Noticing How Hashem Helps
by R. Gidon Rothstein
Parshat Ekev
The Slow Workings of the Tzir’ah
Moshe promises Hashem will send the tzir’ah before you, until all remnant enemies are destroyed. Most translations take it to be a hornet, but JPS thinks it a plague, a version that fits Emet Le-Ya’akov’s idea well. R. Kaminetzky points out that Gad and Reuven felt the need to build fortified cities before joining the rest of the people in conquest of the Land west of the Jordan. The need implies there were still enemies around.
He argued the tzir’ah attacked while the fighting men were gone, stopping those enclaves from gathering into a united force, and slowly wiped them out. [I think he thinks it functioned similarly on the west side of the Jordan, although he does not make a point of it. It reminds me of current historians’ thinking about the European conquest of the New World, much of the work done by plague they brought with them, sometimes deliberately, decimating the natives, who lacked immunity.]
He is saying the Jews won an initial victory, enough to rule and for the two tribes to leave their families as they joined their brethren in conquest of the Land on the west side. Problems remained, though, and God promised that “natural” impediments, hornets or a plague, would prevent any resurgence of the enemy. R. Kaminetzky adds that it happened slowly, took all the years until the soldiers came back, I think because it was important this look natural to the casual observer, events “happening” to get in the way of attempts to retake the land.
The Unknown Civil War
Verse 10;6 seems to interrupt the narrative to tell us the Jews went from Bnei Ya’akan to Moserah, where Aharon passed away. Rashi has two issues, why it is noted here, and why Bamidbar 33;31 has the reverse order, they went from Moserah to Benei Ya’akan.
A Midrash spots a veiled further admonishment/rebuke of the people. When Aharon passed away, the Clouds of Glory were removed, too, panicking the people the next time they faced an enemy. Some of them decided to return to Egypt and went eight stops back. There, the Levi’im fought them, both sides killed some of the other, until the Levi’im prevailed.
Midrashim do not necessarily claim to be history, although if we dismiss this one, the discrepancy between Devarim and Bamidbar must be explained. Rashi is a basic text of Jewish study, meaning almost a thousand years of Jews have learned, from their youngest encounters with Torah, of a view that saw the Jews, at the end of their time in the desert, as so unsure of God’s protection that one attack sends them back to Egypt (which many of them never saw!), ready to fight to the death for their wrong viewpoint. The Levi’im had to also fight, some to die, to help bring their brethren back to following Hashem’s Will. The true and good are not, by far, always obvious, and it’s sometimes necessary to fight over it.
What We Do Not Stop To Notice
Sforno addresses a different aspect of the verse, the Torah’s sandwiching Aharon’s death within a list of places they travelled. As if the loss of Aharon and the change in High Priest did not matter much, he notes. Here, we do not here of mourning over Aharon’s death, nor of welcome of Elazar to his new position.
They cared about their flocks, Sforno says [addressing the people of his time, perhaps? Who were too involved with material welfare?]. To be fair to the people, Bamidbar 20;29 does say they mourned him for thirty days. Sforno implicitly accounts for this, says most of the people did not pay proper attention, let it happen between their travels. [I think he assumes the “all” in Bamidbar wasn’t literal, it was actually a minority.]
He adds that the people had seen Aharon’s prayers end the plague after Ba’al Pe’or, knew the good he could do for them, and yet were indifferent to his passing. Since the text doesn’t hint to this, it suggests he thought the people of his time [not ours, of course] as too cavalier about the passing of Torah scholars, too casual about noting when a new such scholar took a position.
Constant Involvement as a Benefit and Boon
In three verses in chapter eleven, 10-12, the Torah warns the Jews about their conduct in Israel, whose water comes from rain, which God “inquires about” always. Prior verses reminded Jews to keep mitzvot as a condition of inheriting the Land; Ramban sees our verses as warning us how failure could redound to our detriment.
Egyptians bring water from the river by foot, but Israel’s topography does not lend itself to that. Israel needs rain, and Hashem always looks out to bring it (Ramban says it’s a thirsty land, needs rain all year, although the Torah speaks of yoreh u-malkosh, a first and last rain, the late spring and summer months almost completely dry).
Egypt’s version can fool them into an excessive sense of security in their water needs [water security is still an issue in our time, too. Verses in Tanach, some of which we read in haftarot, such as Yechezkel 29, suggest Egypt was overly self-confident in its water situation throughout history]. Israel, seemingly disadvantaged, actually has the benefit of being more aware of Providence.
A sick person is more aware of health, a poor person of money; both have a clearer awareness of our need to rely on Hashem’s support. Ramban throws in the words me’ir eienei sheneihem, Hashem enlightens the eyes of both (a rich and a poor man)—for all that the rich person is more apparently secure, he is saying, Hashem can reach him, too. But the poor person, like Canaan, gets the message earlier and more regularly.
Hashem’s eyes are “on it”means Hashem is always checking its needs, to decree its future in the way appropriate to that moment (sometimes for good, sometimes the other way). [He doesn’t explain what’s so good about that, but I think I’m not nearly the first to say it means we’re always in a relationship with Hashem, Hashem always involved with us in a way not true of other Lands.]
The Ripple Effect of Divine Providence
Ramban adds a sod amok, a deep esoteric idea. He says this Land is the one that’s nidreshet, whose needs Hashem provides (and cares about), the other lands all sustained by this one. His reading would have it that the Land of Israel is source of all of Hashem’s beneficent impact. It starts at Israel and ripples out from there.
He does not explain more, such as why that would be true (he lived in a time when esoteric traditions were still esoteric, he only hinted at them), but it seems to me to mean that something about Israel makes it central to the world’s purpose. Especially since we’ve just seen that it’s a Land with more consistent needs for Providence than others, there’s room to point to that as the key factor.
If we are all here to recognize Hashem and build a world as Hashem would want, then Jews’ job in Israel is to make that true in their lives. When they/we do, and merit beneficent Providence, the world takes note, will be more focused on that as well. When not, not.
To me. one plausible way to understand this deep secret.
Wearing Tefillin Outside of Israel
In the section of the parsha we read twice daily as the second paragraph of Shema, the verse tells us to place Hashem’s words on our hearts and souls, tie them onto our arms, have them be a sign between our eyes, 11;18. Rashi cited Chazal, Hashem was telling us to wear tefillin and put mezuzot on our doors even in exile, so they are not new to us when we return.
HaKetav VeHaKabbalah questions the idea, since both are chovat ha-guf, personal obligations having no connection to geography. When Sifrei had a similar idea, he points out, it did not specify mitzvot. For Sifrei, Hashem urged us to keep mitzvot in exile in general, so they not be new, with the prooftext of Yirmiyahu 31;20, set for yourself markers.
Abbreviations Will Mislead You
Eichah Rabbah paved the way to a technical answer. R. Shim’on b. Yochai has our idea, except he addressed terumot u-ma’asrot, the agricultural gifts for kohanim and Levi’im, which in fact do not apply in exile. The verse wants us to give those anyway, to keep in practice with the mitzvot, not new when we return. (R. Mecklenburg throws in that Sifrei is usually R. Shimon b. Yochai, suggests Eichah Rabbah picked an example of the general idea he had said in Sifrei.)
The acronym for terumot u-ma’asrot is the same as for tefillin u-mezuzot (tu”m), R. Mecklenburg notes, so perhaps Rashi recorded the version in Eichah Rabbah, and either he or a later copyist abbreviated it to tu”m, and someone misunderstood the abbreviation.
Or Maybe It Really Is Tefillin
A flaw in that argument is that Ramban already has Rashi as we do (it shortens the window for an error, and means Ramban thought Rashi made sense this way; a similar issue arises with Rashi speaking of the Jews being commanded about parah adumah at Marah). Ramban said there was a deep esoteric secret there.
R. Mecklenburg will not look for such an answer, as he has no expertise, he tells us, but anotherSifreisuggests an explanation. That other Sifrei suggests an analogy to a woman banished by her husband. She goes home [as Robert Frost said, home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you], and her father urges her to continue adorning herself in her usual decorative jewelry (or perfumes), to be ready for when her husband takes her back.
Hashem said the same to us, to observe even what is anyways an obligation partially to anticipate our full reconnection, redemption, and restoration. By maintaining signs of intimate connection relevant only to a healthy relationship, we also show our longing for return to it, soon and speedily.
The obligatory, too, can express yearning.
A parsha about how Hashem helps us, what we do and don’t notice in the world where Hashem is helping us, and our need to build and maintain a connection to the Land where we can best experience that connection.
Other Comments We Saw This Time:
Rashi, Devarim 7;12, Ve-haya ekev
Ramban, Devarim 7;12, Ve-hizkir et ha-mishpatim
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim, 7;12, Ve-hayah ekev
Ramban, Devarim 7;15, Ve-hesir
Onkelos, Devarim 7;16 and 25, eloheihem
Onkelos, Devarim 7;26, to’evah…ta’ev te-ta’avenu
Rashi, Devarim 8;2, Ha-tishmor mitzvotav
Ramban, Devarim 8;3, Ve-ta’am asher lo
R. David Tzvi Hoffmann,Devarim8; 3-4, Ha-inui ve-ha-ra’av
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 8;10, Ve-achalta
Or HaChayim, Devarim 8;18, Ve-zacharta
Ramban, Devarim 9;4, Al tomar
Ha’amek Davar, Devarim 9;4, Al tomar
Malbim, Devarim 9;4-7, Al tomar
Onkelos, Devarim 9;14, heref mimeni
Ramban, Devarim 9;17, Ve-ta’am va-etfos
Ramban, Devarim 9;19, Ki yagorti
Rashi, Devarim 9;20, U-ve-Aharon
Ramban, Devarim 10;8, Ba-et ha-hi
Onkelos, Devarim 10;9, Hashem Hu nachalato
R. Samson Raphael Hirsch,Devarim10;10, Lo avah
Onkelos, Devarim 10;12, mah Hashem sho’el me-imach
Meshech Chochmah , Devarim 10;12, Ve-atah
Torat Moshe, Devarim 10;19, Va-ahavtem et ha-ger
Ramban, Devarim 10;21, Ve-ta’am hu tehillatecha
Rashi, Devarim 11;10, Ve-hishkita
Ibn Ezra, Devarim 11;10, Ki ha-aretz
Kli Yakar, Devarim 11;21, Le-ma’an