THE PARSHA EXPERIMENT PARSHAT EIKEV: APPRECIATING OUR CREATORS

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1 Guide by Dr. Sarah Levy THE PARSHA EXPERIMENT PARSHAT EIKEV: APPRECIATING OUR CREATORS SABBATH TABLE OUTLINE I. So far, the book of Devarim has been remarkably inspiring. a. Each parsha is another argument in the great pump-up speech Israel needs before entering the land. b. And this parsha should be no different. i. Toward the beginning, instead of Moses focusing on just one episode, Moses prepares to sum up the lesson of the entire 40 years. ii. Almost as if all of the desert stories boil down to one larger idea, that the nation should remember. iii. This is going to be epic. 1. So what does Moses say? Israel, remember the whole journey, that God took you on, for 40 years in the desert. Why did God take you through the desert for 40 years? So that He could afflict you in order to test you, to know what s in your heart, whether you ll keep God s laws or not. God afflicted you by starving you, and only after you were starving, He fed you the manna (Deuteronomy 8:2-3) 2. First of all, Moses basically just admitted that God afflicted the nation of Israel through the past 40 years of the desert, withholding food and water from them...on purpose? That is so cruel. This is a God we re supposed to have a relationship with? 3. And second of all, why is Moses telling them any of this? This is hardly inspiring. Surely Moses has some speechwriters who could have counseled him to leave it out of his epic speech. Yes, Moses, I understand that it s all true, theologically speaking, but why focus on it? Meeting God at Sinai, sure. Shema? Perfect. Leave out the part about how the all-powerful God starved us and afflicted us in order to test us. I think you lose more than you gain. II. We all have that skeptical friend...the one who has serious problems with The God of the Hebrew Bible. He s just so angry and vengeful. a. This would probably not be the week to invite him to your local Torah reading. b. But let s be brave. Let s ask our skeptical friend to read the rest of the passage with us. What would he say? i. Well, right after Moses says that God tested them, He continues, and tells us why: In order to make it known to Israel, that mankind doesn t only live on bread; He needs God (Deuteronomy 8:3)

2 ii. And remember God, because he fed you in the desert, and made it so your clothes didn t wear our and your feet didn t swell. c. Okay, so is this answer good enough to satisfy your skeptical friend? i. NO! he says. ii. God doesn t deserve to be praised because He eventually fed us and clothed us - He is the one who withheld all those things from us in the first place! d. So you continue reading: God s going to bring you to a good land - and you ll be really successful, you re going to have everything you want - just remember, you re going to work really hard, and build beautiful homes, and build up your flocks - but be careful, lest you say that it was my strength and hard work that generated this success. Remember God (Deuteronomy 8:17) i. And so your friend retorts: Who is this God? Why is He so needy? He reminds you that HE took you out of Egypt, He protected you in the desert, He gave you food and water. ii. Don t you for a second say that you accomplished anything yourself. He s the one who did it all. How is that fair? III. So, this week s parsha is upsetting. a. Maybe some of us are like that friend, who reads this and says, it s just what I suspected. God isn t so nice, and I want nothing to do with a God who is capable of such cruelty. i. But I think that we re actually fundamentally misreading this story. ii. We, as humankind, have a fatal flaw - and because of that flaw, we misunderstand God s actions, and His choice to afflict us in the desert. iii. If we understand this flaw, and correct for it, this passage will take on an entirely different light. b. Let s say I have a teenage son. i. Every day, when he comes home from school, he s hungry. ii. So, he opens the fridge and looks around. Hmm, what do I want? Chicken? Rice? Ooh, is that steak? Don t mind if I do! Then, when I come home, all ready to savor the steak I ve been saving - it s gone. iii. My son says, oh, yeah, I was hungry, so, you know I took it. And off he goes. iv. I m not upset that he took food from the fridge. 1. He s my son, I buy him food so that he can enjoy it. 2. But something about this is off. 3. And I think that it s this - the fatal flaw - mindlessly taking things for granted. v. When he opened the fridge that afternoon, he thought, oh good, food. 1. He didn t think, wow, that food looks good, it s so sweet of my dad that he went shopping this morning, and that he always keeps the fridge stocked, so I can always eat when I want to. 2. In fact, I should text him. Hey Dad, thanks for always keeping my favorite foods around, you re the best! I love you so much! And by the way, can I grab that steak? Smiley emoji! Steak emoji! 3. In fact, if I asked him, hey, how d you get that steak?, he would probably be confused by the question. He d say something like, Umm, I opened the fridge...and I got it...

3 4. My son is forgetting two very important things: 1) steaks don t just grow in the fridge. Someone put them there. And 2) That someone is me. His food comes from his father. vi. Of course, I want my son to have food to eat, but I also want him to understand that behind his food is a labor of love. 1. I work to provide food for him, because I care about him. 2. When he takes what he has for granted...when he takes me for granted, that hurts our relationship. c. So how do I parent a little better? i. I have an idea. 1. The next day, when my son comes home from school, and mindlessly opens the fridge for a snack it's empty. 2. Next day, same thing, nothing. 3. And he is annoyed. Dad, he says to me, what s going on? Where s the food? I m starving! 4. So he understands Step 1 - food doesn t come magically from the fridge. ii. And now, I want him to understand where it does come from, Step 2, he has a loving father, a provider. 1. So we re off to the supermarket. 2. We pick out food, we compare prices, we pay, we stock the car with groceries, and when we get home, we put everything away. 3. And as we do all this, together, it sinks in for him. 4. There is a series of actions, choices, sometimes, blood sweat and tears, that are not his own, that go into stocking that fridge. 5. And maybe that means something to him, to know that his father, out of love for him, makes sure that it s always full. iii. I could have taken this further 1. I could have taken him to the bank, to deposit my paycheck; to my office, to see how hard I work to provide for him. 2. But at this point, the idea is there. d. But how did he learn all this? What is the mechanism by which he understood that lesson? i. It was the lack before the gain. ii. Those days with the empty fridge made him understand, everything has a source and that even something as mundane as pulling food out of a fridge can be a tool to strengthen the relationship between parent and child. IV. Now that we understand this great flaw of humanity, let s take a second look at Moshe's speech: Israel. You re vulnerable to forgetting. You might take things for granted. So remember this forty year journey in the desert. God afflicted you, to test you, to teach you, to know what s in your heart, whether you ll keep God s laws or not. He caused you to perceive a lack, and then He fed you with food from the heavens (Deuteronomy 8:2-3) a. God had no interest in torturing you. b. He provided for you. i. your clothing didn t wear out (Deuteronomy 8:4) ii. your legs didn t swell, for all these 40 years.

4 iii. And therefore, know in your hearts that just as a parent sometimes must chastise his child in order to teach a crucial lesson (Deuteronomy 8:5), God does the same to you, to His child. iv. This analogy that we gave about the teenager? That s not ours. It s Moshe's. Our God is a loving parent, who chastises us...because it s good for us. c. Moses explains why: God is about to bring you to an amazing land, a land of streams of water, deep fountains from valleys and hills. A land of wheat, barley, grapes, dates, pomegranates, olive oil, honey, a land in which you ll eat bread without scarcity! You ll lack nothing (Deuteronomy 8:7-9) i. This is the full fridge! I can have anything I want, whenever I want! ii. And Moses says, when that happens, eat and be satiated! God wants you to have food. He wants to provide for you, always. But, you must also bless God for the great land that He s given you. (Deuteronomy 8:10) iii. Not because God is needy, Moses says. Because this bounty from God, your heavenly parent, is a tool, for building a relationship. iv. God gives you everything to be enjoyed, in love, and in love, you acknowledge what He s given you. v. If you merely eat and be full, you are a teenager. vi. If you acknowledge the source of your food, if you eat together with your beloved, then you ve built a relationship. V. But there s a grave danger. This fatal flaw of taking things for granted? a. There s a time where we are particularly vulnerable: Moses continues. Be careful, lest you forget God, lest you eat and be satiated. You ll build good homes and settle down, and your livestock will increase, and your wealth will increase. Everything you have will multiply! (Deuteronomy 8:11-13) b. There s a grave danger to having everything, a danger when plenty becomes the natural state of everyday life. i. Your heart can become haughty, you ll forget God, who took you out of Egypt. ii. And you ll say in your heart, my own strength and power provided me with all this wealth. It s all from ME! (Deuteronomy 8:14-17) c. What happens when your teenager goes off to college? i. He settles into his own place. ii. Now, he stocks his own fridge, he prepares his own meal, he feels so proud about that delicious steak he just cooked.all by himself. All by himself? Is that really true? iii. How did he stock that fridge? He was using mommy and daddy s credit card. iv. Once we start doing some of the effort, and it can be a lot of effort, we tend to forget the earlier steps, the things that made our successes possible. VI. Our experience in the land of Israel would be vastly different than in the desert. a. We d plow, seed, tend crops, raise cattle and bake bread. And we d be proud! (Deuteronomy 8:17) i. My own efforts and my own strength are what caused my success ii. I built this home I live in, I raised this livestock, I accumulated this wealth, from my hard work!

5 VII. b. So what is the antidote to this delusion? It is an inspiring lesson that Moshe teaches us: Remember God. Because it s God who gave you the strength to be successful (Deuteronomy 8:18) a. Yes, your strength allowed you to accomplish things - you should be proud of everything you do. b. But God gave you that strength. i. In the desert, God gave you bread, directly from the heavens. ii. But when you pull bread out of the earth, remember that you do so by the strength given to you from God. iii. And when you eat, recognize and appreciate that the same God of the desert is the one who facilitates your accomplishments in life, the one who gives you the strength to earn your daily bread. c. We are the generation even more vulnerable than those who entered the land. i. They looked to the heavens for rain so they could grow their crops and bake their bread. ii. For us? Bread grows in supermarkets. iii. Earning our daily bread is a metaphor for most of us. iv. We are much further disconnected from the source of our nourishment than any generation that preceded us. v. And yet, we must enjoy our great bounty and appreciate the source of our strength, we must bless God, and realize that all we have and all we have achieved is merely a tool for achieving the highest of relationships.