Eikev 5770 – Gilayon #661
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Parshat Ekev
For the land to which you are coming to possess is not like the
out of which you came, where you sowed your seed and which you watered
by foot, like a vegetable garden. But the land, to which you
pass to possess, is a land of mountains and valleys and absorbs water from the
rains of heaven.
(Devarim
11:10-11)
Land and Man
R. Brekhiya said in the name of R. Shimon ben Lakish: Everything that
the Holy One, blessed be He, created in man He created in the land as well:
Man has a head and the land has a head, for it said: and the beginning [literally: the head] of the
dust of the earth (Proverbs 8). Man has eyes and the land has eyes, for it
is said: and it covered the eye of the land (Shemot
10). Man has ears and the land has ears, for it is said: and listen O
earth (Isaiah 1). Man has a mouth and the land has a mouth, for it is said:
and the earth opened its mouth (Bamidbar
16). Man eats and the land eats, for it is written: a land that eats
its inhabitants (Bamidbar 13). Man
drinks and the land drinks, for it is written: you shall drink of the dew of
heaven (Devarim 11). Man vomits
and the land vomits, for it is said: and the land vomited out its
inhabitants (Vayikra 18). Man has
hands, and so does the land, for it is said: and the land is broad-handed
(Bereishit 34). Man has hips and the land
has hips, for it is written, and [I shall]
gather them from the uttermost ends [literally: the hips] of the
earth (Jeremiah 31). Man has a
navel and the land has a navel, for it is written: Who dwells upon the
land's navel (Ezekiel 31). Man has
nakedness and the land has nakedness, for it is said: You have come to see
the land's nakedness (Bereishit 12).
Man has feet and so the land has feet for it is written: and the land stands
forever.
(Kohelet Rabba 1:9)
Beshomram ekev rav
For in observing them there is great reward
Talia Rohrlich
Parahsat Ekev is based upon three important
themes: service of God and idolatry; reward and punishment; and the
of
These themes are often interconnected. If you
serve God you receive a reward – if you do not serve God – and even worse, if
you serve strange gods – you will be punished. The reward and punishment
involve the
of
In parashat Ekev we find people serving God not out of love for Him, but rather
in order to gain rewards and avoid punishment. Such service is not preferred,
but neither is it illegitimate. It is called avoda shelo lishma – service
that is not for its own sake. It contrasts with avodah lishma, service
out of true love for God.
In order to explain the difference between avoda
lishma and avoda shelo lishma, I will cite a parable from RaMBaM
(from his commentary on the chapter Helek from the Mishnah Sanhedrin). I
changed the details of the parable a bit in order to make it sound more
contemporary. Here it is:
Let's suppose that a young girl was brought
to a teacher to study Torah; this is a great benefit for her, because it will
help draw her nearer to perfection. However, due to her foolishness and tender
age, she does not understand the value of that benefit and how it will draw her
towards perfection. By necessity, the teacher (who is more perfect than she)
must spur her on to learn with something she likes, something appealing to children
her age, so he tells her, "Study and I will give you a candy which changes
color, or a piece of chewing gum, or a popsicle!" Then she studies and
makes an effort, but not because she knows that study is valuable in itself – she
is unaware of such a value – but rather in order to get the treat. Certainly as
far as she is concerned, eating the treat is better and more important than
study. She considered study to be a tiresome chore undertaken only in order to
receive the candy or popsicle. When she grows older and somewhat wiser, she
cares little for the candies she prized earlier. She is interested in other
things, and her teacher uses them to persuade her, saying, "Study and I
will buy you an iPod Nano, or a cellphone, or an MP3 player!" Once again
she will not be exerting herself for the sake of study, but rather for the sake
of the iPod, which she thinks is more important than study and is the goal of
her studies. When her thinking becomes more advanced and she cares little for
the iPod, they persuade her with something better: "Learn this parasha or
that chapter and we shall make a splendid bat mitzvah party for you!" Then
too, she will study and make efforts for the sake of the party, the party being
more important to her than study, meaning that the party is the goal of her
studying. And when she will be more mature, she will care little for such
parties, knowing hat they are of little value, and so they will persuade her by
offering something more important: "Study so that you can become Minister
of Education or the President! People will respect you and stand in your
presence and fulfill your requests and you will become famous as long as you
live!" …and all of that is deplorable, but it is necessary due to the
girl's lack of seriousness which makes things other than study the goal of
study… and the Sages call this shelo lishma, that is to say, she
performs the commandments and does them not for themselves but for something
else's sake.
The performance of a commandment shelo
lishma is not so desirable; on this, RaMBaM writes: "all of that is
deplorable." And why deplorable? Because the goal of truth is only to know
that it is true, and the commandments are true, therefore their observance is
their goal."
Parashat Ekev deals with commandments shelo
lishma. The commandments are mentioned in the parasha together with their
rewards, and sometimes the punishment for failing to keep them is also
mentioned. The parasha's very name implies that it deals with the reward for
performing the commandments: one of the interpretations of the word ekev
is "reward." We know this from the beginning of Psalm 19, where we
find written: The fear of the Lord is pure, existing
forever; the judgments of the Lord are true, altogether just. They are to be desired more than gold, yea more than much
fine gold, and are sweeter than honey and drippings of honeycombs. Also Your servant was careful with them; for in observing
them there is great ekev. Ekev here
means "reward."
The word lema'an
appears several times in the parasha to introduce descriptions of the rewards
we shall receive for performing some commandment. For instance, And you
shall inscribe them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates,
lema'an [in order that] your days may increase
and the days of your children, on the land (Devarim 11:20-21). Another example: Every
commandment that I command you this day you shall keep to do, lema'an
you may live and multiply, and come and possess the land… (8:6). These are but two of many cases in which
reward and punishment are linked to the
of
in the
of
as a people only if we keep the commandments. There are also punishments: and it will be, if you forget the Lord your God… I bear
witness against you this day, that you will surely perish (8:19).
How could an entire
parasha be devoted to the service of God shelo lishma when that is not a
desirable form of service? The answer is that in order to attain the service of
God lishma, one must begin with shelo lishma. Sometimes it is
impossible to begin with the best option, and so one must begin with something
worse. In order to better explain the difference between lishma and shelo
lishma, I will cite an example formulated by Yeshayahu Leibowitz in his
book Sheva Shanim shel Sihot al Parashat HaShavu'a: The contrast
between lishma and shelo lishma largely parallels the contrast
between Ve'ahavta [and you shall love], the first paragraph of
the Shema, which we read last week, and Vehaya im shamo'a [And it
shall be, if you hearken], the second paragraph of the Shema, which we read
today. The paragraphs are similar; they even contain some duplication of
verses. Both paragraphs treat the service of God. However, Ve'ahavta
makes no mention of reward and punishment, while Vehaya im shamo'a
describes the reward we shall receive for observing the commandments and the
punishment for not observing them. In other words, Ve'ahavta tells us to
serve God out of love, while Vehaya im shamo'a allows us to serve God
even when such service is not necessarily motivated by love. At the end of the
day, both paragraphs are read together in the Shema because they are both
necessary and complement each other.
As I have said, it is impossible to start from the best; rather we must
begin from something less than best and gradually ascend the ladder of values
towards the good: observance of the commandments, love of God and His
creatures. An infant cannot immediately take on the yoke of the commandments;
she must begin with a few easy commandments. For twelve years she prepares for
the day when she will be able to take upon herself the complete yoke of the
commandments. Even then, the path towards perfection remains a long one.
I would like to dedicate this drasha to my mother, may she rest in
peace, who planned my bat mitzvah down to the last detail. Mother wanted very
much to join us in my celebration, and even if she could not, she still is with
me, a strong presence in my heart; she fills all our hearts with her loving
presence.
Talia Rohrlich attends the Pelech school
in
wrote this drasha four years ago for her bat mitzvah.
They taught: A group of friends and a family are like a stone dome;
remove one stone and the entire dome will totter, add one stone and the entire
dome stands.
(Bereishit Rabba Vayehi
100:7)
From Yehuda A
Bloch and Chana Kronfeld, translators), Open Closed Open: Poems, pg. 173:
On my desk is a stone with "Amen"
carved on it, one survivor fragment
of thousands upon thousands of bits of broken
tombstones
in Jewish graveyards. I know all these broken
pieces
now fill the great Jewish time bomb
along with the other fragments and shrapnel,
broken Tablets of the Law
broken altars broken crosses rusty
crucifixion nails
broken houseware and holyware and broken
bones
eyeglasses shoes prostheses false teeth
empty cans of poison. All these broken pieces
fill the Jewish time bomb until the end of
days.
And though I know about all this, and about
the end of days,
the stone on my desk gives me peace.
It is the touchstone no one touches, more
philosophical
than any philosopher's stone, broken stone
from a broken tomb
more whole than wholeness,
a stone of witness to what has always been
and what will always be, a stone of amen and
love.
Amen, amen, and may it come to pass.
For us Babette performed two important and complementary roles in the
family – she was both the preserver of memory and the preserver of unity. Her
passing four years ago left a great void in both the memory and unity of the
family.
The quotation from Bereishit Rabba cited above expresses both of these
aspects through the idea of the stone and the dome.
In Judaism, stone bear the symbolic significance of the preservation of
memory (a pile of stones commemorated the pact between Jacob and Laban, stones are
left on a grave, and so on). The dome mentioned in the midrash symbolizes
family, all unified around one single stone. And if that stone is removed, the
entre dome will totter.
Maya Frankfurter and Talila Warshawski
Warschawski – "Babette"
– was born in
on Shabbat, the ninth of Av 5718 (1958). She was the sixth of seven children
born to Rabbi Meir Shimon Warschawski
and his wife Mireille. After completing an MA at the
she came to live in
and continued her studies of the history of religion in the
archaeology. In 1982 she joined the staff of the Centre de Recherche
Français de Jérusalem
– a French governmental institution that supports the work of French and
Israeli researchers in the fields of archeology, history, and the social
sciences – and in 1977 became the Secretary General of the Center. Babette died on the 15th of Sivan 5766 after a
protracted struggle with cancer, and was survived by her husband, Daniel Rohrlich, their daughter Talia
(who became a Bat-Mitzvah two months after Babette's
passing), her parents, brothers, sisters, and many others who loved her.
HaRav Yehuda Amital,
ztz"l passed away about a week before the printing of this issue.
It is important to
remember and to remind others that HaRav Amital was present every time there
was a need for a courageous and moral voice of Judaism to be heard. He accompanied
the founding of the Netivot Shalom movement and was (together with his
colleague, HaRav Lichtenstein – may he enjoy long life) the keynote speaker at
the movement's founding convention in 5742. We publish below a eulogy prepared
by our member and his student, Dr. Moshe Meir.
The man who was there. On HaRav Yehuda Amital
HaRav Amital was a teacher who was not a teacher. He was a teacher who
chose to break down the image of the one who shows others the proper way to
live. Instead, he lived with the other as he was. He had three favorite short
sayings; for me, they are the foundations of his world:
Ein patentim – "There are no trick solutions"
Teachers love to invent trick solutions, to show people the way to
happiness or meaning. HaRav Amital suggested no panaceas; on the contrary, he
taught that there is no cure for the human condition. Recognition of this fact
can dissolve the illusions that bring nothing but pain and nostalgic suffering.
HaRav Amital bore in his heart the pain of his parents' murder in the
Holocaust, the pain of the Jewish People which was smitten there, the deaths of
many of his students in the Yom Kippur War. He could mark a limit for us and
tell us that it is impossible to escape suffering; such is the human condition.
Bli atzbanut – "Without anxiety"
Anxiety is born of the comparison of the real with the ideal. Every man
tends to judge his own life in that fashion, even more so if one is religious. HaRav
Amital waged total war against such anxiety, anxiety which leads to extremism
and escape from life towards ideas divorced from life, ideas which weaken life.
Some say that without anxiety man will become bogged down in the mire of life
and will not aspire to things beyond it. HaRav Amital did not deny the
existence of this problem, but neither was he prepared to solve it with the
"trick solution" of anxiety. Who knew better than him how to refuse
to accept present reality? But he was not moved by anxiety over the gap from
the ideal, but rather by the joy of creatively moving towards the unknown.
"I do not want little Amitals"
Many teachers act from the conviction that they know the truth and must
relate it to their students. They see their students as reflections of
themselves, and through them they wish to gain immortality. Harav Amital
shattered this pattern; he left no imitators. In his world, a student who is a
copy of his rabbi is a failure. A teacher who creates such students castrates
them. HaRav Amital wanted to be a free person, free of imitators who would
eventually keep him from walking in his own independent path. HaRav Amital
needed free space in which to surprise, to change, to become someone new. That
is why he called upon his students to be independent, not to follow in his
path, to leave him alone – so that he could continue to search and try out new
paths.
Such wonderful freedom allowed him to shatter paradigms and to create
new forms that went against the current. Thus he created the hesder yeshivot – breaking
down the dichotomy between army service and yeshiva study; thus he created
Meimad – breaking down the seemingly necessary connection between full
emotional religiosity and identification with the political right.
The breaking of the Tablets out of freedom was also the secret behind
his profound faith. He had tablets that were created within religious Zionism,
which linked the Holocaust with the creation of the State of Israel and the Six
Day War. This gave rise to a religious and political world view from which it
seemed no religious Zionist would be able to free himself. The shock of the Yom
Kippur War led HaRav Amital to shatter the paradigm; his was a God who breaks
His children's tablets. He clung in life to a life of suffering, and that life
told him that the tablets were mistaken. He did not hesitate to respond to the
divine voice he had heard and say – I believed in the first tablets, but now it
has been made clear to me that they were mistaken.
The man of freedom fears no one, not even his friends who turned their
backs on him. That is courageous freedom which is freed from trick solutions, a
freedom that adjusts to reality instead of embracing anxious flight from
reality. A freedom of extreme individualism that chooses not to exploit its own
power to tell others how to live their lives.
I loved him. I loved him very much.
Moshe Meir
Additional remarks on HaRav Amital can be found via the following links:
From Rabbi Benny Lau: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3917398,00.html
HaRav Lichtenstein's eulogy: http://etzion.org.il/dk/5770/1230maamar1.html
Various eulogies: http://etzion.org.il/yeshiva/hespedim-rya-heb.htm
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