In the past, Parsha Eikev has been equated in terms of one’s being attentive to the little Mitzvot; the details, the Mitzvot that one tends to overlook, to ignore, to tread one’s heels on in the mad dash, but without which the Jewish people would lack the merit which sets us apart from common man.
We learn “For the land to which you come, to possess — is not like the land of Egypt from where you came…” (Sefer Devarim, Perek 11, posuk 10.)
A parable is given to explain the posuk; A son once asked his Father for counsel on seating arrangements for banquet celebrating the Bris Milah of his new-born son.
The son felt embarrassed for the poor people who were always seated at the end of the table and he wished to honor them by seating them at the head of the table while placing the wealthy at the far end.
The father praised the nobility of his son’s intentions but told him that were he to carry out his plan, none of his guests would be very happy.
The father related to his son how the wealthy have plentiful supplies of food in their homes and are coming to the banquet not seeking nourishment, but seeking honor. It is best to seat them at the head of the table so that they receive the honor that they seek. The poor who seek nourishment should sit at the foot of the table where they can eat undisturbed and away from the limelight. <1>
This same differentiation can be made between Israel — Am Yehudi and the other nations.
The nations, the heathens of the world are like the poor at the banquet, they seek only to satify their bodily needs and they can accomplish this in any part of the world, but not in our Eretz Yisrael HaKadosh.
But the Jewish nation does not place it’s emphasis on materialistic satisfaction and has always sought the higher, more spiritual aspects of life. “They are to be recognized and honored by the rest of the world. Therefore, they have been placed in Eretz Yisrael where the eyes of the world are fixed upon them. (Tehillim 104) In this way, their good deeds can be observed by all. At the same time, however they must be careful not to desecrate Hashem’s laws. If they unfortunately do so, they will be degrading the Torah in full view of all other nations, thereby causing the unspeakable tragedy of ‘Chillul Hashem.'” <2>
What we viewed last year, and indeed for the previous year and a half of the advance of the Expulsion has been a Chillul Hashem of the highest magnitude. There were at least a dozen junctures where this Gezeira Rah could have been reversed politically. But politicians will be politicians.
That the B’nai Yisrael, that the Jewish people, that the religious community were for the most part complacent on Yom Pakuda, the day when the expulsion was put into force. Many, most went about their lives unfazed, as they shopped, went to work and ran here and there as though nothing had happened even as the loudspeakers blared on every street as to what was about to happen on Yom Rishon, Yom Pakuda if not prevented, was a huge Chillul Hashem. Where was the march on Gush Katif by tens, lo hundreds of thousands of Jews? Where was bringing the country to a halt thereby forcing the evil ones from pwoer while standing, hundreds of thousands to block the police and the IDF from the evil mission? By this, do we merit Eretz Yisrael and most favored nation status from Hashem?
And so now, a heretofore totally self-sufficient segment of the Jewish Nation stands destitute thanks to the hand of the evil regime.
There are at least 2 Rabbis out here calling upon B’nei Yisrael to beg and beseech the Gush Katif refugees for forgiveness, as Rav Chaim Zev Malinowitz writes; “to beg and beseech them to perform a kindness for K’llall Yisrael, lifnim mishurat Hadin (beyond the letter of the Law), and thus hopefully put an end to the [Divine] retribution [the current war in Lebanon and in Gaza and the resultant displacement of hundreds of thousands of our brethren] occurring on their behalf.”
Rabbi Yehoshua Hecht seems to indicate that even more than merely begging forgiveness is necessary in his Torah article on the Israel National News website where he equates the current war with “A Lesson from the Arizal” about a Divine threat of locusts ascending upon Safed todevour all her vegetation because a Tzaddik “complained about his bitter lot and no one has come to his aid: ‘Heaven can no longer bear his complaints.'” And so a collection of funds was made and a representative was appointed on behalf of the community to go to this Tzaddik with the contribution and “admonished him to stop complaining about his bitter lot.”
And so too, this author wrote a commentary beneath Rav Malinowitz’s call;
It is simply not enough to beg and beseech our brethren from Gush Katif and the 4 Shomron towns for forgiveness beyond the letter of the law without providing some tangible proof, evidence that we will, in fact, never again sit idly by while our fellow Jews are victimized, persecuted, robbed, expelled at legalized gunpoint.
When our fellow Jews are in t’zar, we can never again continue to go on with our lives, business as usual, either oblivious to t’zar or unable to take independent action regarding an obvious aveirah owing to silence and lack of assertive actions on the part of various segments of religious leadership. Without such a commitment, our pleas for forgiveness appear empty, due to one’s narrow pain and inconvenience of the moment.
Therefore, this author proposes that a covenant of unity be vowed in light of our pleas begging and beseeching the representatives of the Gush Katif communities for their Mechila, for their forgiveness.
In short, just as Yehudah and the brothers exerted themselves on behalf of their youngest brother Binyamin before the Viceroy (Yosef), 2nd only to Pharoh in Mitzrayim, thus showing Yosef that they had learned from incident of Yosef being sold into bondage in Mitzrayim, so too, in order to merit forgiveness beyond the letter of the law, this author holds that our Gush Katif brethren must have no doubts that we are committed with our very beings, that what happened last year, that expulsion, that uprooting of Jews will never again be permitted or tolerated. That we will never again be apathetic — because “it’s not at our door.”
What is written above therefore, is no small, seemingly inconsequential mitzvah, not like throwing one’s spent cigarette butt in the trash can rather than stomping on it with one’s heel and then leaving it on the ground of our Eretz Yisrael HaKodesh as one walks on. But then again, the Tzar of our Gush Katif brethren, and the neglect by masses of us of it may just be reconned in the same light in Shemayim as that seemingly minor Mitzvah and that we ought to seriously contemplate the Divine gravity of last year’s neglect of our brethren and how we can bring about forgiveness “beyond the letter of the Law” and what we can do to rectify the chet.
May it be in this year and beyond, that our brethren; the refugee families from Gush Katif and the Shomron (may they soon be restored to new homes and neighborhoods, Bati Knesset, Yeshivot in Gush Katif and the Shomron and only happiness and success for all time), as well as our dear brother, Jonathan Pollard (may he soon know freedom and long life in Eretz Yisrael), that the lives of the 3 captive Chayalim be central in our thoughts, prayers, chassadim and actions. May this abominable period of history called hitnatkut be as a bad dream.
May we be zocha in this coming year to take giant steps toward fulfilling Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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<1> & <2> L’lmod U’lamed, Rabbi Mordechai Katz, Parsha Eikev, page 167.
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Moshe Burt is an Oleh, writer and commentator on news and events in Eretz Yisrael. He is the founder and director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network.