Deut 9
Moses tells the Israelites not to fear the people of the land that they're going to enter. Even though the people are giants and their cities are fortified to the heavens, God will destroy those people before the Israelites.
The beginning of verse 1 in the Hebrew is "Shema Yisrael". The more famous Shema Yisrael is from Deut 6:4 which says "the Lord our God, the Lord is One." Here, Moses tells the Israelites to listen up because they're about to cross the Jordan and take over from nations greater and stronger than they are.
Next time you're asked if you know the Shema, you might ask, which one? ;) (Deut 6:4 or Deut 9:1)
God is described as a consuming fire (verse 3). Only because of God's help will the Israelites be able to destroy their enemies.
But Israel has to remember that they are getting the land NOT because of her righteousness but because the nations that were there were so bad. The other nations were wicked and practiced all sorts of abominations including the horrific practice of human sacrifice.
Moses reminds the Israelites of their wickedness as well in recounting the incident of the golden calf (egel zahav).
Moses, the man of uncircumcised lips, who was heavy of speech and heavy of tongue, has managed to wax eloquent and even throw in some good old fashioned Jewish guilt into the narrative. Listen...
"When I ascended the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water" 9:9
Twice more, Moses will say that he ate no bread and drank no water for 40 days. Think he's trying to tell the Israelites something? One interpretation is that Moses was so focused on God that he didn't have these other human concerns.
Moses tells of the people's great sin with the golden calf, God's angry response and Moses' own plea before the Lord to forgive the people. And lo, God did not destroy the people and make of Moses a greater nation as He promised.
"The prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:16
Thanks be to God, Who was pleased for the sake of His righteousness, to render His Law great and glorious. Isaiah 42:21.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
ekev... continued
Duet 8
verse 1 You shall faithfully observe all the Instruction that I enjoin upon you today, that you may thrive and increase and be able to occupy the land which the Lord promised on oath to your fathers.
today-Everybody should feel as if the Torah was given anew every day. Observe the mitzvot today, as if you were hearing them for the first time. Act as if the flame of your desire to do God's will was as bright and hot as when it was first kindled.
Why are the commandments to be followed? So that Israel may live and mulitply and occupy the land.
The land was promised on oath to their fathers. God is faithful to keep His promises.
In verse 2, we learn that God made the Israelites travel through the wilderness for forty years in order to test them. He afflicted them with hardships. The word for 'afflict' (anot) is the same word used to describe the hardships imposed by the Egyptians. Exodus 1:11. In Egypt, the affliction was the work of an oppressor. In the wilderness, the affliction was the work of God to refine Israel.
Verse 3 says that God afflicted the Israelites with hunger and gave them manna, something neither they nor the fathers had ever experienced. Manna is portrayed as a supernatural gift. Why was it given? And then a very famous phrase: "in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but that man may live on anything that the Lord decrees." Many have taken this to mean that the Bible, that came from God's mouth, is our spiritual food.
In verse 4, there are two recorded instances of God's miraculous providence: The Israelites' clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell those 40 years. Imagine your clothes lasting 40 years. More than that, the rabbis took that to mean that God made the clothes of the children grow along with them.
Verse 5 gives another reason to keep God's commandments: God disciplines Israel just as a man disciplines his son. And Israel is God's firstborn son. Exodus 4:22.
Verse 6 emphasizes that Israel is to keep God's commandments, to walk in His ways and to revere Him.
Verses 7-9 describe the Promised Land. It is a good land. And the first feature is water. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and wondering where their next drink of water was going to come from, God alleviates that concern right off the bat. There are streams and springs and fountains. There's a continuous supply of water. And the water comes from plain and hill. Low and high places alike have water.
And because of the plentiful water, there's plentiful produce: wheat and barley, vines, figs and pomegranates, olive trees and honey. All good food. God promises that the food will be plentiful enough that the Israelites may 'eat food without stint.' They will lack nothing. The Israelites remembered sitting by the fleshpots of Egypt and having their fill of meat and being able to eat leeks and garlics and melons. In Eretz Yisrael, there will be no more fleshpots of Egypt. Everybody will have enough.
From food we move to industry. The land has rocks of iron and hills of copper.
Verse 10 is the prooftext for the birkat hamazon (blessing after the meal). When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.
It would be easy to forget that the Lord provided all this sustenance when the Israelites are living in the land free from hunger and enemies. And thus verse 10 is to be a constant reminder that God gave them the land.
Verses 11-20 continue this theme of remembering God. This section starts with a stern warning: Take care lest you forget the Lord your God and fail to keep His commandments, His rules and His laws, which I enjoin upon you today.
What would cause the Israelites, and us, to forget the Lord our God? vv 12 and 13: When we have eaten our fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and our herds and flocks have multiplied, and our silver and gold have increased and everyting we own has prospered. Our present consumer society sees things as they are and asks for more. We have food and we gorge ourselves on more. We have places to live and think of getting bigger houses. Our businesses do well, and we think of ways to increase and maximize profit. We have money in our pockets, in our bank accounts, in stocks, in investments, in cd's and a myriad other ways. And the more we have the more concerned we are with keeping it and making even more. Even when everything we own has propsered we are still not satisfied. Maybe if I find a way to reduce costs, our profit margin can go up even more. It's the age old question. How much is enough? What do people need to live? We like to think of ourselves as somehow entitled. I worked hard. I earned it. I started at the bottom and worked my way to the top. I made sacrifices so that I and my family could have the kind of life we have today. We are wont to say, the gold is mine and the silver is mine. It's my house. My car. My clothes. My furniture. My jewelry. It's mine.
And because we feel like we earned it, our hearts are liable to grow haughty. That's the very thing God warns us against in verse 14. We forget that were it not for God freeing us from the land of Egypt, the beit avodim (house of bondage) we would not be where we are today. We'd be making bricks without straw for Pharaoh. But not only did God redeem us from slavery in Egypt, He led us through the great and terrible wilderness with its serpents and scorpions. A land with no water in it. But God brought forth water from the flinty rock. Back in Numbers Moses struck the rock and made it look like he brought water forth from the rock. Here, he gives God the credit. And God fed the Israelites with manna in the wilderness. Egypt was the house of slavery with all its attendant horrors. The wilderness was no picnic either. Don't forget where you came from. Don't forget that you were brought out from those terrible conditions by the hand of Almighty God.
And because of that, we owe God a debt we can never fully repay. God did not take us out of Egypt and lead us through the wilderness and give us the land of Israel in order for us to forget Him. On the contrary, He said that He will be our God and we will be His people. We are His people.
Why were we chosen? To walk in God's ways and to teach our children after us the way of the Lord by doing tzedekah u mishpat (justice and righteousness). God made a covenant with our ancestors and with us. A covenant is an agreement. Both parties have obligations. Our duty is to be a blessing, walk in God's ways, be tamim (worthy), practice justice, righteousness, kindness, love the stranger, love our neighbor and love God. And for God's part, He will bless us, give us children, give us the land of Israel, make us a permanent people and protect us.
We can only expect God to fulfill His end if we fulfill ours. And we cannot fulfill our end if we forget God. And how easy it is to forget God when we are surrounded by fine food and clothes and houses and gold and silver. And we say, (verse 17) "my own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me."
It is not so. Rather, we should "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 is still the case." Verse 18
Chapter 8 ends with the very real threat that if we do forget the Lord our God, we will certainly perish, just like the nations that God caused to perish before the Israelites when they came into the land. And they perished because of their wickedness. They were so bad that the land vomited them out. And the same will happen to Israel if they forget the Lord and don't keep His commandments.
And so today and everyday, we are to remind ourselves that is because of God that we are able to eat, breathe, sleep, wake, walk, talk, earn a living and do a host of other things we take for granted.
Blessed be God for His holy Word.
verse 1 You shall faithfully observe all the Instruction that I enjoin upon you today, that you may thrive and increase and be able to occupy the land which the Lord promised on oath to your fathers.
today-Everybody should feel as if the Torah was given anew every day. Observe the mitzvot today, as if you were hearing them for the first time. Act as if the flame of your desire to do God's will was as bright and hot as when it was first kindled.
Why are the commandments to be followed? So that Israel may live and mulitply and occupy the land.
The land was promised on oath to their fathers. God is faithful to keep His promises.
In verse 2, we learn that God made the Israelites travel through the wilderness for forty years in order to test them. He afflicted them with hardships. The word for 'afflict' (anot) is the same word used to describe the hardships imposed by the Egyptians. Exodus 1:11. In Egypt, the affliction was the work of an oppressor. In the wilderness, the affliction was the work of God to refine Israel.
Verse 3 says that God afflicted the Israelites with hunger and gave them manna, something neither they nor the fathers had ever experienced. Manna is portrayed as a supernatural gift. Why was it given? And then a very famous phrase: "in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but that man may live on anything that the Lord decrees." Many have taken this to mean that the Bible, that came from God's mouth, is our spiritual food.
In verse 4, there are two recorded instances of God's miraculous providence: The Israelites' clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell those 40 years. Imagine your clothes lasting 40 years. More than that, the rabbis took that to mean that God made the clothes of the children grow along with them.
Verse 5 gives another reason to keep God's commandments: God disciplines Israel just as a man disciplines his son. And Israel is God's firstborn son. Exodus 4:22.
Verse 6 emphasizes that Israel is to keep God's commandments, to walk in His ways and to revere Him.
Verses 7-9 describe the Promised Land. It is a good land. And the first feature is water. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and wondering where their next drink of water was going to come from, God alleviates that concern right off the bat. There are streams and springs and fountains. There's a continuous supply of water. And the water comes from plain and hill. Low and high places alike have water.
And because of the plentiful water, there's plentiful produce: wheat and barley, vines, figs and pomegranates, olive trees and honey. All good food. God promises that the food will be plentiful enough that the Israelites may 'eat food without stint.' They will lack nothing. The Israelites remembered sitting by the fleshpots of Egypt and having their fill of meat and being able to eat leeks and garlics and melons. In Eretz Yisrael, there will be no more fleshpots of Egypt. Everybody will have enough.
From food we move to industry. The land has rocks of iron and hills of copper.
Verse 10 is the prooftext for the birkat hamazon (blessing after the meal). When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.
It would be easy to forget that the Lord provided all this sustenance when the Israelites are living in the land free from hunger and enemies. And thus verse 10 is to be a constant reminder that God gave them the land.
Verses 11-20 continue this theme of remembering God. This section starts with a stern warning: Take care lest you forget the Lord your God and fail to keep His commandments, His rules and His laws, which I enjoin upon you today.
What would cause the Israelites, and us, to forget the Lord our God? vv 12 and 13: When we have eaten our fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and our herds and flocks have multiplied, and our silver and gold have increased and everyting we own has prospered. Our present consumer society sees things as they are and asks for more. We have food and we gorge ourselves on more. We have places to live and think of getting bigger houses. Our businesses do well, and we think of ways to increase and maximize profit. We have money in our pockets, in our bank accounts, in stocks, in investments, in cd's and a myriad other ways. And the more we have the more concerned we are with keeping it and making even more. Even when everything we own has propsered we are still not satisfied. Maybe if I find a way to reduce costs, our profit margin can go up even more. It's the age old question. How much is enough? What do people need to live? We like to think of ourselves as somehow entitled. I worked hard. I earned it. I started at the bottom and worked my way to the top. I made sacrifices so that I and my family could have the kind of life we have today. We are wont to say, the gold is mine and the silver is mine. It's my house. My car. My clothes. My furniture. My jewelry. It's mine.
And because we feel like we earned it, our hearts are liable to grow haughty. That's the very thing God warns us against in verse 14. We forget that were it not for God freeing us from the land of Egypt, the beit avodim (house of bondage) we would not be where we are today. We'd be making bricks without straw for Pharaoh. But not only did God redeem us from slavery in Egypt, He led us through the great and terrible wilderness with its serpents and scorpions. A land with no water in it. But God brought forth water from the flinty rock. Back in Numbers Moses struck the rock and made it look like he brought water forth from the rock. Here, he gives God the credit. And God fed the Israelites with manna in the wilderness. Egypt was the house of slavery with all its attendant horrors. The wilderness was no picnic either. Don't forget where you came from. Don't forget that you were brought out from those terrible conditions by the hand of Almighty God.
And because of that, we owe God a debt we can never fully repay. God did not take us out of Egypt and lead us through the wilderness and give us the land of Israel in order for us to forget Him. On the contrary, He said that He will be our God and we will be His people. We are His people.
Why were we chosen? To walk in God's ways and to teach our children after us the way of the Lord by doing tzedekah u mishpat (justice and righteousness). God made a covenant with our ancestors and with us. A covenant is an agreement. Both parties have obligations. Our duty is to be a blessing, walk in God's ways, be tamim (worthy), practice justice, righteousness, kindness, love the stranger, love our neighbor and love God. And for God's part, He will bless us, give us children, give us the land of Israel, make us a permanent people and protect us.
We can only expect God to fulfill His end if we fulfill ours. And we cannot fulfill our end if we forget God. And how easy it is to forget God when we are surrounded by fine food and clothes and houses and gold and silver. And we say, (verse 17) "my own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me."
It is not so. Rather, we should "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 is still the case." Verse 18
Chapter 8 ends with the very real threat that if we do forget the Lord our God, we will certainly perish, just like the nations that God caused to perish before the Israelites when they came into the land. And they perished because of their wickedness. They were so bad that the land vomited them out. And the same will happen to Israel if they forget the Lord and don't keep His commandments.
And so today and everyday, we are to remind ourselves that is because of God that we are able to eat, breathe, sleep, wake, walk, talk, earn a living and do a host of other things we take for granted.
Blessed be God for His holy Word.
Friday, August 15, 2008
ekev "because" Deut 7:12-11:25
This is not a portion that typically gets a lot of air time. There are promises of blessing for obedience; warnings to keep God's law faithfully; a recounting of Israel's wanderings through the wilderness and the people's great sin with the golden calf; and exhortation to keep God's laws.
Throughout the portion we see "if... then." The Hebrew 'ekev' (because) is usually translated as "if" or "it will be". There's a causal link between obeying God and being blessed. See Deut 7:12-26. If the Israelites keep God's law, they will be blessed abundantly with fertile women and fertile land. They will be able to destroy their enemies who stand in their way and God will drive them out little by little lest the wild beasts multiply to their hurt.
The verses describing God's command to wipe out the peoples, showing them no pity, and God's promise to help the Israelites (7:16-26) is typically glossed over.
We like to think of God as a loving parent, or a benevolent king or a fair Judge. It is hard to reconcile these images with the verses that portray God as commanding the Israelites to destroy the peoples of the land that the Israelites are coming into. My rabbi calls these verses "anti-Semites' delight." That is to say, anti Semites look at these verses and say, the Jewish God commands genocide. Israel uses these verses as justification for its 'ethnic cleansing' of the native Palestinians. It's easy to see how that could be an interpretation.
I submit that the Canaanites and Perizites and Jebusites and Ammonites and Midianites and Moabites and Girgashites, et al, were not just going to welcome Israel back to the Promised Land after a 430 year hiatus on Israel's declaration that God promised the land to their fathers. If Israel wanted to inhabit the land, they would have to fight for it.
Couldn't the Israelites and Canaanites live together peacefully side by side? Why did God have to command Israel to utterly wipe out the people? History has shown that that is not feasible. Already in the wilderness, Israel had been seduced by Moab and God sent a plague throughout the camp and the plague was only checked when Phineas killed Cozbi and her lover with a spear. Who's to say that Israel would not have been led astray by the peoples living in Eretz Yisrael? And in fact that did happen, time and again. And time and again Israel had to fight many wars against Midian and Moab while Israel was in the land.
Still, this business of killing every body who stands in their way-what is that all about? I could understand smashing the pillars and destroying the high places and burning the idols. But wholesale slaughter? Listen to the verses:
You shall destroy all the peoples that the Lord your God delivers to you, showing them no pity. And you shall not worship their gods, for that would be a snare to you.....The Lord your God will deliver them up to you, throwing them into utter panic until they are wiped out. He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall obliterate their name from under the heavens; no man shall stand up to you, until you have wiped them out. Deut 7:16, 23, 24 Emphasis added
I cannot pretend to understand the mind of God. I don't know why God would say this. But I also know that these verses and others like them turn people off from the Bible. Because they cannot understand this passage, they reject it, and other parts of the Bible, and ultimately, God. They want no part of a God who commands genocide. Frankly, I cannot fault them.
But I'd like to somehow have people see this passage as only a small part of the Bible. The Bible contains many stories about God and His creation. And the stories show that God is complex. God is bigger than our understanding of Him. The Bible does not fully portray God, as no book possibly could. God is too big, too holy, too great to be confined to a book-holy as that book may be.
The Torah contains God's words to us. To gloss over or reject the parts that we don't like or don't understand is to reject part of God. I, for one, am grateful for these passages and others. Everything is not peaches and cream or roses or sunshine or rainbows or sugar and spice and everything nice.
If we view God and the Bible through rose-colored glasses, we do so at our peril. People are wont to forget that everything comes from God. Good AND evil. If God is One (Deut 6:4) and He is the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, everything is attributable to Him. There isn't a good God and a bad God. There's just God. And as Job said, "shall we accept the good from God and not trouble?"
Blessed be God, to whom our thanks are due. Praise Him for His great and glorious law and for the knowledge that He cares for us even though we cannot always understand Him.
Throughout the portion we see "if... then." The Hebrew 'ekev' (because) is usually translated as "if" or "it will be". There's a causal link between obeying God and being blessed. See Deut 7:12-26. If the Israelites keep God's law, they will be blessed abundantly with fertile women and fertile land. They will be able to destroy their enemies who stand in their way and God will drive them out little by little lest the wild beasts multiply to their hurt.
The verses describing God's command to wipe out the peoples, showing them no pity, and God's promise to help the Israelites (7:16-26) is typically glossed over.
We like to think of God as a loving parent, or a benevolent king or a fair Judge. It is hard to reconcile these images with the verses that portray God as commanding the Israelites to destroy the peoples of the land that the Israelites are coming into. My rabbi calls these verses "anti-Semites' delight." That is to say, anti Semites look at these verses and say, the Jewish God commands genocide. Israel uses these verses as justification for its 'ethnic cleansing' of the native Palestinians. It's easy to see how that could be an interpretation.
I submit that the Canaanites and Perizites and Jebusites and Ammonites and Midianites and Moabites and Girgashites, et al, were not just going to welcome Israel back to the Promised Land after a 430 year hiatus on Israel's declaration that God promised the land to their fathers. If Israel wanted to inhabit the land, they would have to fight for it.
Couldn't the Israelites and Canaanites live together peacefully side by side? Why did God have to command Israel to utterly wipe out the people? History has shown that that is not feasible. Already in the wilderness, Israel had been seduced by Moab and God sent a plague throughout the camp and the plague was only checked when Phineas killed Cozbi and her lover with a spear. Who's to say that Israel would not have been led astray by the peoples living in Eretz Yisrael? And in fact that did happen, time and again. And time and again Israel had to fight many wars against Midian and Moab while Israel was in the land.
Still, this business of killing every body who stands in their way-what is that all about? I could understand smashing the pillars and destroying the high places and burning the idols. But wholesale slaughter? Listen to the verses:
You shall destroy all the peoples that the Lord your God delivers to you, showing them no pity. And you shall not worship their gods, for that would be a snare to you.....The Lord your God will deliver them up to you, throwing them into utter panic until they are wiped out. He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall obliterate their name from under the heavens; no man shall stand up to you, until you have wiped them out. Deut 7:16, 23, 24 Emphasis added
I cannot pretend to understand the mind of God. I don't know why God would say this. But I also know that these verses and others like them turn people off from the Bible. Because they cannot understand this passage, they reject it, and other parts of the Bible, and ultimately, God. They want no part of a God who commands genocide. Frankly, I cannot fault them.
But I'd like to somehow have people see this passage as only a small part of the Bible. The Bible contains many stories about God and His creation. And the stories show that God is complex. God is bigger than our understanding of Him. The Bible does not fully portray God, as no book possibly could. God is too big, too holy, too great to be confined to a book-holy as that book may be.
The Torah contains God's words to us. To gloss over or reject the parts that we don't like or don't understand is to reject part of God. I, for one, am grateful for these passages and others. Everything is not peaches and cream or roses or sunshine or rainbows or sugar and spice and everything nice.
If we view God and the Bible through rose-colored glasses, we do so at our peril. People are wont to forget that everything comes from God. Good AND evil. If God is One (Deut 6:4) and He is the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, everything is attributable to Him. There isn't a good God and a bad God. There's just God. And as Job said, "shall we accept the good from God and not trouble?"
Blessed be God, to whom our thanks are due. Praise Him for His great and glorious law and for the knowledge that He cares for us even though we cannot always understand Him.
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