Ekev

Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25

The Covenant of Fertility

Fertility of the womb and fertility of the land are divine gifts.

By Rabbi Lauren Eichler Berkun

Reprinted with permission of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The themes of fertility and barrenness are central to the biblical narrative.

It is striking how often we encounter barren women in the Bible. Sarah, the women of Abimelekh's household, Rebekah, Rachel, Manoah's wife, Hannah, and the Shunamite woman are all examples of barren women whose wombs are opened by God. Clearly, the process of reproduction holds a key to biblical theology. The very covenant of Israel is presented as a brit [covenant] of fertility. God promises Abram, "This is my covenant with you. You shall be the father of a multitude of nations...I will make you exceedingly fertile." (Genesis 17:4, 6). This week's parashah further emphasizes the connection between covenant and childbearing. Moses teaches:

And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the Lord your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers: He will favor you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the issue of your womb...You shall be blessed above all other peoples: there shall be no sterile male or female among you or among your livestock... (Deuteronomy 7:12-14).

As we explore the theme of fertility in the context of parashat Ekev, we uncover one of the theological underpinnings of the barrenness motif in the Bible.

Our Torah portion contributes to two important elements of Jewish liturgy: the birkat ha-mazon (prayer of thanksgiving after a meal) and the Shema. In both cases, the Torah text responds to the threat of abundance. Following the directive to bless God after eating, the Torah explains the necessity for such a prayer discipline:

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Shabbat Nachamu: Va-Et'chanan

Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11

The Dutiful Student

Moses as a model of one who seeks greater understanding

By Rabbi Marc Wolf
Reprinted with permission of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Reenacting an historical moment through liturgy and deed is a forte of Judaism.

Our calendar year overflows with holidays and observances that transport us to our former days and inspire us to reenter the narrative and relive salient moments of history. This week in particular, observing the 9th of Av, we read of the destruction of the Temple and continue the mourning of our ancestors for the calamities that befell them.

While it is possible to read this narrative as a preventive measure to ensure that we, too, do not fall victims to George Santayana's dictum condemning us to either learn from our history or repeat it, I believe that Judaism's message is a blessing, not a curse. It is a blessing for us to be able to relive life's difficult moments--and the reason why can be gleaned from Moses' behavior and our parasha this week.

Isaiah Horowitz, commenting on this week's parashah, Va'et'hanan, asserts that throughout the parshiyot of D'varim, we are constantly encouraged to learn and relearn the mitzvot of the Torah. The common name of Deuteronomy itself, the Mishneh Torah, means a second retelling of what came before in the previous four books. Each subject of the Torah is rehashed within the pages of Deuteronomy, according to Horowitz, and each is a call to action to study the passages to our fullest comprehension. For inspiration, Horowitz patterns Moses as the quintessential student, constantly questioning the pedagogical message of God.

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D'varim

Deuteronomy 1:1−3:22

Attributes of a Leader

Moses shares his views on leadership. 

By Rabbi Lewis Warshauer

Much of the Book of Deuteronomy is taken up with Moses' farewell address to the Israelite nation.

He has served his people as their leader in every sphere: military, administrative, judicial and spiritual. Now, he reviews the events of the 40 wilderness years, and presents, from his own perspective, a report of how he has led the nation.

Moses does not offer a dispassionate review of the past; to the contrary, he rebukes the nation for its failings.

It falls to midrash to examine Moses' words and not only offer interpretations of his meanings, but to construct leadership principles based on what he has said and done. A number of midrashim, taken together, use Moses as an example of what constitutes ideal leadership. Three components stand out: his views on what a leader must avoid; on the necessity of many people sharing leadership tasks; and on the core attributes of a leader.

In response to the question of what right Moses had to rebuke his people, one of Moses' earlier statements is cited. When Moses defended himself against charges of self-interest leveled at him by the rebellious Korah, he replied: "I have not taken a single donkey, nor done evil to anyone." (Numbers 16:15) This midrash, in other words, emphasizes what a leader must not do; one must not use a position of power to steal from the populace or otherwise harm them. (Deuteronomy Rabbah 1:5) This is to politicians what the Hippocratic oath is to physicians: first, do no harm.

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Matot-Masei

Numbers 30:2-36:13 

 The Importance Of Intention 

The Torah's establishment of Cities of Refuge introduces the idea that intention determines the meaning of an action.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson

In this week's Torah portion, the Torah addresses the issue of unintentional manslaughter.
What is the appropriate penalty for someone who kills someone else unintentionally? Should there be any penalty at all?

Our parashah discusses the establishment of six Cities of Refuge (Ir Miklat). These six cities were set aside as a permanent asylum. Anyone who unintentionally killed another person was permitted to flee to these cities. Once within their walls, the manslayer was protected by law against any revenge or additional punishment.

In this way, the Torah balanced the need to insist that killing another person is objectively reprehensible, while also asserting a distinction between murder (which is deliberate) and manslaughter (which is not). Contemporary American law makes a similar distinction, mandating a different degree of severity to correspond to the different levels of responsibility due to intention and circumstance.

Three thousand years earlier, the Torah instituted those same legal distinctions based on different intentions. One way to understand the profundity of the Torah's insight is to contrast the Biblical law with other ancient standards. Ancient Greece, Sumer, Phoenecia, and other cultures all articulated a notion of asylum. In those civilizations, a murderer could flee to a local shrine and gain protection at the altar of the local deity. Whether or not the death had been intended was irrelevant to the power of the shrine to protect the murderer. After all, the pagan idol was no less holy, no less powerful, just because the murderer intended to kill his victim.

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Pinchas

Numbers 25:10−30:1

Pinhas in America?

The Torah portion deals with intermarriage, a problem we know all too well today.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch

In 1962 I graduated rabbinical school and entered the army for a two-year stint as a chaplain.

Such national service was then still required of all JTS graduates before they could take a pulpit. After completing chaplaincy school in New York, I drove to my first assignment at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I arrived in the late afternoon and decided to visit the Jewish chapel where I would preside without delay. That was my first mistake.

Outside the door paced an agitated, well-dressed gentleman in civilian clothes looking for a Jewish chaplain. I revealed my identity all too quickly and smugly, my second mistake. In the office I would occupy for less than a year (the army would reward my stellar work at Fort Dix by sending me to Korea), he unloaded on me an impassioned account about his daughter who was going to marry a young Greek in basic training at Fort Dix. I couldn't tell exactly whether the father, a wealthy man from Connecticut, was furious because the kid was Christian or poor and uneducated. In fact, the father suspected him of seeking to marry his daughter for her money. He insisted that I call in the kid to disabuse him of his folly, and I, by now floundering in my inexperience, reluctantly agreed. To my surprise, the young man came when I summoned him and turned out to be good-looking and charming. Despite great discomfort, I carried out my futile task and never heard from him or his nemesis again.

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Balak

Numbers 22:2-25:9

Spirit Strength

Balak intuited an important truth about the Israelites: Their strength was spiritual, not military.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch

After two impressive victories against the Canaanites of the Negeb and the Amorites in Transjordan, the looming military might of Israel throws the leaders of Moab into a panic.

Only the land of the Moabites separates Israel from the Jordan River and the conquest of Canaan. Balak ben Zippor, King of Moab, knows that he is next.

In desperation, he takes recourse in an unconventional pre-emptive measure. He summons Balaam son of Beor, a sorcerer from Mesopotamia to curse Israel, making it susceptible to defeat on the battlefield. Though Balaam comes, God frustrates the plan. Within the monotheistic framework of the Torah, Balaam can utter only what God imparts to him. Hence he ends up in rapturous praise of Israel, to the consternation of Balak.

In an imaginative midrash, the Rabbis expatiate on what brought Balak to seize on this particular tactic. Awestruck by Moses, he inquired of the Midianites, among whom Moses had once found refuge when fleeing Pharoah's wrath, as to the man's strength. They responded that Moses' strength resided in his mouth, that is, his prayers were able to move God to act in his behalf. To neutralize that weapon, Balak turns to sorcery. Balaam's strength also resides in his mouth. His curse will trump Moses' prayers. Without divine assistance, Israel is eminently beatable (Rashi on 22:4).

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Hukkat

Numbers 19:1–22:1

This week's commentary was written by Dr. Barry W. Holtz, dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education and the Theodore and Florence Baumritter Professor of Jewish Education, JTS
This week's Torah reading opens with one of the most mysterious and incomprehensible rituals in the entire Bible. Numbers 19:1–22 describes the ritual of the red heifer—the complex practice that allows a person who has come in contact with a dead body to become "purified" of the contamination (tu'mah) that accompanies connection to those who have died. A red heifer is slaughtered, its body and blood are burned in a fire with certain woods and plants, and the ashes that remain after that burning are used in a mixture with water to create a kind of paste that is sprinkled on those who have come in contact with a corpse. The sprinkling of this "water of lustration" (in the New Jewish Publication Society translation) allows the contaminated person to return to the community freed from the tu'mah related to contact with the dead. Adding to the mystery is the fact that those who are impure become purified, but those who are already pure and then come in contact with the ashes of the heifer become impure (Num. 19:10).

This passage in the Torah has troubled interpreters throughout the ages, going back to the earliest figures of rabbinic Judaism. There is, for example, a famous story (Numbers Rabbah 19:8) about Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai (the great Sage who lived around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple), who was asked by a pagan about the ritual of the red heifer. Isn't this a form of witchcraft, the pagan remarked? Yohanan replied that in fact it is something very much familiar to the pagan himself: it is a kind of Jewish version of an exorcism ritual. Yohanan's explanation satisfied the pagan, but once the pagan left, Yohanan's students pressed him further: "Master, you brushed him off with a piece of straw! But what are you going to say to us?!" Yohanan answered them: "It is not the dead that defiles nor the water that purifies! The Holy One, blessed be He, says: 'I have laid down a statute (hukkah), I have issued a decree. You are not allowed to transgress my decree'; as it is written: 'This is the ritual law (hukkat ha Torah) that the Lord has commanded'" (Num. 19:2).

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