginning of wisdom is fear of G-d…” This phrase is so ingrained in our belief that we teach it to our children before they can read. Before they can even speak intelligibly, our daughters and sons are mouthing this sentence.

What does it all mean?

As in last week’s Parasha, the command to Love G-d is repeated here. Significantly, the second paragraph of the Shema, which is found in our Parasha, opens: “And it will be, if you really listen…” – Im shamoa’ tishme’u. Again, the literary referent is reinforced: Eikev asher shama’ata… the word Eikev goes with Hearing, or Listening. (Let us also observe that one can hear without listening!)

Amid and among all the discussion in this week’s Parasha of the plenty to be found in the Land, amidst all the Promise of the blessed lives we will live once we enter the Land and take possession, there is a troubling undercurrent. Rashi quotes back-to-back passages from the Sifrei go to the heart of issues that have come to plague us throughout our history.

“… and you shall eat and you shall be satisfied…” says the passage at 11:15, part of the second paragraph of the Shema. The well-known text goes on to describe the ills that will befall if we turn away from G-d: G-d will starve us out, and will ultimately expel us from the Land. Then, verse 18: “And you will place these words of mine upon your heart and upon your soul, and you will tie them as a sign on your hands and they will be Totafot between your eyes.” First, the linguist in me needs to point out that the origin and precise meaning of the Hebrew word Totafot are not completely clear. We use this word to mean the Tefillin worn on the forehead. And of course, the Hebrew “ totafot bein eyneicha…” can mean either “between your eyes” or “among your eyes”… in other words: it is something Between Our Eyes, so that it can be Among Our Eyes: something we wear publicly, on the forehead, so that we can all see one another wearing it.

Rashi quotes a Sifrei on verse 17 relating the parable of a man whose son did not heed his warning, but ate and drank to excess in a public place, and ended up defiling the other guests and being flung into the road.

The very next verse, verse 18, Rashi quotes the Sifrei saying: you should continue to perform the Mitzvot of Tefilllin and Mezuzah, even in Exile, so that these Mitzvot should not seem strange to you when you return to the Land.

Gevalt!

There is a danger, Chazal are telling us, that we might believe we can only be Jews when we physically reside in the Land. Can it be that certain Mitzvot that we perform routinely are actually only for practice? Can it be that there is no actual Mitzvah to hang a Mezuzah on my doorpost in my home in New Jersey? If I sell my house, my family will not be able to redeem it in the Yovel year. Thus, perhaps it is not truly mine, in the full Torah sense of possession. If so, then I am hanging a Mezuzah out of an emotional attachment to what is past, and to what may be to come. But it is not a Mitzvah.

If that is the case, then why should women not wear Tefillin? It’s only a Minhag!

The ArtScroll footnote hurries to point out that “Ramban clarified this concept. The commandments apply equally everywhere, but the holiness of the Land is so great that their performance is more significant there.” I am not sure I agree. Rashi and Ramban are frequently on opposite sides of an argument. If Ramban is commenting on Rashi, more often than not, it is to contradict. Rashi says: Pshat in the text is: you will grab more than you are entitled to, the Land will spit you out – still, you should keep performing the Mitzvot because sooner or later you will return to the Land. One area in which Rashi and Ramban seem to agree: all of Jewish existence is an eternity of Exile, and Redemption, though to be prayed for, to be awaited, may be farther off than ever we could believe.

How does this bring us to the issue of Yirat Shamaym? How does the Fear of Heaven fit in with the notions of grabbing more than our fair share of the Land?

The view of Eretz Israel as being our Reward for performance of Mitzvot is one of the most dangerous concepts to arise in Jewish history. It is also, of course, the indestructible seed that gave rise to the State of Israel. It is poetic justice of a level worthy of the Torah itself that the State of Israel was created by non-religious – or even anti-religious – Jews. It is an irony worthy of Shakespeare that the eternal homeland of a nomadic people from what is today Iraq and Turkey has been established as a West European fortress, to the exclusion of the local culture. It is oddly cacaphonic to read the Rabbinic commentaries on this week’s Parasha making statements like, Eretz Israel is unique among nations in that it is self-sufficient. Unlike Egypt, which is only partly watered by the Nile, Eretz Israel is fully watered and grows abundant crops. Yes, that is true. Eretz Israel is fully irrigated. Or rather: the parts of Eretz Israel that are duly sanctioned by the Euro-centric and Anti-religious government are fully irrigated. With waters diverted from Jordan, from Syria, and from Israel’s own internal Arab population.

Still, it is a dose of perfection that this Land of the Torah was colonized and a polity finally established in modern times by the irreligious. Finally, all Jews are thrown together. If we listen to the message Rashi brings from the Sifrei, we should know that we must approach our ownership of the Land with humility. To whom was the father speaking? Was the gluttonous son Chareidi? Or Shalom Achshav? Whoever it was, notice that the one who made a pig of himself ruined the meal for everyone at the table. Is it possible to say that the ones who sieze what is not theirs will be flung into the road, while the others will remain at the table? That those who take the notion of Possession of theLand to excess will, themselves, be dispossessed, while the rest of Klal Israel retains its place and ownership, in G-d's longing and hope that evenetually some of us will get it right?

Yes, there is a tradition that the Land will be reconquered in the Days of Mashiach. But there is also a text – our text, the second paragraph in the Shema, which is found in this week’s Parasha – that warns us that the penalty for bowing to foreign gods is to be expelled from the Land.

The refreshing aspect of dealing with the secular government is that they do not claim to have G-d on their side. The problem with trying to run a political state on the basis of a religious text is: whose interpretation? Thank G-d that Jews are so damned argumentative, otherwise Israel would have become Talibanized years ago! Truly, this abrasive diversity is our great strength. It ensures that Judaism and Torah will continue to thrive, and BS”D will keep the State of Israel alive while we wait for Mashiach to come and settle the Open Questions.

Some of the former Gaza Settlers are now shaking their heads in disbelief, wondering that they embraced this plot of real estate with such religious fervor, neglecting and, indeed, debasing the rest of Israeli society and fundamental Jewish values in the precess. Some are wondering openly whether their own leaders – Rabbis and political leaders – have failed them, have sold them a bill of goods of religious extremism, bundled with the political expedient of needing pawns to sacrifice in the opening gambit. Some of the Former Settlers are wondering whether they, themselves, in effect bowed to foreign gods.

And what has it bought us? Arab parents exhort their children to resist. The children blow themselves up, killing Jews in the process. The IDF charges into the Gaza camps, guns and bulldozers ablaze. A dozen Arabs die, four houses are demolished. We call the Arabs “animals” and wonder how they can countenance allowing children to die for a worthless cause.

Urged on by rabbis who hate the secular government even more than they hate the Arabs, Jewish families move into the thick of 1.4 million hostile Arabs. The government denounces them in public, meanwhile diverting millions of dollars for construction and infrastructure. Despite warnings from the IDF and the clear knowledge that the Arabs consider their presence a provocation, parents send their young children on buses that cross from settlement to settlement. Arabs attack the buses whenever they can. Once in a while, they are successful. Jewish children are killed, are maimed. We call the Arabs “animals” and wonder how they can countenance allowing children to die for a worthless cause. Then the IDF charges into the Gaza camps, guns and bulldozers ablaze. A dozen Arabs die, four houses are demolished…

What does this have to do with Yirat Shamayim?

Yirat Shamayim is our sense of profound awe at the delicacy of every good and perfect and beautiful thing in G-d’s world. The abundance of commentary on this week’s Parasha – which is a Commentary of Abundance – is largely political grandstanding, intended to make Eretz Israel into something other than its reality. The amazing thing is: it worked! We believe that Jews have a special Beracha, a blessing, that we take abundance with us. That whatever we work hard at, we succeed at. And nothing has succeeded more than the State of Israel.

It has been written, by the historian Will Durant, that since human record-keeping began, there have been only twenty-nine years in all of recorded history during which there was not a war somewhere on Earth. I am only asking questions and do not claim to have an answer. But is there not some way we can interrupt the cycles of hate and destruction and rage? Let us now, just for a moment, rather than plunging the dagger again and again into the inert body of our enemy, stand in awe of just how delicate, just how fragile is our existence.

Let us reach out to one another first, as fellow Jews – Settler and Leftist and Shas and Neturei Karta and Likud and Modern Orthodox and Peace Now and Atheist… the world is full of enough hate, and enough of it is directed to us. Let us not add to that. Let us take one another by the hand and dwell on our common-ness. If we dwell on our samenesses, rather than our differences, perhaps BS”D G-d will show us the way to Peace.

The Midrash says that Peace is greater than all other Mitzvot, because of the line in Tehillim: “Bakesh shalom ve-rodfehu” – “Ask for Peace and pursue it.” It does not say “Pursue Tefillin,” “pursue Matzah”, “pursue Lulav.” I was perplexed by this Midrash, until I remembered that we are the inheritors of an oral tradition. I was perplexed because Shalom, Peace, is not the only Mitzvah we are commanded to pursue. The Torah tells us “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof…” – “Justice, justice you shall pursue…” But of course, the compilers of the Midrash would be quicker to jump on that than I. By leaving out the mention of the Pursuit of Justice, they brilliantly make it that more present. Peace and Justice. They must never be separated. And above all other Mitzvot, we are commanded to pursue them both.

The message Rashi brings to us from the Sifrei is, that we must dwell in the moment. That we carry our Mitzvot with us, and they are our Land. That Exile from Torah is the harshest Exile of all. That rather than living the fantasy of what some distant future may hold, we must get down to the business of living in the world, whether in the Land of Israel or out of it. Whether Jews should even believe in Mashiach is a question I will not enter into – except insofar as to state that it is a question. To hold out Mashiach as a standard, as something to aspire to, is to encourage Jews to build a perfect world, all the while accepting the World’s imperfections. To hold out Mashiach as an end, other than which nothing has any importance, is to rob the world of the Jewish contribution, to rob Jews of their own lives, and to rob us all of Torah. To cast us into Exile.

The words Reishit chochmah… usually translated as “the beginning of Wisdom,” can also have another meaning. The Hebrew expression Besamim rosh , literally “Head spices”, means the choicest of the spice-handler’s goods. Similarly, the expression Reishit chochmah – the word Reishit, Beginning, comes from Rosh, meaning Head – can be read to mean the Rarest Part of Wisdom. The purest, rarest and most exquisite part of Wisdom. This is Yirat Shamayim as Awe Before the Invisible.

The awesomeness of our lives resides nowhere more profoundly than in the ineffable fragility of all we are, all we believe, all we have built.

Treat one another kindly. We are all we have.

Yours for a better world.