Parshat Ekev: How do we serve God?

Parshat Ekev

Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25

How do we serve God? 

“And now, O Israel, what does your God/ Adonai Elochecha demand of you? (Deuteronomy 10:12a).  This is the question raised by this week’s Torah portion, Ekev.

In his article, “Adonai-Elohim: The Two Faces of God,” Rabbi Harold Schulweis discusses the two names of God that appear to guide our lives in almost all of our prayers. He writes that, “Elohim is the ground of the universe that is given, and Adonai is the energy that transforms. … Adonai Elohim marks the cooperation, the transaction, between the human and the divine.”

This explanation helps us conceive of how to actualize the cooperation or transaction between ourselves and God.  The Torah continues, “Only this: to revere your God (Adonai Elochecha), to walk only in divine paths, to love and to serve your God (Adonai Elochecha), with all your heart and soul, keeping Adonai’s commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good (l’tov lecha).” (Deuteronomy 12b-13)

As a chaplain, when I visit someone who is feeling challenged practically and theologically, I often use these verses as a basis for a way to go forward. I talk about this beautiful teaching of Rabbi Schulweis’, that when we say the expression Adonai Elohim we are articulating the “the cooperation, the transaction, between the human and the divine.” 

The verse helps us to recall that we live in ongoing partnership and that we are given parameters for this partnership – to follow the commandments which provide us with a gameplan to live a life of meaning and purpose. When we serve our God with our entire being and experience the reverence and the awe that is to be found by existing in this world that contains both divinity and everyday humanity, we cleave to the divine, and acknowledge that we are never going it alone. 

Ultimately, we do this for our good/ l’tov lecha. When we see the word tov/good used in this way we are taken back to creation and the Garden of Eden. God created humans to become caretakers of all that was “good” under creation and to recognize and experience the awesomeness of our partnership. 

The Da’at Zekanim, a Torah commentary from 12th-13th century, posits that these verses present a list that comprises all aspects of life. He writes that according to one view, “G–d asks us to do only what is clearly of benefit for us and is good for us and the observance of which will result in our earning a great reward.” 

What is that great reward? Some might say that the reward is to be found in the afterlife. I prefer the understanding that the reward is to be found in “the cooperation, the transaction, between the human and the divine.” 

We humans are born into a world that is imperfect; our task is to leave the world a better place than the one we were born into. We are to make a difference through our interactions with others - both known and not yet met. We face the injustices in our world – both to people and to the planet – in the best ways that we can and strive to make a difference for ourselves and for others. We do recognize that we will fail at times but that we will learn from our failures and continue onto our next challenge. This is what our parsha asks when it says, “And now, O Israel, what does your God Adonai Elochecha demand of you?”

When our parsha asks “And now, O Israel, what does your God/ Adonai Elochecha demand of you? Rabbi Schulweis offers an answer, “We can use the memory and energies in [ourselves] and [our] community to lift up those who are bowed down, to mend the torn fabric of the universe, to comfort the bereaved and to lift up those who are fallen.” Elohim and Adonai. Accept and transform.”

Rabbah Arlene Berger is a rabbi of Hevrat Shalom Congregation in Rockville, MD and a community chaplain. 

*This dvar was originally published on 8/18/22 in the Washington Jewish Week

  

Yitro - A Journey to our Sinai Experience

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This is the Dvar Torah that I gave this Friday night. I think of it as our journey toward Sinai - through the calendar, through our holidays, through the years. I ended the Dvar with instructions for a "Sinai Experience" that would we would share during out Torah reading. (We read Torah on Friday nights.) At the end is the sheet that I used for our Torah reading.  

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We are on a journey – the journey of the spring holidays – Tu Bishvat, Purim, Passover and finally Shavuot.

We begin with a story from the Babylonian Talmud (Ta'anit 23a) about Honi the Circle Maker who learned the importance of planting and planning for the future. It’s a Tu Bishvat story, you may have heard it but bear with me.

Rabbi Yohanan said: "This righteous man [Honi] was troubled throughout the whole of his life concerning the meaning of the verse, 'A Song of Ascents: When the Lord brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like dreamers' (Psalms 126:1). [Honi asked] Is it possible for seventy years to be like a dream? How could anyone sleep for seventy years?"

One day Honi was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked, "How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit?" The man replied: "Seventy years." Honi then further asked him: "Are you certain that you will live another seventy years?" The man replied: "I found [already grown] carob trees in the world; as my forefathers planted those for me so I too plant these for my children."

Honi sat down to have a meal and sleep overcame him. As he slept a rocky formation enclosed upon him which hid him from sight and he slept for seventy years. When he awoke he saw a man gathering the fruit of the carob tree and Honi asked him, "Are you the man who planted the tree?" The man replied: "I am his grand-son." Thereupon Honi exclaimed: "It is clear that I have slept for seventy years." He then caught sight of his ass which had given birth to several generations of mules, and he returned home. There he inquired, "Is the son of Honi the Circle-Drawer still alive?" The people answered him, "His son is no more, but his grandson is still living." Thereupon he said to them: "I am Honi the Circle-Drawer," but no one would believe him.

Two take-aways from this story –

1) is that if you give something you will not be alive to see, you are still giving. No matter what.

2) The story ends with a vision of the future – albeit one filled with carob treesJ. Our people has always dreamed of a day when hatred and war will be forgotten; a day when no one will go hungry and no one will suffer homelessness; a day when we will all care for one another and live together in peace. Our sages called it the Messianic Age. (Chabad)

Tu Bishvat with its vision of people taking care of each other and most especially, taking care of the earth, planting trees, providing for the future.

Purim arrives in exactly one month. This is a story that takes place in the Diaspora, outside of the Land of Israel, in the Persian Empire. Here our people might be able to look to the future but they also have to expend a lot of energy to take care of the here and now, in a land that is not their own. One take away from Purim is the question of “What is our role, as Jews, in the place that we live?”

Exactly one month after Purim we celebrate Passover  - a story that begins with a people enslaved and ends with a free people, receiving the Torah, developing a relationship with God.  The practice of Passover began in the land of Israel with sacrifices offered at the Temple in Jerusalem. It continues with the Rabbis in Exile in Babylonia realizing that with the loss of the Temple and our exile, they need to do something in order to keep us connected to Eretz Israel and our religious way of life. So they developed a ritual that would go on to keep us connected to Holy Land, 

to Torah and to our people and history regardless of where we live.  The Passover Seder in some ways is the answer to the question that is raised through Purim,  “how do we live at Jews no matter where we are?”

But let’s take a step back and a step forward – first answering who are these people called the Jews? The Jews are the ones who accepted the Torah at Sinai. They experienced something that no one before or after ever would – standing in the presence of God, hearing God’s voice, and experiencing what was probably the most amazing pyrotechnic show in all of history.

The rabbi’s say that all Jewish souls – those born Jewish, those who ultimately convert – were at Sinai. The Torah was not given to just those who were standing at Sinai, at the base of that mountain, but to all Jews who would ever live. So We Were There. Though we might not remember it!

This is one reason that Shavuot, our final spring/summer holiday is called Zman Matan Torateinu – the time of the GIVING of the Torah. Present tense  - or present continuous – something like that. Not the Time the Torah was given or received in the past. But now, always, every year we receive the torah – because we were there as souls, and now each year we reaffirm our receipt of and commitment to the Torah anew.

So today is not Shavuot- that’s true. But liturgically we sort of receive the Torah 3 times. The first is here in the Exodus, Parshat Yitro, where the first telling of the story of revelation falls on our yearly cycle of torah readings. Second on Shavuot when we ritually receive the Torah. Lastly in the book of Deutoronomy, Parshat Eikev – this year on August 1^st -the final telling of the story of revelation falls on our yearly cycle of torah readings.

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So together let us have the Sinai Experience.

Here’s how it will work:

We will imagine we are standing at the base of Mount Sinai – weary from running away from slavery in Egypt, a bit (or very) anxious about whatever is going to happen. We are told by Moses to prepare ourselves for three days – bathing, washing our clothes, not engaging in intimate relations – and not eating meat.

After 3 days we gather at the base of mount sinai and see and hear an incredible pyrotechnic display. Thunder, lightening, God’s voice. We are afraid – the Sages say that when the people heard God’s voice they fell over in fear and begged Moses to intervene for them. God should tell Moses the Commandments and Moses would relay to us. That way at least we could stay conscious and actually experience what was going on.

We have taken our Torah our of the ark. 

Handouts are being passed out with today’s Torah reading. There will only be one Aliya today and we will all have it. I will chant at first from the Torah, you will have the translation in front of you as I chant.

When I finish we will all rise and read out together a slightly abridged version of the 10 Commandments

You are welcome to read in Hebrew or English – Read loudly, with power. Let us feel the cacophony of the voices, the people, all around us. 

I will then conclude the reading from the Torah.

Allow yourselves to feel the moment, to experience it, to Stand at Sinai.

(**If you would like a copy of the script that I used, please leave a comment or email me at rabbaharlene@gmail.com.   For some reason the format is not transferring to my blog at present.)