Dvar Torah For Parshas Eikev
All,
Here is a Dvar Torah on this week's parsha from Yaakov and Rachel Lowinger:
Eikev: avodas haleiv and leiv she'bileiv
BS"Dה לא בצדקתך, ובישר לבבך, אתה בא, לרשת את-ארצם: כי ברשעת הגוים האלה, יהוה אלהיך מורישם מפניך, ולמען הקים את-הדבר אשר נשבע יהוה לאבתיך, לאברהם ליצחק וליעקב. ו וידעת, כי לא בצדקתך יהוה אלהיך נתן לך את-הארץ הטובה הזאת--לרשתה: כי עם-קשה-ערף, אתה.
Devarim, tesIn pasuk hei, Hashem informs the Jewish people that they are not coming to inherit the land of Israel due to their own righteousness or because of their own well-intentioned hearts (yosher lev connotes a heart whose intentions are purely for G-d), but only because of the undeserving nature of the land's current inhabitants and because of the promise that was made to the patriarchs. In the next pasuk, Hashem elaborates: it is not because of the righteousness, of the bnei yisrael, as they are a stiff-necked (stubborn) nation. Stiff-necked contains the implication of being carried forward by forces beyond one's own control: whether for good or bad, the Jewish people seem to be pushed on by some force outside themselves, not fully of their own choice or out of their own hearts' intentions. Yet the greater part of the parsha discusses the rewards and punishment stemming from the personal behavior of the Jews. The parsha for example contains the second chapter of Sh'ma, which specifically mentions the rewards and punishments associated with succeeding or failing to love Hashem and observe His commandments. Furthermore, the very name of the parsha as explained by Rashi connotes the scrupulous observance of those mitzvos which tend to be overlooked or "trampled on", performed without correct intentions. This level of observance does not seem to pertain to a stiff-necked, stubborn people who lack merit or initiative of their own!
A simple resolution of these psukim can be suggested as follows: while in the midbar, where Hashem provided for all the needs of the Jewish people without any effort on their part. Midbar can be read as mi'dvar, that everything emanated from G-d's mouth independent of the Jews' own merits or efforts. Hashem is thereby saying that in the midbar this level of service may have sufficed in bringing the Jews into the land, since this land was anyway promised to them, and since the inhabitants of the land are in any case undeserving. But, Hashem says, upon entering the land, the merits and intentions of the Jews themselves will count and will decide their fate. It was one thing to be an am k'shei oref in the midbar, where the primary mode of avodas Hashem was to follow unquestioningly -- the cloud by day and the fire by night. The Jews could in some sense by forgiven for their stubbornness (as indeed Moshe requests after the eigel that klal yisrael be forgiven because they are kshei oref!), since passive obedience was characteristic of their service at that time and stubbornness is merely the other side of passive observance. When they enter the eretz, this changes. Eretz comes from the root ratz, to run; just as in the midbar everything was drawn down from the word of Hashem into the world below, as symbolized by the falling man, in the aretz alacrity and scrupulousness would be expected to take over. Man's own efforts are drawn up rather than the other way around, and Hashem responds with blessings or curses in return. Now it was no longer forgivable to be stubborn, as life in eretz yisrael would specifically depend on each individuals own merits and efforts, on their alacrity and attention to detail, which blind obedience and stubbornness do not allow for. In short, the passive obedience that is the characteristic of pashut yiras Hashem would need to be superseded by the enthusiasm and sincerity that is characteristic of true ahavas Hashem.
This brings us to an understanding of another key pasuk in the parsha:
טז ומלתם, את ערלת לבבכם; וערפכם--לא תקשו, עוד.
Here, the b'nei yisrael are instructed on exactly how to transform themselves from a stubborn, stiff-necked people into enthusiastic and free-choosing ohavei Hashem. They are to cut away the "arlah" of their hearts, and they will be no longer stubborn! In other words, beneath the heart there is another, inner heart which must be revealed in order for one's avodas Hashem to be transformed from a passive inheritance into an active choice. Before the "milah" of their hearts, b'nei yisrael entered the land on the merits of their fathers and on the lack of merit of the 7 nations. This shows that their avodas Hashem up until this point was primarily motivated by a desire to 1) imitate the ways of their fathers and 2) distance themselves from the ways of the 7 nations. They were in a sense not totally choosing to follow G-d's ways, and just as a certain lack of free choice characterized their good deeds, a certain element of stubbornness, of being acted on by a force outside themselves, characterized their sins. Thus in the midbar klal yisrael never received the full reward or punishment of its acts -- they could on the one hand be forgiven on the basis of being "am kshei oref", and on the other hand they could merit to enter eretz yisrael on the merits of their forefathers. So, Hashem is saying, once I allow you to enter this land, your deeds will be fully yours. You will perform "milah" on your hearts such that you must bring yourself to serve Me out of your own alacrity and your own heart's intentions! You will reveal your heart of hearts, once the layer of stubbornness is removed, and only then will it be said that your good deeds are your merits, that they stem from a sincere desire to serve Hashem, and that your aveiros are fully yours, that they are not mere stubbornness but a full-fledged rejection of G-d! This is to say that there are good and better means of avodas Hashem, with their own advantages and disadvantages. In the midbar, the Jews were good -- they followed after Hashem day and night and performed the commandments, but לא בצדקתך, ובישר לבבך, not through their own righteousness or good intentions but -- כי עם-קשה-ערף אתה -- out of stiff-necked obedience. Similarly their sins were committed not out of their own bad intentions but because they were simply misled by the clever arguments of the yetzer hara, of false leaders, and of the ovdei avodah zarah. They were punished, for sure, but they were let off the hook in the end for the same reason, that they were am kshei oref. This stubbornness is indeed the barrier around the heart, preventing them from seeing the full reward of their good deeds or the full punishment of their evil ones -- in short, it was what constrained their b'chirah. They were commanded to perform the arelas halev upon entering the land to show that from that point on, they would be judged in their own merit for good or bad, the land would produce for their own sake, as they were expected to fully choose to do good out of ahavas Hashem. It is clearly symbolic then, that the Jews also performed the other milah upon entering eretz yisrael. They accepted formally the bris at that point, just as they also accepted it in their hearts.
********************
An allusion to the concepts discussed above, of arelas halev, of its relationship to free choice, and of the different systems of avodas Hashem that emerge as a result, can be found in Tehillim. Two chapters of tehillim, lamed beis (not coincidentally, lev; 32), and samach daled (also not coincidentally lev lev; 64) end with nearly identical psukim, both of which allude to the pasuk from our parshah cited above.
Lamed beis ends:שמחו ביהוה וגילו, צדיקים; והרנינו, כל-ישרי-לב.
and samach daled:ישמח צדיק ביהוה, וחסה בו; ויתהללו, כל-ישרי-לב
.Like our pasuk above, these psukim identify righteousness and well-intentioned hearts: the tzadikim or tzadik in the beginning of the pasuk and the yoshrei lev at the end. From our parsha we understood that before entering eretz yisrael the Jews did not receive the merit of their own righteousness or of their heart's own good intentions. We connected this to the lev before "milah" that was not acting out of its own innermost ability to choose good or evil, but was encased in a layer of blind obedience on one hand and stubbornness on the other that blocked it from receiving its full reward and shielded it from receiving full punishment. We connected this to a level of avodas Hashem that is based on simple fear rather than love and based on an incomplete b'chirah.
We find that tehillim lamed beis (lev, heart, symbolizing the heart before "milah") alludes to this in the phrasing of its final pasuk. We can see this clearly only by noting the contrast with the pasuk at the end of samach daled (lev lev, heart of hearts, symbolizing the heart after "milah"). In the pasuk in lamed beis, 1) Hashem is written before tzadikim, 2) tzadikim is plural, 3) the verb gilu, to rejoice, is used, and 4) the verb ranein is used with the yishrei lev as the subject. Hashem is written first, showing that in the midbar merits were rained down from above, as it was our forefathers' merits that sustained us rather than our own. Tzadikim is plural (in the sense of v'ameich kulam tzadikim), since there was no differentiating among klal yisrael: we all equally shared the merit of the forefathers which sustained us, just as we all equally shared the distinction of being chosen by G-d and thus separate from the other nations (in whose lack of merit we were inheriting the land). Gilu, to rejoice, is a communal type of joy which carries the connotation of coming from outside the individual heart, showing that our mode of service was based on group tendencies, i.e. obedience and imitation. And the yishrei lev here are said to rejoice (ranein) but are not themselves praised (they have not merit of their own, see samach daled below).
We also derived from our parshah, that after entry into eretz yisrael the mode of avodas Hashem would be expected to change. A certain "arelas haleiv" would be commanded, exposing the heart of hearts (lev lev) such that the Jewish people would be expected to fully choose to serve Hashem out of love and would thus be rewarded according to their own merits. Similarly, their transgressions could no longer be chalked up to stubbornness, and they would suffer the full retribution for their sins as their misdeeds would similarly be seen as their own fully free choice.
All of this is alluded to by tehillim samach daled (lev lev), again by pointing out the contrasts with lamed beis (lev). Referring now to the avodas Hashem that is expected after milas halev, the pasuk 1) writes tzadik before Hashem, 2) writes tzadik in the singular, 3) uses the verb chasah, to take refuge, instead of gilu, and 4) uses the verb haleil with the yoshrei lev now as the object (they will be praised). Tzadik is written first, showing that it is now the merits of the righteous among us that decide our fate and not the merits of earlier generations, i.e. our merits go up just as we must now work the soil for its produce, as opposed to merits being rained on us just as the man fell and sustained us independent of our efforts. Tzadik is written in the singular to show that we could now differentiate ourselves, rather than equally sharing in the forefathers' merits or being equally part of the chosen nation, we were now expected to develop merits of our own by freely choosing to do good. The verb "chasah" is used to connote the private, personal experience of taking refuge of G-d, of attempting to achieve closeness to Hashem and d'veykus in our personal avodas Hashem rather than only in the public experience of rejoicing. And only now, states the pasuk, are the yishrei lev to be praised, because it cannot be said that they have no merits of their own. They struggled with the full range of choices available to them and chose to do good purely out of love of Hashem! This is a far cry from the yoshrei lev of our parsha, who had no merits to call upon and were still mired in stubbornness. Thus this pasuk ends the chapter lev lev, to show that when the heart of hearts of the Jewish people are exposed, AND they still do good, only THEN can the rewards promised in the sh'ma fall upon them according to their own merit and by the weight of their own choosing.
In this merit, let us choose to run to perform each and every one of the commandments out of pure love that in our own merits the ge'ulah will run toward us bmheirah byameinu amen.
Here is a Dvar Torah on this week's parsha from Yaakov and Rachel Lowinger:
Eikev: avodas haleiv and leiv she'bileiv
BS"Dה לא בצדקתך, ובישר לבבך, אתה בא, לרשת את-ארצם: כי ברשעת הגוים האלה, יהוה אלהיך מורישם מפניך, ולמען הקים את-הדבר אשר נשבע יהוה לאבתיך, לאברהם ליצחק וליעקב. ו וידעת, כי לא בצדקתך יהוה אלהיך נתן לך את-הארץ הטובה הזאת--לרשתה: כי עם-קשה-ערף, אתה.
Devarim, tesIn pasuk hei, Hashem informs the Jewish people that they are not coming to inherit the land of Israel due to their own righteousness or because of their own well-intentioned hearts (yosher lev connotes a heart whose intentions are purely for G-d), but only because of the undeserving nature of the land's current inhabitants and because of the promise that was made to the patriarchs. In the next pasuk, Hashem elaborates: it is not because of the righteousness, of the bnei yisrael, as they are a stiff-necked (stubborn) nation. Stiff-necked contains the implication of being carried forward by forces beyond one's own control: whether for good or bad, the Jewish people seem to be pushed on by some force outside themselves, not fully of their own choice or out of their own hearts' intentions. Yet the greater part of the parsha discusses the rewards and punishment stemming from the personal behavior of the Jews. The parsha for example contains the second chapter of Sh'ma, which specifically mentions the rewards and punishments associated with succeeding or failing to love Hashem and observe His commandments. Furthermore, the very name of the parsha as explained by Rashi connotes the scrupulous observance of those mitzvos which tend to be overlooked or "trampled on", performed without correct intentions. This level of observance does not seem to pertain to a stiff-necked, stubborn people who lack merit or initiative of their own!
A simple resolution of these psukim can be suggested as follows: while in the midbar, where Hashem provided for all the needs of the Jewish people without any effort on their part. Midbar can be read as mi'dvar, that everything emanated from G-d's mouth independent of the Jews' own merits or efforts. Hashem is thereby saying that in the midbar this level of service may have sufficed in bringing the Jews into the land, since this land was anyway promised to them, and since the inhabitants of the land are in any case undeserving. But, Hashem says, upon entering the land, the merits and intentions of the Jews themselves will count and will decide their fate. It was one thing to be an am k'shei oref in the midbar, where the primary mode of avodas Hashem was to follow unquestioningly -- the cloud by day and the fire by night. The Jews could in some sense by forgiven for their stubbornness (as indeed Moshe requests after the eigel that klal yisrael be forgiven because they are kshei oref!), since passive obedience was characteristic of their service at that time and stubbornness is merely the other side of passive observance. When they enter the eretz, this changes. Eretz comes from the root ratz, to run; just as in the midbar everything was drawn down from the word of Hashem into the world below, as symbolized by the falling man, in the aretz alacrity and scrupulousness would be expected to take over. Man's own efforts are drawn up rather than the other way around, and Hashem responds with blessings or curses in return. Now it was no longer forgivable to be stubborn, as life in eretz yisrael would specifically depend on each individuals own merits and efforts, on their alacrity and attention to detail, which blind obedience and stubbornness do not allow for. In short, the passive obedience that is the characteristic of pashut yiras Hashem would need to be superseded by the enthusiasm and sincerity that is characteristic of true ahavas Hashem.
This brings us to an understanding of another key pasuk in the parsha:
טז ומלתם, את ערלת לבבכם; וערפכם--לא תקשו, עוד.
Here, the b'nei yisrael are instructed on exactly how to transform themselves from a stubborn, stiff-necked people into enthusiastic and free-choosing ohavei Hashem. They are to cut away the "arlah" of their hearts, and they will be no longer stubborn! In other words, beneath the heart there is another, inner heart which must be revealed in order for one's avodas Hashem to be transformed from a passive inheritance into an active choice. Before the "milah" of their hearts, b'nei yisrael entered the land on the merits of their fathers and on the lack of merit of the 7 nations. This shows that their avodas Hashem up until this point was primarily motivated by a desire to 1) imitate the ways of their fathers and 2) distance themselves from the ways of the 7 nations. They were in a sense not totally choosing to follow G-d's ways, and just as a certain lack of free choice characterized their good deeds, a certain element of stubbornness, of being acted on by a force outside themselves, characterized their sins. Thus in the midbar klal yisrael never received the full reward or punishment of its acts -- they could on the one hand be forgiven on the basis of being "am kshei oref", and on the other hand they could merit to enter eretz yisrael on the merits of their forefathers. So, Hashem is saying, once I allow you to enter this land, your deeds will be fully yours. You will perform "milah" on your hearts such that you must bring yourself to serve Me out of your own alacrity and your own heart's intentions! You will reveal your heart of hearts, once the layer of stubbornness is removed, and only then will it be said that your good deeds are your merits, that they stem from a sincere desire to serve Hashem, and that your aveiros are fully yours, that they are not mere stubbornness but a full-fledged rejection of G-d! This is to say that there are good and better means of avodas Hashem, with their own advantages and disadvantages. In the midbar, the Jews were good -- they followed after Hashem day and night and performed the commandments, but לא בצדקתך, ובישר לבבך, not through their own righteousness or good intentions but -- כי עם-קשה-ערף אתה -- out of stiff-necked obedience. Similarly their sins were committed not out of their own bad intentions but because they were simply misled by the clever arguments of the yetzer hara, of false leaders, and of the ovdei avodah zarah. They were punished, for sure, but they were let off the hook in the end for the same reason, that they were am kshei oref. This stubbornness is indeed the barrier around the heart, preventing them from seeing the full reward of their good deeds or the full punishment of their evil ones -- in short, it was what constrained their b'chirah. They were commanded to perform the arelas halev upon entering the land to show that from that point on, they would be judged in their own merit for good or bad, the land would produce for their own sake, as they were expected to fully choose to do good out of ahavas Hashem. It is clearly symbolic then, that the Jews also performed the other milah upon entering eretz yisrael. They accepted formally the bris at that point, just as they also accepted it in their hearts.
********************
An allusion to the concepts discussed above, of arelas halev, of its relationship to free choice, and of the different systems of avodas Hashem that emerge as a result, can be found in Tehillim. Two chapters of tehillim, lamed beis (not coincidentally, lev; 32), and samach daled (also not coincidentally lev lev; 64) end with nearly identical psukim, both of which allude to the pasuk from our parshah cited above.
Lamed beis ends:שמחו ביהוה וגילו, צדיקים; והרנינו, כל-ישרי-לב.
and samach daled:ישמח צדיק ביהוה, וחסה בו; ויתהללו, כל-ישרי-לב
.Like our pasuk above, these psukim identify righteousness and well-intentioned hearts: the tzadikim or tzadik in the beginning of the pasuk and the yoshrei lev at the end. From our parsha we understood that before entering eretz yisrael the Jews did not receive the merit of their own righteousness or of their heart's own good intentions. We connected this to the lev before "milah" that was not acting out of its own innermost ability to choose good or evil, but was encased in a layer of blind obedience on one hand and stubbornness on the other that blocked it from receiving its full reward and shielded it from receiving full punishment. We connected this to a level of avodas Hashem that is based on simple fear rather than love and based on an incomplete b'chirah.
We find that tehillim lamed beis (lev, heart, symbolizing the heart before "milah") alludes to this in the phrasing of its final pasuk. We can see this clearly only by noting the contrast with the pasuk at the end of samach daled (lev lev, heart of hearts, symbolizing the heart after "milah"). In the pasuk in lamed beis, 1) Hashem is written before tzadikim, 2) tzadikim is plural, 3) the verb gilu, to rejoice, is used, and 4) the verb ranein is used with the yishrei lev as the subject. Hashem is written first, showing that in the midbar merits were rained down from above, as it was our forefathers' merits that sustained us rather than our own. Tzadikim is plural (in the sense of v'ameich kulam tzadikim), since there was no differentiating among klal yisrael: we all equally shared the merit of the forefathers which sustained us, just as we all equally shared the distinction of being chosen by G-d and thus separate from the other nations (in whose lack of merit we were inheriting the land). Gilu, to rejoice, is a communal type of joy which carries the connotation of coming from outside the individual heart, showing that our mode of service was based on group tendencies, i.e. obedience and imitation. And the yishrei lev here are said to rejoice (ranein) but are not themselves praised (they have not merit of their own, see samach daled below).
We also derived from our parshah, that after entry into eretz yisrael the mode of avodas Hashem would be expected to change. A certain "arelas haleiv" would be commanded, exposing the heart of hearts (lev lev) such that the Jewish people would be expected to fully choose to serve Hashem out of love and would thus be rewarded according to their own merits. Similarly, their transgressions could no longer be chalked up to stubbornness, and they would suffer the full retribution for their sins as their misdeeds would similarly be seen as their own fully free choice.
All of this is alluded to by tehillim samach daled (lev lev), again by pointing out the contrasts with lamed beis (lev). Referring now to the avodas Hashem that is expected after milas halev, the pasuk 1) writes tzadik before Hashem, 2) writes tzadik in the singular, 3) uses the verb chasah, to take refuge, instead of gilu, and 4) uses the verb haleil with the yoshrei lev now as the object (they will be praised). Tzadik is written first, showing that it is now the merits of the righteous among us that decide our fate and not the merits of earlier generations, i.e. our merits go up just as we must now work the soil for its produce, as opposed to merits being rained on us just as the man fell and sustained us independent of our efforts. Tzadik is written in the singular to show that we could now differentiate ourselves, rather than equally sharing in the forefathers' merits or being equally part of the chosen nation, we were now expected to develop merits of our own by freely choosing to do good. The verb "chasah" is used to connote the private, personal experience of taking refuge of G-d, of attempting to achieve closeness to Hashem and d'veykus in our personal avodas Hashem rather than only in the public experience of rejoicing. And only now, states the pasuk, are the yishrei lev to be praised, because it cannot be said that they have no merits of their own. They struggled with the full range of choices available to them and chose to do good purely out of love of Hashem! This is a far cry from the yoshrei lev of our parsha, who had no merits to call upon and were still mired in stubbornness. Thus this pasuk ends the chapter lev lev, to show that when the heart of hearts of the Jewish people are exposed, AND they still do good, only THEN can the rewards promised in the sh'ma fall upon them according to their own merit and by the weight of their own choosing.
In this merit, let us choose to run to perform each and every one of the commandments out of pure love that in our own merits the ge'ulah will run toward us bmheirah byameinu amen.
Labels: Dvar Torah
posted by Chortkov at 11:50 AM
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