INTPARSHA62 -40: Parashat Eikev

From: Yeshivat Har Etzion Office <office@etzion.org.il>
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: INTPARSHA62 -40: Parashat Eikev

YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA

PARASHAT EIKEV

Material and Spiritual Arrogance
by Rav David Silverberg

Parashat Eikev continues Moshe's final address to Benei
Yisrael before his death, and includes historical
recollection as well as direct warnings and promises for the
future. Among the more challenging tasks when approaching
this material is detecting the method by which Moshe
organizes the content of his presentation, how he arrived at
the sequence and structure of this monologue. When studying
the verses in depth, we run the risk of losing sight of the
general progression and arrangement of the parasha. As we
will see, identifying the arrangement could prove critical
in extracting the message Moshe seeks to convey.

Fortunately, as Rashbam indicates, we can easily
determine the structure of Parashat Eikev through carefully
considering its terminology. The word "eikev" itself, which
appears rarely in the Torah, is employed twice in this
parasha. First, of course, it is used at the parasha's
outset: "Ve-haya eikev tishme'un" - "If you obey these
rules. " Later, at the conclusion of chapter 8, the term
emerges once again, in a similar - though reverse - context:
"eikev lo tishme'un" - "because you did not heed. " Rashbam
(8:20) claims that the latter instance closes the unit
introduced by the former. This section begins with the
promise of success and prosperity as reward for compliance
with God's laws, and concludes with the threat of calamity
should the people fail to obey.

This observation of the Rashbam perhaps allows us to
draw a dividing line at this point in the parasha and thus
distinguish between two literary units within it. The first
unit, demarcated by the term "eikev" at either end, runs
from the beginning of the parasha (7:12) through the end of
chapter 8, while the larger second unit, which extends to
the end of the parasha, includes chapters 9 and 10 and most
of chapter 11.

We may add that the parasha's second unit, too, is
demarcated by a literary parallel between its introduction
and conclusion. Moshe opens this second section with a
frightening description of the Canaanite peoples: "You are
about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations
greater and more numerous than you" (9:1). Parashat Eikev
concludes with Moshe's promise of a successful campaign
against those nations if Benei Yisrael observe the
commandments. In this promise, Moshe employs parallel
terminology: ". the Lord will dislodge before you all these
nations: you will dispossess nations greater and more
numerous than you" (11:23). Additionally, in introducing
this section, Moshe cites the common question asked
concerning the powerful nations of Canaan: "Who can stand up
to the children of Anak?" (9:2). In the parasha's final
verse, Moshe promises, "No man shall stand up to you." We
may, therefore, suggest that Parashat Eikev consists of two
distinct units, the second of which begins with chapter 9
and continues through the end of the parasha.

We now turn to the more difficult task of justifying
this breakdown by identifying the specific theme of each of
the two units. We will do this with the help of three
contrasting parallels between the two sections. These
parallels underscore the difference in focus and orientation
between the two units, helping us to determine the
independent message of each.

Selective Historical Review

In our shiur two weeks ago on Parashat Devarim, we
argued that in his historical review in that parasha, Moshe
carefully selects those events from the wilderness period
that best reflected the specific message he wished to
transmit. We will employ this same method in our assessment
of Parashat Eikev: the historical content of each of the two
sections can perhaps help us identify their respective
themes.

In the first section, Moshe urges the people to recall
the wonders and miracles of Egypt (7:18-19), which he
enlists to answer his own rhetorical question, "These
nations are more numerous than we; how can we dispossess
them?" (7:17). He then focuses on Benei Yisrael's
miraculous existence through the wilderness, the
supernatural protection and sustenance afforded to them
under the least hospitable conditions possible:

Remember the long way that the Lord your God has made
you travel in the wilderness these past forty years. He
subjected you to hunger and then gave you manna to eat.
in order to teach you that man does not live on bread
alone, but that man may live on anything that the Lord
decrees. The clothes upon you did not wear out, nor
did your feet swell these forty years.

Later Moshe emphasizes the danger of forgetting these
two miracles - the Exodus and the divine protection in the
wilderness (see 8:14-16).

In the second section, Moshe recounts mainly Benei
Yisrael's wrongdoing in the wilderness. He focuses not on
God's miracles but on the people's disobedience:

Remember, never forget, how you angered the Lord your
God in the wilderness: from the day that you left the
land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have
continued defiant toward the Lord. (9:7)

The bulk of this section (9:8-10:11) is devoted to the sin
of the golden calf, though it includes a brief reference to
three instances of Benei Yisrael's inappropriate grumbling
(9:22) and the sin of the spies (9:23). Moshe then
summarizes: "As long as I have known you, you have been
defiant toward the Lord" (9:24). (Moshe does briefly
mention the Exodus and splitting of the sea later in the
parasha - 11:3-4; later we will address those verses.)

The Agricultural Promise and Threat of Eretz Yisrael

The second contrasting parallel relates to Moshe's
depiction of the Land of Israel in the two units. In the
first unit, Eretz Yisrael offers the nation the ideal
conditions for agricultural development and prosperity:

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land,
a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing
from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of
vines, figs and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and
honey; a land where you may eat bread without stint,
where you will lack nothing. (8:7-9)

A much different picture emerges from this parasha's
second unit, which emphasizes the country's lack of reliable
water sources:

For the land that you are about to enter and possess is
not like the land of Egypt from which you have come,
where you plant your seed and water by foot like a
vegetable garden; but the land you are about to cross
into and possess is a land of hills and valleys and
drinks water from the rains of heaven. (11:10-11)

Although Rashi explains these verses as expressing the
land's quality which surpasses that of Egypt, virtually all
other commentators (Ramban, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Chizkuni and
Seforno, to name just a few) take the opposite approach.
Unlike Egypt, which benefits from the constant supply of
water made available by rivers and springs, the hill country
of the Land of Israel has few natural water sources and does
not lend itself to irrigation. This land therefore depends
solely on the winter rains, without which no one can survive
there. Moshe then concludes by describing the land as "a
land which the Lord your God looks after, on which the Lord
your God always keeps His eye, from year's beginning to
year's end" (11:12). Divine providence is directly felt in
Eretz Yisrael, since He alone possesses the key to rainfall,
and hence He alone determines the viability of living in
this land.

This theme continues in the subsequent verses, which
form the section known to us as the second paragraph of the
daily recitation of "shema" (11:13-21). There Benei Yisrael
are told that rainfall will hinge on their obedience:

If you obey the commandments. I will grant the rain for
your land. Take care not to be lured away to serve
other gods. For the Lord's anger will flare up. and He
will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain."
(11:13-17).

Two Forms of Arrogance

The third and most revealing contrasting parallel
between the two uniof Parashat Eikev involves the different
spiritual concerns Moshe expresses. In the first section,
Moshe foresees a prosperous people attributing their wealth
and success to their own skill: "Beware lest your heart grow
haughty and you forget the Lord your God. and you say to
yourselves, 'My own power and the might of my own hand have
won this wealth for me'" (8:14,17). Moshe then predicts
even more catastrophic consequences of this "forgetting":
"If you forget the Lord your God and follow other gods. I
warn you this day that you shall certainly perish" (8:19).
Seforno and others explain that foreign worship results from
the sense of absolute self-sufficiency described in the
earlier verse. Once the nation denies their reliance on the
Almighty in their material pursuits, they have taken a
significant step closer to paganism, which deifies the
natural forces themselves and denies the existence of a
single, divine force governing them.

In this unit, then, Moshe urges Benei Yisrael to
acknowledge God's indispensable role in their success, and
never to grant themselves full credit for their
achievements.

The second sections tells of a different concern: "When
the Lord your God has thrust them from your path, say not to
yourselves, 'The Lord has enabled us to possess this land
because of our virtues'" (9:4). Moshe urges the people to
instead realize that "It is not because of your virtues and
rectitude that you will be able to possess their country;
but it is because of their wickedness that the Lord your God
is dispossessing those nations before you, and in order to
fulfill the oath that the Lord made to your fathers. "
Here, Benei Yisrael afford the Almighty full credit for
their success (in this instance military success, whereas
the previous section dealt with economic prosperity).
However, their theological assessment of His assistance is
what troubles Moshe. Reminding Benei Yisrael of their
frequent defiance in the wilderness, Moshe bids them to
acknowledge that they do not deserve God's miraculous
intervention on their behalf.

Whereas in the first unit Benei Yisrael mistakenly
attribute their success to their independent capabilities,
in the second they correctly attribute it to God's
assistance - which they mistakenly ascribe to their piety.

Section 1: The Challenge of Natural Success

Let us now return to each of the two units and analyze
the independent theme of each. In the first section, Moshe
alerts Benei Yisrael to the new challenge that awaits them
in Canaan, a challenge fundamentally different from the
challenge of the wilderness. In the wilderness, Benei
Yisrael had no realistic possibility of sustaining
themselves, as Moshe emphasizes in this section. According
to Rashbam (commentary to 8:2), this constituted the primary
spiritual challenge of this period: living without any
opportunity for self-sufficiency, going to sleep at night
with nothing left for the following day besides God's
promise. This experience impressed upon Benei Yisrael the
basic tenet that God alone determines life and death, He
alone controls man's fate. That God could sustain two
million people through an arid desert for forty years proves
that He ultimately is the one who sustains all people at all
times.

Moshe therefore invokes this miraculous existence in
the wilderness to prepare Benei Yisrael for the opposite
challenge they will soon face in Canaan: retaining one's
dependence on God even when success appears to come
naturally. When the soil of Eretz Yisrael yields its fruit,
as described in this section, and the nation grows and
prospers, they are liable to forget the God who poured manna
from the skies every morning. When one sleeps at night with
bread in his cupboard and warehouses filled with grain, a
natural sense of pride and self-achievement threatens to
blur his submissive awareness of God's power. Moshe
therefore warns, "Remember that it is the Lord your God who
gives you the power to get wealth in fulfillment of the
covenant that He made on oath with your fathers, as on this
day" (8:18). Abarbanel explains the verse's final clause,
"as on this day," as a direct reference to Benei Yisrael's
present reality. Just as "on this day," when Benei Yisrael
still lived off heavenly bread and were encircled by the
clouds of glory, they could not possibly attribute their
sustenance to their own efforts, so must they always
acknowledge their absolute dependence on the Almighty - even
when they till the land and harvest the fruit they
themselves had planted.

Similarly, at the parasha's outset, Moshe invokes the
miracles of the Exodus as a precedent for the guaranteed
victory in Canaan. Recall that towards the end of Parashat
Devarim, Moshe points to the triumph over Sichon and Og as a
source of encouragement as the nation prepares for combat
with the Canaanites. Here, however, he draws not upon the
natural warfare of that battle, but rather God's victory
over Egypt, where Benei Yisrael played no active role in
their redemption. That experience, where the powerless
slave nation could do nothing but rely on God for salvation,
must teach Benei Yisrael that even when they take up arms to
fight the armies of Canaan - it is God alone who brings them
victory.

Section 2: The Threat of Complacency

As discussed, towards the beginning of the second unit
of Parashat Eikev Moshe warns against self-satisfied piety.
He elaborately describes their constant defiance throughout
the forty-year period, proving his case against their
worthiness. What practical message does Moshe seek to
convey by reminding Benei Yisrael of their previous
misdeeds? What difference does it make whether they entered
the land on their own merits or only due to God's promise to
the patriarchs?

Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch explained that whereas the
divine oath guaranteed Benei Yisrael's entry into the land
in spite of their intransigence, it did not preclude
banishment from the land at a later time. They cannot
conduct their religious life with a complacent self-
assurance and under the confident presumption that their
continued prosperity - or even survival in the land - is
guaranteed.

The Netziv explains this section somewhat differently,
focusing on Benei Yisrael's inconsistency and fickleness
exhibited in the wilderness. Moshe here reminds the people
that they have yet to achieve instinctive piety, which would
allow for a comforting sense of self-assurance. In
particular, the sin of the golden calf, on which Moshe
elaborates in great detail in this section, demonstrates the
ease with which a nation can plummet from sanctity to
iniquity. Just several weeks after beholding God's
Revelation at Sinai, Benei Yisrael "have been quick to stray
from the path that I enjoined upon them" (9:12). They thus
cannot feel confident with their religious stature; hard
work and concentrated effort is required for them to earn
the privilege of living in the Promised Land.

According to both these approaches, Moshe's concern
here involves the nation's complacency and unwarranted self-
confidence. Even once they acknowledge that God gives them
"the power to get wealth," they may mislead themselves into
presupposing their worthiness to receive that power. In
several instances throughout this discourse, Moshe describes
Benei Yisrael as "keshei-oref" - "stiff-necked" (9:6,13,27;
10:17). Seforno (9:6) interprets this term as denoting an
obstinate refusal to accept guidance or criticism, an
insistence on one's own correctness and propriety. Moshe
impresses upon the nation that in the Land of Israel they
cannot survive with this arrogance, instead they must follow
the honest, self-effacing pursuit of piety. This is a "land
which the Lord your God looks after," whose population lives
under His direct supervision and therefore relies on His
favor and compassion to survive there.

One could suggest that herein lies the significance of
Moshe's specific reference in this section to God's miracles
in Egypt and the punishment of Datan and Aviram, two main
participants in the rebellion of Korach:

You shall know this day that it was not your children,
who neither expenor witnessed the punishment of the
Lord your God. the signs and the deeds that He
performed in Egypt against Pharaoh the king of Egypt
and all his land. what He did to you in the wilderness
before you arrived in this place, and what He did to
Datan and Aviram. when the earth opened her mouth and
swallowed them. but that it was you who saw with your
own eyes all the great deeds that the Lord performed.
(11:2-7)

Many commentators understand this brief survey as
emphasizing God's kindness to Benei Yisrael, particularly
the deliverance from Egypt and "what He did to you in the
wilderness" - sustaining them for forty years of desert
travel. More convincing, however, is the approach of
Abarbanel, who interprets these verses as referring
specifically to divine punishment. (This debate involves
the etymological issue of how to define the term "mussar,"
which introduces this passage and which we translated in our
citation - based on Abarbanel - as "punishment.") "What He
did to you in the wilderness," Abarbanel claims, refers not
to the manna, as Ibn Ezra and Chizkuni explain, but rather
to the various calamities Benei Yisrael suffered in the
wilderness on account of their wrongdoing. Interestingly,
however, Moshe chooses to single out the plagues in Egypt
and the miraculous death of Datan and Aviram. Perhaps these
two groups of sinners best embody the complacent, self-
assured attitude against which Moshe warns in this section.
Pharaoh consistently followed his own beliefs and thinking
and would not allow the divine plagues to dissuade him.
Ultimately, "the Lord rolled back upon them the waters of
the Sea of Reeds. thus destroying them to this very day"
(11:4). Similarly, Datan and Aviram brazenly challenged the
authority of Moshe and felt themselves worthy of leadership.
Recall the battle cry of Korach's revolt - "For the entire
community - they are all sacred!" (Bemidbar 16:3). Benei
Yisrael themselves witnessed the results of false,
persistent, self-proclaimed Godliness. They must therefore
avoid dangerous delusions of piety and exert themselves
sincerely in the observance of God's laws.

Parashat Eikev thus concerns itself with two
manifestations of arrogance likely to plague Benei Yisrael
once they settle the land. Moshe fears that the people will
credit themselves with either the independent power or the
religious worthiness of becoming successful and prosperous.
He teaches that instead they must acknowledge both God's
exclusive ability to provide their needs as well as His
kindness in doing so. Appropriately, Parashat Eikev
introduces the mitzva of birkat ha-mazon, the blessings to
be recited after completing a meal (see 8:10). In birkat ha-
mazon we express our recognition that God alone sustains the
universe - "He gives bread to all flesh." Additionally, we
proclaim that He does so "for His kindness is everlasting."
Just as Benei Yisrael must acknowledge that they do not
deserve to enter the land on their merits alone, so do we
recognize that we are sustained only through God's kindness.
The hopeful result of this recognition is described by Rav
David Tzvi Hoffman (in his commentary to 9:6) as follows:
"This awareness must spur them to be righteous, in order
that they be deserving of this good land."

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