Parshas Eikev: Emunah Now

 It seems to be that this year there has been a surge in the publication of works on Emuna, on faith, and Bitachon, trust in Hashem. The works, both old and new, line display tables of the Jewish bookstores, and it is impossible not to recognize the tremendous need that Jews today feel for connecting to our True Source.

 The topic of emunah in the 21^st century can be complicated. Those of us raised in the mixture of western society know that emunah means far more than faith or belief, even as we live surrounded by a society in which faith and belief are the end goals of religion. Indeed, even in the most recent of movements of wokeism, what you believe is what defines truth. That is not emunah.

 Emunah takes work. That work is defined almost succinctly by Devarim 10:12: “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your God ask from you all, just that you fear with awe Hashem your God to walk in His path and to love Him and to serve Hashem your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” Neither Moshe nor the Torah define this as Emuna, but our tradition teaches us that true emunah and bitachon (faith and trust) in Hashem means knowing that all that Hashem does is for the good and therefore trying to do everything in the way that Hashem wants.

 If the Torah makes clear what we need to do to serve Hashem, why do we need so many books on emunah? Perhaps part of that answer comes from our very human desire to ignore the idea that Hashem created and runs the world on a concept of consequences, on cause and effect. Hashem controls every aspect of the universe (as the parsha also notes: Behold, the heavens to their uttermost reaches belong to your God Hashem, the earth and all that is on it!) but He set that universe up to specific parameters and then set even more specific parameters for the Jewish people.

 This week’s parsha, which talks so much about what Bnei Yisrael must do and feel, is parshas Eikev. which opens: “And it will be the consequence if you obey these rules and observe them carefully, your God Hashem will maintain faithfully for you the covenant made on oath with your fathers” (7:12). Eikev, consequence, that which comes from an action… this is how Hashem created the world. The world has consequences. Emunah has consequences. In the Shaar Habitachon it is pointed out that if a person is determined to believe in the power of money or avodah zarah or even himself, then Hashem allows him to live life with that delusion, allows him to experience the consequence of that false faith.

 When one lives with emunah and bitachon, however, the consequences result not in a demonstration of wealth and glory but in the symbiotic relationship in which a person truly  lives to love and serve Hashem and therefore feels the constant wealth of Hashem’s blessing.

 We today publish so many books on emunah because in the age of technology and in an era of hedonism, those consequences are harder and harder to witness. We live in a time where things seem to be going so very wrong and yet understanding how it is wrong is a critical part of emunah and bitachon. Even in the darkest moments, Bnei Yisrael must hold fast to the fact that “Yet it was to your ancestors that Hashem was drawn out of love for them, so that you, their lineal descendants, were chosen from among all peoples—as is now the case” (10:15).

 This Shabbas, or whenever you can throughout your days, take a moment and think about that most critical relationship. Start with gratitude, with the recognition of what Hashem has provided, and take the steps to let your emunah grow. (There are probably several books I might suggest!)

 We are all works in progress on emuna and bitachon. It’s a journey; it’s work – But it’s worth it.

 Wishing you an uplifting Shabbas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parshas Eikev - From Manna to Minim

In the beginning of this week’s parsha, Pashas Eikev, there is a seemingly benign description of the giving of the manna. This description is a prelude to a direct contrast to what Bnei Yisrael could expect after entering the Promised Land, which is a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil producing olives and honey - a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, you will lack nothing in it” (Devarim 8:8-9). This description of Eretz Yisrael is well known, but it is not commonly realized how it contrasts with the manna.

This section of the Torah begins with the statement: “And He afflicted you and let you go hungry, and then fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your forefathers know, so that He would make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but rather by, whatever comes forth from the mouth of the Lord does man live” (8:3).

The language here seems quite drastic. Did Hashem afflict them? Did he let them go hungry? It is almost possible to read this in a sarcastic nuance… how many times have we heard our children whine - or complained ourselves - “I’m starving.” Moshe here is reflecting the overwrought emotions of the nation when they complained and demonstrating to them that Hashem answered them with something miraculous, something incredible - food from the heavens. 

The manna was meant, according to pasuk gimmel, to teach Bnei Yisrael to recognize the ultimate source of our sustenance, which is Hashem. However, after reminding them further of the good Hashem did for them and the filial relationship they have with Hashem, Moshe tells them:

“For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land with brooks of water, fountains and depths, that emerge in valleys and mountains, a land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil producing olives and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, you will lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose mountains you will hew copper” (8:7-9).

Life and sustenance are about to get more complicated. There will be variety - which one did not have with manna. There will be abundance - in contrast to the manna that could be collected for only one day’s portion. And there will be work - which was not a facet of living in the Wilderness. 

One can, perhaps, see in this a fascinating comparison to Adam HaRishon. Adam was placed in Gan Eden and given everything that he needed to live a peaceful life. After the chait (sin), he had to work (“By the sweat of your brow shall you live). It was a curse, but it was also a means of enhancing humanity’s awareness of their need for Hashem.

Bnei Yisrael’s time in the desert was always limited because mankind after the initial chait cannot exist long term on unending benificence but must put in effort. Thus the manna was simple, pure, and, perhaps one might even say, limited. The wilderness was like Gan Eden in that everything was provided, but in truth, the Promised Land was the destination - lush like Gan Eden, but requiring effort, and in requiring effort also requiring Bnei Yisrael to know and acknowledge that all things come from Hashem. Indeed, the next pasuk of the perek says: “And you will eat, and you will be satisfied, and you will bless Hashem your God for the good land that He gave you” (8:10).

Moshe was telling them that they were on the verge of entering the world of abundance and variation, but that they should never forget that sustenance is not their acheivment, it is a gift from Hashem. They must do the work, but they must let the work lead them to appreciate Hashem’s graciousness.

Human beings crave a sense of success and accomplishment. In many ways, this was lacking in the wilderness. But with the freedom to achieve comes the possibility of forgetting the ultimate source of success - Hashem. Remembering that everything - our trials and our triumphs, our successes and are failures - come from Hashem, is not an easy task (as i think most of us know). In Parshas Eikev, the Torah records Moshe’s eternal reminder to help us stay focussed on the real work we have in this world…to follow the path of Hashem. 

I wish you all a beautiful Shabbas.

Parshas Eikev - Love-Eat-Pray

In Parshas Eikev there is an interesting repetition of the idea of eating and being satisfied that is located in Devarim 8:10 and 8:12. Although it is not so uncommon to find repetition in one section of the Torah, in this case the repetition is actually a juxtaposition of the right way to live life and the wrong way to live life. Verse 8:10, which states “And you will eat, and you will be satisfied, and you shall bless the Lord, your God, for the good land He has given you,” is the conclusion of the description of the experience of Hashem’s fatherly love, a love in which we are sometimes tested in order to help us grow strong and a love in which we are rewarded with a wonderful, fulfilling, and independent national life.

 

Devarim 8:12, on the other hand, is a warning. On its own it reads: “lest you eat and be satisfied, and build good houses and dwell therein.” A seeming bracha except for that word lest…Lest you “forget the Lord, your God, by not keeping His commandments, His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day” (8:11), the previous pasuk.

 

The same idea of eating and being satisfied – an allusion to comfort and wealth – is transformed from an act that brings reward to an act that leads to destruction, and the biggest difference is the inclusion of the action of blessing, the active acknowledgement of Hashem. Devarim 8:7-10 describes living in a beautiful land of abundance. So does Devarim 8:12-13. The difference is that these latter verses are a warning against becoming haughty and forgetting all that Hashem did for us, in which case we risk being destroyed as Hashem destroyed the nations that came before us in the land.

 

How do we avoid the “lest”? How do we keep from becoming haughty? The key, we learn in Parshas Eikev, is love. It sounds a bit corny, but the term love (ahava) is used seven times in this weeks parsha. Sometimes it is Hashem’s love for Bnei Yisrael, as in 7:13: “And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your soil, your grain, your wine, and your oil, the offspring of your cattle and the choice of your flocks, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you...”

 

Other times, however, later in the parsha, the word love is used in the language of commandment, in the language of instruction: “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord, your God, ask of you? Only to fear the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, and to worship the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul” (10:12).

 

The question is frequently asked in relation to the first paragraph recited after Shema, the paragraph known as v’ahavta (Devarim 6:5-9), how can one be commanded to love? Love is an emotion. Love is a feeling. But Jewish tradition speaks of love as something we can build and control. Love is a feeling that is directly connected to acts of giving. The more one gives to another, the more one loves that other. In order to love Hashem, we must give to Hashem, which seems an impossible act.

 

How can Bnei Yisrael give anything to Hashem? He is the Almighty. It is an overwhelming concept, but it is achievable and the Torah explains how: “[Therefore] you shall love the Lord, your God, keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments, all the days” (11:1).

 

Every time a mitzvah is performed, someone is loving Hashem. Every time one of the Torah commandments is observed, someone is loving Hashem. This is how Bnei Yisrael can give to God.

 

Another means of giving to Hashem is prayer – not the prayer itself, really, but the action of remembering and acknowledging all the Hashem does. “V’achalta, v’savata, U’VERACHTA - And you will eat, and you will be satisfied, and YOU SHALL BLESS the Lord” (8:10) is the source for the commandment to say Birkat Hamazon, the Grace After Meals. There is no more basic need than food. This seems an obvious point. But eating is actually quite complex. Eating fills far more than a sense of hunger. Eating meets a physical need, a psychological need, an emotional need, and a spiritual need. In this pasuk, eating represents all of our needs. When our needs – from the smallest to the largest – are met, we must remember to bless Hashem, to acknowledge Him as the wellspring of all that is in the world.

 

V'ahavta sounds like an easy mitzvah. It is not. It is in our nature to take our blessings for granted, to assume our own power and greatness. It is in our nature to hurry on to feed and satisfy our next need or desire. This is why v’ahavta and u’verachta are commandments.

 

Hashem loves us and wants us to live our lives in the best possible way. Our job is to remember that He has already given us the key to achieving that goal.

 

Wishing you a beautiful Shabbas

 

*Eat Pray Love was a book written in 2006 that was then made into a movie.

 

Parshas Eikev: Where Are My Blessings?

Where is my bracha? Read this as a great and piteous cry. Perhaps one theme that  (somewhat subtly) recurs in Parshas Eikev is that if you follow the ways of the Torah, your life will be blessed. So I want to know what I did to deserve this - my own current situation that is full of pain and for so many other people in my life who are struggling through situations of terrible suffering. I am not perfect, indeed I have a long way to go, but I try to follow Torah and Mitzvos. I try to keep growing spiritually, even though it’s one of the hardest tasks an individual can take on. I try to build a stronger connection with Hashem… So how do I relate when I read Moshe’s words: “And it will be, if you hearken to these ordinances, and guard them, and do them, that the Lord your God shall guard the covenant and the kindness that he swore to your forefathers; and He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you…” (Devarim 7:12-13).

If you look back at what is written above, you will surely recognize the classic question: Why do bad things happen to good people? And it is easy to understand why these thoughts might come to a person who finds themselves in a painful situation. After all, the good things that are meant to happen to those who follow the ways of the Lord are written in singular, so it seems to bear weight to me that if I observe the mitzvos then I should see blessing in my life.

This, alas, is the [spiritually] immature pattern of thought that most people suffer from. Reward and punishment is one of the basic tenants of the Jewish faith, but that does not mean that each person will understand their reward – or their punishment. It also does not mean that reward and punishment is immediate. Somewhere in the celestial realm, “records” [so to speak] are being maintained and at some time, generally believed to be in Olam HaBah (the world to come), our actions will result in their own returns.

But the words of Moshe in Parshas Eikev are so definitively here and now - “He will bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, your corn and your wine and your oil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock, in the land that He swore to your ancestors to assign to you” (7:13). And further: “The Lord will remove from you all sickness, and He will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on your enemies” (7:15) – here it really feels like the Torah must be talking about rewards in Olam Hazeh (this world).

Looking back at the beginning of these verses one sees, interestingly, that Moshe does not say “If you will follow these mitzvos.” The text says “if you hearken to these ordinances,” using the word mishpatim, which is the term used for mitzvos that are like civil law – that are meant to build a just society. One can choose to be an “upright citizen,” for lack of a better term, but if the majority of the people choose to live with a different code of law, a different sense of moral right and wrong, then inevitably, one will also be brought down. This is one of the incredibly important lessons one can learn from the Midrashim on Parshas Noach. The hamas, violence, described in that generation was not murder and fighting, as we think of it today. It was about the corruption of morality, about the dissolution of civilization as people chose to live life by putting their individual desires ahead of everything else. It was the opposite of mishpatim, even as their generation had “rules and laws.” Those rules and laws were corrupted.

The significance of mishpatim and the seemingly individual blessings listed in Devarim 7 is that the singular is really the nation as a whole. When our nation as a whole fully follows the ways of Torah, then each of us can be blessed. But there is such a long way to go, and the path is only getting longer and steeper. Stepping back to the comparison above to the generation of Noah, it is not a difficult stretch of the imagination to see how the Western World of the 21^st century, the world in a which a good portion of Bnei Yisrael currently reside, is struggling not to fall into the individual-centered mind-frame that destroyed the generation of Noah. This is not just a comment on the general world. It is also a comment on the so-called observant society, for, inevitably, the societies in which our people dwell tend to leach into us. The shifting in moral viewpoints is incredibly subtle but there, nevertheless.

The opening of Parshas Eikev pricks at a person’s inherently selfish nature, their desire to be blessed and to live a life of goodness and ease. At the same time, this section, and a great deal of Parshas Eikev, is rife with warning. The mishpatim are not just a set of laws;They are a moral compass for our nation. When we as a people truly live according to the mishpatim, we will see blessings.

This being the case, one could easily despair at the idea of ever succeeding in getting all, or most, or even a lot, of the Jewish people to guard/observe the mishpatim. But here too we must look at the words of the Torah for inspiration and understanding. The second half of Devarim 7 is written in the singular second person because at the same time as one realizes that the promised blessings are based on the behaviour of the nation as a whole, one must realize that the only person that one can make certain is living according to the mishpatim is one's self. Each of us needs to regularly assess how much of a different moral standard has entered our point of view and readjust accordingly. And while this may not result in one’s own personal challenge ending, or resolving in the way that one hopes, your actions, each of our actions, have a great impact on the whole of the nation and move us closer to a time when we will each truly see the promised blessings.

 

 

The Actions of Others (Eikev #3)

It would be lovely to live in a world where people did not judge one another, where the way one dresses, or the neighborhood one lives in, or the family into which one was born did not have any impact on what someone else thought of them. It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where people were patient enough to listen to the whole of a story, from all perspectives, before deciding who is right and who is wrong, or more drastically, who is righteous and who is wicked. Alas, until we enter the promised future of messianic times when the "wolf will dwell with the lamb" (Isaiah 11:6), we must focus on recognizing this predisposition to judgementalness and learning what purpose it can serve in ourselves. For this, we can turn to this week's parsha, Parshas Eikev

About to send B'nei Yisrael to conquer the promised land, Moshe warns the people: "And when the Lord your God has thrust them from your path say not to yourselves,'the Lord has enabled us to possess this land because of our virtues,' it is rather because of the wickedness of those nations who the Lord is dispossessing before you " (Devarim 9:4). The important part of this pasuk is not that the people of the land were wicked, but that the people of Klal Yisrael should not see the punishment - or the reward, for that matter - of others as a reflection on themselves. They were destroyed for their wickedness, therefore, we are righteous? No, quite the contrary. Seeing the consequences doled out to others should be a warning, a cause for questioning - if we are to have this land, what must we do to avoid such a fate?

Moshe spoke these words to Bnei Yisrael in the wilderness, but it can certainly apply to interpersonal interactions in any era. When someone acts in a way that upsets you, do not speak ill of them or berate them, rather take a few moments and assess whether you act in a similar way and if this is a character trait that you yourself can improve on. 

Interestingly, the next verse sounds almost verbatim to 9:4. "It is not because of your virtues and your rectitude that you will be able to possess their country; but it is because of their wickedness that the Lord your God is dispossessing those nations before you, and in order to fulfill the oath that the Lord made to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (9:5). No actions occur outside the vacuum of history and concurrent life. When politics do not go your way, recognize and acknowledge that the long term plan is very long and extremely well hidden in front of our faces. Someone might be elected today due to a cause that began a hundred years ago or for an effect in an as-yet-unknown future. When that person that cut you off speeds into traffic and get pulls over, do not take it as a time to gloat. Maybe he was late for a job interview or maybe his being pulled over saved him from an accident. The ticket is punishment for his actions not a reward for anything you did. Perhaps you merely witnessed these events as an opportunity for you to become a more conscientious driver. 

In case the message was missed, the text does it again! "Know, then, that it is not for any virtue of yours that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff necked people” (9:6). Because human nature likes to gloat, one should never settle on one’s high-horse and assume their own virtues - that their right is the only way. In fact, Moshe immediately reminds Bnei Yisrael just how prone to misdeeds they are when he says: “Remember, never forget, how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the wilderness” (9:7). 

We are in a time of supreme judgementalness. Our society has become a hot-pot of assumptions about what other people are thinking, wanting, doing… Moshe’s triple warning toward self-reflection is thus particularly pertinent for us to contemplate. God will dole out the consequences as needed, our job is simply to work on being our best selves as ovdei Hashem. 

Not by Bread Alone (Eikev #2)

“Not by bread alone” is an idiom that most people know but don’t even realize comes from the Torah. Sadly, it has also become a somewhat trite expression that people use to infer a right to excess. The original verse containing these words is Devarim 8:3, in which Moshe recounts how Hashem let the people hunger so that He might provide them with manna “in order to make you know that not by bread alone does man live, rather by everything that emanates from the mouth of God does man live.” In the wilderness, Hashem gave Bnei Yisrael a very concrete means of understanding that Hashem is the source of everything. He provided them with all of their needs, right down to ever-fresh clothing.

It is interesting that God gave humankind a rather limited short-term memory. In times of want people turn to God. They cry out, plead, and cajole. What happens in times of plenty? Man claims victory over the forces of nature.

A few weeks ago, as many Jews around the world refrained from eating meat as a sign of mourning, there was a not-so-surprising uptick in conversations about the Beyond Burger, a veggie burger promoted as being incredibly close to the real thing (reviews appeared to be mixed).  Similarly, there has been a steady stream of media conversations about the Impossible Burger, which contains plant heme cells that make it “bleed” like real animal meat.  And, if I am not mistaken, at least one kashrus organization has ruled that meat made from the molecular structure of stem cells could be pareve. Scientists around the world are full of a sense of triumph. In this way, and in many others, man has created food.

This is the significance of bread. As Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch points out: “Lechem (bread) is the food ‘wrested’ from Nature and the competition of your fellow men. ‘Bread’ is the product of human intelligence mastering Nature and the world. So that ‘bread’ represents human intelligence creating the continuance of its existence by mastering nature in social co-operation.”  And even when we cut out nature and create food in a lab, it still falls into the category of Rabbi Hirsch’s abstract lechem.

One could say, without much hesitation, that Judaism is fully prepared for such an abstract culinary concept as “cultured meat,” meat grown in a lab. One of the main brachot said before eating food is “She’hakohl nihiyeh bidvaro – who brings about all things by His word.” In this one concise bracha, even the newest edible invention reflects the eternal truth.

There is an important connection between food and blessings that comes up just a few verses later in the chapter: “V’achalta vsevata uverachta…” (8:10), words many of us mumble through or race past on a regular basis during Birkat Hamazon. “And you shall eat and you shall be satisfied and you shall bless.” In a commentary based on the teachings of Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik was the following interesting insight (here abbreviated) connected to this idea:

“The Shechinah, the Divine Presence, resides with us on earth…we encounter the Shechinah continually. Yet God is not clearly revealed to us; He is hidden from view: ‘Behold I come to you in a cloud’ (Shemos 19:9) …The obscuring cloud takes on any number of guises. For the physicist, the cloud is mathematics. For the biologist, the cloud is chemical reaction (etc.) ….The cloud is any manifestation of nature or man that promotes the illusion that the world operates automatically, concealing the reality that God is responsible for all that occurs on earth…When one recites a bracha, he in essence is saying ‘Master of the Universe, You are hidden behind a cloud; no one sees you. Yet, as I drink this glass of water [or eat the Beyond Burger], I reveal Your presence. The very fact that I can eat that my body absorbs food, that I can digest…Through this recognition I am removing the obscuring cloud.”

The job of removing the cloud is never ending because human nature and modern society constantly pull the obscuring cloud back over our eyes. Nehama Leibowitz beautifully stated the lesson God was trying to provide: “Just as your progress in the wilderness was only made possible through visible miracles, so your existence in ‘the wilderness of this world’ with its ever-present serpents and scorpions is only possible through hidden miracles. Though in place of water from the rock of flint and the manna of heaven there will be here underground water, springs, rain and bread from the ground, the latter too are heavenly gifts originating in His bounty and not the product of ‘my power and the might of my hand.’”

Cellular agriculture is now being used to try to create meat, dairy, eggs, coffee, and even whisky. As what was once science fiction becomes part of our reality, the pressure of the cloud hindering our ability to perceive the Shechinah will probably grow stronger (until the light of Mashiach blasts it to smithereens!).  Being a person of faith is becoming an exception where once, even superficially, it was the norm.

It is all the more important, therefore, that Bnai Yisrael remember the manna. We must eat and be satisfied and bless. We might even eat and be satisfied and bless a “cheeseburger” that really did once seem impossible! Bnai Yisrael need not hesitate to accept new science as long as the ultimate credit is given to the Creator of All Things.

Bibliography

Hirsch, Rabbi Samsom Raphael. The Pentateuch: Volume V Deuteronomy. Translated by Isaac Levy, Judaica Press, LTD, 1999.

Leibowitz, Nehama. Studies in Devarim. Translated by Aryeh Newman, The World Zionist Organization, 1980.

Soleveitchik, Rabbi Joseph B. Chumash Mesoras Harav: Sefer Devarim. Compiled and edited by Dr. Arnold Lustiger. OUPress, 2018.

Just Wait Until Your Father... (Eikev)

In classic, stereotypical parenting, the type that makes one think of Leave It To Beaver, a mother wishing to draw a line of discipline for her child would often say, “Just wait until your father gets home!” This threat left the role of disciplinarian to the father and thus was attached to dad the seemingly cliche line of “This is for your own good” (or, similarly, “This hurts me more than it hurts you”).

Until recently in history, this was considered normal parenting. In recent generations, however, we parent more gently. The father’s role is less severe and punishment is often considered detrimental. (Yes, this is a stark generalization.) Perhaps this "more gentle” idea of parenting is one of the reasons that those who disdain religion accuse God of being a hard and cruel deity, but Jews refer to God as Avinu, our father, because we see beyond the black-and-whiteness of the text and the rules and the punishments declared. We see fatherly love.

How does this connect to the parsha? Because in this week’s parsha, Moshe says to Bnei Yisrael: “And you shall consider in your heart that just as man chastises his son, so the Lord your God chastises you” (Devarim 8:5).

The Torah commentator Sforno (Rabbi Obadiah Sforno - Italy - 1475-1550) explains that “along with the commandments He has given you, He gives you a superior moral/ethical challenge to help you achieve perfection as seen from His perspective.” The disciplines - the challenges - that God gives to you are opportunities to rise above the situation.

There is a platitude that is often quote in response to challenging times and difficult situations: “God only gives you what you can handle.” That’s nice, and that’s true, but the difficult situation or emotional pain is still very real. So rather than speak about the many wonderful philosophies that could be derived from this verse, let’s look at it a bit differently.

It may seem odd to say, but in these verses it feels like a real parenting dynamic in which Moshe is the mother. Moshe’s monologue throughout the parsha shifts between warnings, reminders of the good God has done for Bnei Yisrael, recollections of the errors they have committed, and subtle appeals for them not to go astray. Taken all-together, his words reflect his love for this people he has led for 40 years. It’s a tone many of us take with our children.

Moshe is the mother figure because God is a father figure. I understand that too. My father was the final disciplinarian. In our household, he was the parent that I was afraid of crossing... He was also the parent I was most afraid of disappointing.

It is easy to read a verse like this and nod. But Moshe knew how easy it is to let this fundamental knowledge of the relationship of God and Bnei Yisrael become passé, just as a mother will push her child to go give daddy a kiss. It is easy to think that the disciplinarian is out to get you, but a fundamental belief in Jewish life is that everything God does serves a positive purpose, and we should love Him for it.