Eikev

August 23, 2019
22 Av 5779

Parashat Eikev
Deuteronomy 7:12 - 11:25

Dear Friends,

We are deep in the book of Deuteronomy, when God (through Moses) gives the people final instructions. It is very much in keeping with this time of year as parents send their children off to college, many trying to impart that last bit of instruction on how to succeed now that they have left the nest. It reminds me of Polonius; though unlike Polonius, the instruction imparted by God through Moses is good and valuable, the sense of urgency is reminiscent. The time of Moses leading the people is coming to an end. Will they be able to access God’s instruction, God’s Torah, without the sound of Moses' voice?

Eikev means “as a consequence of." The people are being taught that their actions have consequences. The difficulty is that those consequences are not always readily visible. We may respond as many a child has responded to a parent’s good advice - “I will find my own way”. This raises an important question - can we impart values by simply telling someone what is right and wrong, what is ethical and what is not? I do not believe so. When someone says something and then does the opposite, what do we believe, the words or the actions?

Before we can have an inkling that our actions have consequences, doing the right thing must be modeled for us, if not by our parents, then by those around us. It is through the doing that we begin to learn. Tehillah is involved in a drive to gather school supplies, much like the drive we did a number of years ago in gathering supplies for families. The power in these drives is that by putting our hands on actual materials, all of us learn so much more than by simply writing a check. We become part of a chain of giving even if we never meet the recipient.

Though at first glance this parsha may appear to suggest that if you do the right thing you will be rewarded, it goes far deeper. We know that if we follow the commandments and do the right thing, we will most likely not see actual results like a better harvest. Even the rabbis were uncomfortable with this paradigm and worked to limit our expectations, some pushing rewards of good behavior in this world to the next. That paradigm doesn’t work so well for many of us either.

Thus, we are left with the question - what are the consequences if we don’t follow God’s teachings? We live in a time where those consequences are readily apparent. If all I care about is myself, who and what am I?

Our Torah teaches us to be grateful to wake up each morning and have the possibility of beginning anew. We have the opportunity to speak up for others, greet the world, and take a stand or volunteer, because we understand that there are consequences to our actions and that what we do matters, even if we do not reap the benefits directly. In truth, the benefit is there in the kind of people we are and become.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn