Parashat Eikev

            Shabbat Shalom! In this week’s Torah portion, we see the continuation of Moses’s final address to the People of Israel, and in this portion, we see some of Moses’s frustration really coming out. Moses relays God’s message that the people will be successful in their conquest of the Holy Land, and then continues on to berate the people for how ungrateful and unfaithful they have been. Moses, in his role as the voice of God, wishes to remind the people of how close to destruction they have been countless times throughout the last forty years and that they have survived because of God’s protection and often because of Moses’s intercession when God wanted to destroy the Chosen People as is promised of their foes.

            On some level, the promises of destruction of the people living in the land of Canaan is extremely disturbing, and even the reminders of close-calls the People of Israel have already survived is a bit unsettling, if we take for granted that Moses really is speaking entirely on behalf of God. The Torah certainly shows us God and Moses often speaking to one another “face-to-face” and we do see the God being quick to anger at the folly of the Am Yisrael, but this parasha, and the vast majority of Deuteronomy is Moses speaking and recapping all that he has learned and experienced these past 40 years. If we understand these words as coming from Moses, the mortal old man, the context is more comprehensible (which is not necessarily to say more condonable). Some of the conversations Moses has had with God may now be muddled in his memory, combined with other, similar memories, obscured by time and trauma, and now as he stands on the precipice of his death, faced with these ungrateful, unfaithful people who will be allowed into the Promised Land that he has led them to but will not get to enter, he gives his speech with some measure of anger, frustration, and perhaps some self-righteous egotism to make up for the credit due him that God and the people deny to him. That is an incredibly human response to the situation, and allows for a more sympathetic reading for our modern sensibilities.

            Toward the end of the Parasha, Moses says, “And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God demand of you? Only this: to revere the LORD your God, to walk only in His paths, to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and soul,” (10:12). The wording here recalled to mind the words of the prophet Micah, “He has told you, O man, what is good, And what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice And to love goodness, And to walk modestly with your God,” (6:8) but the lack of mention to do justice or how to interact with the world kindly was jarring to me, especially given the rest of the parasha that is so full of harsh words about God’s willingness to destroy.

However, considering the timeline, we can look at Micah’s words as a continuation, a more detailed reiteration of his teacher Moses’s words. As medieval Italian commentator Sforno says on this verse in Deuteronomy, “ ‘And Now Israel’ - seeing that this is the situation as of now, it is up to you to try and repair the damage caused by your iniquities from here on in. First and foremost, try and be clear about what it is that the Lord asks of you, expects of you; ‘What does Your God demand of you’ - God does not ask these things because God is in need of them, seeing the whole earth and all of the celestial regions are all belonging to the Divine. ‘Only this: to revere’ - you can do this by simply realizing God’s greatness.”

To walk in the Divine pathway is to pursue justice, to love a higher power is to accept the humility of our humanness and the fact that some things in life are unexplainable and unfair, but to serve the Spirit of the Universe is to embrace that difficult reality and still work to make the world better so that a future generation won’t still be struggling with the sorrows, oppressions, or mistakes of the past. May we all allow ourselves some moments of frustration when we know our work is going underappreciated, and then, may we all go on doing the work anyway, to uplift the Holy One of Blessing by bettering the world left to us, even for those among us we feel may not always deserve it. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.

Tu B'Av and Shabbat Nachamu

            Shabbat Shalom! Today is Tu B’Av, a Jewish day of love. We don’t know much about the history or traditional observance minor holiday, except that the Mishna tells us that it was celebrated as far back as the Temple era by young women going out dressed in white to dance in the vineyards. In modern Israel it is celebrated similarly to Valentine’s Day in the US, and many Jews in diaspora look to this day for the much need uplift following the Three Weeks of mourning culminating in Tisha B’Av, the day of fasting that occurred just last weekend. Tu B’Av always falls within a week of Shabbat Nachamu, when we read Parashat Ve’etchanan and the first of seven Haftorot of consolation of God’s love for the people of Israel, even in times of sinful behavior and punishing exile.

            Parashat Ve’etchanan , this week’s Torah portion, starts off with Moses telling the people of Israel about his conversation with God regarding his own exile, the prohibition against him entering into the Promised Land with everyone else that made it this far. The word “ve’etchanan” means, “And I pleaded,” as Moses recounts this very humbling moment between himself and God to the people. Yalkut Shimoni, a medieval series of Midrash whose exact author and dates are not certain, imagines that when Moses has this final argument with God, he covers himself in ashes and sackcloth, and sits shiva for his own future. And yet, when God tells him he still has to make his final address to the people and stop throwing a tantrum, he gets up and does so.

            In the second half of this parasha, we find the words, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” The Hasidic masters ask, “How can we be commanded to love, when love is a feeling outside of our control?” Of course, this is a rhetorical question because we are commanded in feelings elsewhere in the Torah as well, but here in particular we are reminded by the Hasidim, as well as by earlier scholars such as Ibn Ezra, that “lev” or “heart” in ancient Jewish texts often as connotations of consciousness rather than feelings. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch connects “lev” meaning heart and mind to the sentence before it, where “shema” means both hear and comprehend, suggesting that if we study Torah, understand the commandments intimately, and use them as guidelines toward a better life and more just future, than we cannot help but show love for God with all our hearts/minds, souls, and might.

            Just a little further down, close to the end of this week’s reading, the Torah tells us that God chose the People of Israel for the covenant, not because of their might, for indeed the Jews have always been small in stature and percentage of the population. Instead, Rashi fills in for us: God formed the covenant with the Chosen people because of the modesty of our ancestors, exemplified in moments such as Moses’s vulnerability in sharing the story of being forbidden from the Holy Land at the top of this portion.

            Sometimes, being in relationship with those you love can get tough. There are arguments between couples, environmental or circumstantial struggles weighing down families, miscommunications, and difficulties understanding how to make things right after hurting someone you love. The confluence of Tu B’av and the Torah and Haftarah of Shabbat Nachamu teaches us that unconditional love takes work and commitment. It takes comprehension and a desire to always be learning more about the life you share with those you love. It will involve moments of anger and needing space from one another, and will require comfort and condolence to stay close in times of trouble. It compels vulnerability and a willingness to see beyond the surface, a bond that is deeper than what others see. May you love and be loved in this way, whether in romance, friendship, or family, that you may embody Divine Love and fill the world with ever greater joy. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.  

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