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 21st 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.
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