Parashat Eikev

Torah Portions

In Eikev (“As a Result”), Moses recounts events that happened in the desert, including the manna, the golden calf, and Aaron's death. Moses describes the blessings God will bestow upon the Israelites if they follow God’s law and the punishments they will encounter if they disobey.

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The Fruits of the Land

TANAKH

In Parashat Eikev, Moses describes the abundance awaiting the people of Israel in the promised land. Deuteronomy 8:8 is the source for the ritual category and artistic motif of the “seven species”.

a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey;

Deuteronomy 8:8

How You Angered God

TANAKH

Moses warns the people of Israel not to take God’s favor as an indication of their own righteousness. He reminds them of the many times they have angered God and retells in detail the sin of the golden calf.

I started down the mountain, a mountain ablaze with fire, the two Tablets of the Covenant in my two hands. I saw how you had sinned against your God יהוה: you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had been quick to stray from the path that יהוה had enjoined upon you. Thereupon I gripped the two tablets and flung them away with both my hands, smashing them before your eyes.

Deuteronomy 9:15-17

A Promise and a Warning

TANAKH

Parashat Eikev contains one of the paragraphs recited as part of the Shema prayer. It promises blessings for loving and serving God and threatens crises for disloyalty to God.

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving your God יהוה and serving [God] with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil— I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For יהוה’s anger will flare up against you, shutting up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce…

Deuteronomy 11:13-21

Close on the Heels

MIDRASH

The second word and name of the Torah portion, ‘eikev,’ is used to mean ‘if’ or ‘as a result of,’ but literally means ‘heel.’ Midrash Tanchuma, a collection of midrash on the Torah, offers an alternative interpretation of the opening verse of the portion, based on the anatomical meaning of the word.

(Deut. 7:12:) “And it shall come to pass if (literally, in the heel of).” This text is related (to Ps. 49:6), “Why should I fear in the evil days, when the iniquity of my heels encompass me?” May the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, be blessed because He has given a Torah to Israel in which there are six hundred and thirteen commandments, some of which are light and some weighty. But because some of the commandments are light, people pay no attention to them. Instead they cast them under their heels [while] saying they are light…

Midrash Tanchuma, Eikev 1:1

Clouds of Glory, and Also Laundry

COMMENTARY

How well would ancient clothing hold up to 40 years of desert wandering? A verse in the portion addresses this question, and Rashi, the renowned 11th-century northern French rabbi and commentator, quotes a midrash that fleshes out the story.

שמלתך לא בלתה THY RAIMENT DID NOT WEAR OUT — the clouds of Divine Glory used to rub the dirt off their clothes and bleach them so that they looked like new white articles, and also, their children, as they grew, their clothes grew with them, just like the clothes (shell) of a snail which grows with it (cf. Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4:11; Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 850).

Rashi on Deuteronomy 8:4:1

The Risk of Comfort

MIDRASH

In the Torah portion, Moses repeatedly warns the people of Israel that success could be the source of their downfall if they forget the divine source of their fortune. Sifrei Devarim, an early midrashic work on the book of Deuteronomy, summarizes this lesson and reinforces it with examples from biblical stories.

(Devarim, Ibid. 15) "Take heed unto yourselves lest your hearts be enticed, etc.": He said to them: Take care that you do not rebel against the Holy One Blessed be He. For one rebels against Him only in the midst of satiety, as it is written (Ibid. 8:12-13) "Lest you eat and be sated, and you build and inhabit good houses, and your flocks increase for you, (and whatever you have increase.") What follows? (14) "and your heart be lifted and you forget the L-rd your G-d." Similarly, (Ibid…

Sifrei Devarim 43:7

A Misplaced Death

COMMENTARY

In Deuteronomy 10, Moses unchronologically inserts his brother Aaron’s death into his recounting of earlier events. Ramban, in his 13th-century commentary on the Torah, records explanations of this seeming non-sequitur offered by earlier commentators Rashi and Abraham ibn Ezra, and then gives his own explanation.

AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL JOURNEYED FROM BEEROTH-BENE-YAAKAN TO MOSERAH. “Why does this matter belong here? Furthermore, did they indeed journey from Beeroth-bene-yaakan to Moserah; did they not come from Moserah to Bene-yaakan, as it is said, And they journeyed from Moseroth, and pitched in Bene-yaakan? And further, here it is said, there [in Moserah] Aaron died; but did he not die in Mount Hor? Go and count and you will find that there are eight journeys from Moseroth to Mount Hor! But really this is also part of the reproof [spoken by Moses…

Ramban on Deuteronomy 10:6:1

Manna as a Test

JEWISH THOUGHT

Was the manna in the wilderness a boon or a bane? Contemporary scholar Erica Brown explores tensions in how the Torah discusses the miraculous sustenance.

In Deuteronomy, the manna is not portrayed as a food of wonder but is itself a test of faith: “He [God] subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known, in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the Lord decrees” (Deut. 8:3). The purpose of this food was to enhance the sense of transition and to curb the human pleasure of eating for more transcendent goals; ultimately, the Israelites needed more than physical nourishment to endure…

Leadership in the Wilderness; Authority and Anarchy in the Book of Numbers, Part I, Chapter 6; The Aspiration Postcard 30-32

Eat, Sate, Bless

LITURGY

The practice of reciting blessings after eating a meal is derived from a verse in Parashat Eikev. That verse is quoted within one of the blessings of the traditional Birkat HaMazon, the Grace After Meals.

For all this, O Lord our God, we thank and bless thee, blessed be thy name by the mouth of all living continually and for ever, even as it is written, And thou shalt eat and be satisfied, and thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Blessed art thou, O Lord, for the land and for the food.

Birkat Hamazon, Blessing on the Land 5

Divine Desire and Free Will

TALMUD

What is in and what is out of God’s control? The Talmud quotes several teachings of Rabbi Hanina springing from a verse in Parashat Eikev about what God asks of us.

Tangentially, the Gemara cites an additional statement by Rabbi Ḥanina concerning principles of faith. And Rabbi Ḥanina said: Everything is in the hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven. Man has free will to serve God or not, as it is stated: “And now Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you other than to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all of His ways, to love Him and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12). The Lord asks man to perform these matters because ultimately, the choice is in his hands…

Berakhot 33b:23-25

..and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.. Mezuzah in Case, 19th century, Gift of the Danzig Jewish Community, The Jewish Museum N.Y.