d’var torah
Promises and Warnings
BY RABBI DAVID N. GOODMAN
J Parshat Eikev
ERUSALEM — Th e teeming
streets of the Holy City testify
to the diversity of its people —
Christian, Muslim, Jewish, religious and
secular. A fl ight delayed by a bout of
COVID-19 led me to spend an unplanned
Shabbat in Jerusalem and an opportunity
to refl ect on the last book of the Torah a
scant 20-minute walk to the place where
it was fi rst proclaimed.

According to Kings II, the Judean king
Josiah was commissioning a renovation
of the fi rst Temple when the chief priest,
Hilkiyah, reported the discovery of a
“scroll of the Torah/teaching in the house
of Adonai.” [II Kings 22:8]. All this was
happening about 2,600 years ago, in what
would be the fi nal decades before the
Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and
Solomon’s Temple.

Th e priest Hilkiyah gave the scroll to
the king’s scribe Shapham, who read it to
himself and then recited it to Josiah. Th is
scroll is believed to be the core of the book
we now know as Deuteronomy.

Th e story in Kings says that it was clear
that Jewish practice had drift ed far from
the fi rm monotheism of the Sinai cove-
nant. Some scholars give Josiah himself
credit with fi rmly establishing the wor-
ship of Adonai alone as the foundation of
the Judaism we recognize today — eth-
ical monotheism. Kings II tells of Josiah
purging the Temple and the kingdom of
shrines to other gods, Baal and Asherah.

Deuteronomy presents itself as a series
of addresses from Moses to the Israelites.

Th ey are about to enter the Promised
Land aft er 40 years of wandering in the
wilderness following their liberation. He
is about to die because of his own failings
as a leader. Deuteronomy recapitulates
the stages of the Exodus and restates the
laws that Moses received at Sinai.

It’s fascinating to think how
Deuteronomy might have sounded to
those who fi rst heard it in those last
decades of the kingdom of the House
of David. Th en, as now, the Jews were
living in a tough neighborhood. Imperial
powers were making it diffi cult, if not
impossible, for a medium-size king-
dom to maintain independence. Th e
Assyrians nearly overran Judea before the
Babylonians conquered it less than four
decades aft er Deuteronomy’s reported
discovery. Th is week’s Torah reading, Parshat
Eikev, opens with a triple-ask and a tri-
ple-promise: Moses tells the people that
if they “listen to ... and observe and carry
out” the teachings, God will “love, bless
and multiply” them and grant them pros-
perity and rich crops of wheat, barley,
grapes, fi gs, pomegranates, olives and
dates, as well as healthy and growing
fl ocks of livestock.

Th ey shouldn’t be afraid, Moses tells
them, of their inferiority in numbers and
strength to other nations they may face. If
they do their part, God will do God’s part
— as in the liberation from Egypt, when
a great imperial state fell to the power of
the Holy One.

But what exactly is the Holy One asking
of the people? Several things, all following
under the heading of showing respect and
giving obedience to the Creator of All.

Th e fi rst it mentions is expressing grati-
tude: “When you eat and you are satisfi ed,
then you shall bless Adonai, your God, for
the good land that God has given you.”
[Deuteronomy 8:10]. Th is is the basis in
traditional Jewish law for the obligation
to recite a blessing aft er a meal.

Th e second it mentions is refraining
from worshiping false gods — false doc-
trines, one might say — and coveting
their dazzling pageantry. Th e third is
staying humble. When you get fi nancially
comfortable, don’t take personal credit or
think it’s all because of your own work.

It is despite and not because of the con-
duct of the people that God is rewarding
them. Moses reminds the people of how
much they rebelled against the Holy One,
practically from the moment of their lib-
eration from Egypt, crowned by the wor-
ship of the Golden Calf. It is only because
of Moses’ pleas for God’s mercy that the
people weren’t destroyed in the desert.

Th e fourth ask is that the people to
mirror the Holy One in the way that
they treat those who are socially vul-
nerable. Adonai “enforces the rights of
orphans and widows and loves immi-
grants/strangers, giving them food and
clothing.” [Deuteronomy 10:18].

What we can take from this week’s
Torah reading is that “stranger-ness” is
relative, and that we should treat those
diff erent from us as we would want
to be treated — whether in Pharaoh’s
Egypt, Biden’s America or contemporary
Jerusalem. JE
Rabbi David N. Goodman is the rabbi
at Nafshenu Community in Cherry Hill,
New Jersey. Th e Board of Rabbis of Greater
Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse
perspectives on Torah commentary for the
Jewish Exponent. Th e opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own and
do not refl ect the
view of the Board of
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