Parsha Eikev is 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. The little mitzvot, the small details are the ones epitomized by V’Ahavtah L’re’echa Komocha — caring for your fellow Jew as for yourself.
And so, we find Parsha Eikev placed on the heels of the end of Parsha Vaetchanan’s teachings regarding tefillin and mezuzah.
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, and indeed the concept of Eikev mitzvot;
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 [normally] 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>
Reflecting back over three years, and indeed for the previous year and a half leading up to the Expulsion, one can only view what occurred as 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.
Remembering back, the reflections mirror the feelings of those days; 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 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? And so now, a heretofore totally self-sufficient segment of the Jewish Nation stands destitute thanks to the hand of the evil regime.
By this, do we merit Eretz Yisrael and most favored nation status from Hashem?
But, it seems that each year after Tisha B’av brings it’s new opportunities.
Recently, a young woman, a former soldier who took part in expelling Jews from Gush Katif wrote in part;
I’m sorry that I evacuated you.
I took families out of their homes forever, I put them on buses that took them to nowhere. I sinned against them.
I remember every picture that I took down from the walls of their homes in Gush Katif. I remember every girl, every young woman and mother who I instructed to leave her home forever. Now, three years later, I, a soldier of the evacuation forces, was discharged a long time ago from the IDF, but I still haven’t freed myself from the disengagement. Therefore I write my feelings today.
On the third anniversary of the evacuation of Gush Katif, I want to ask forgiveness. I am sorry that as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, I took an active and actual part in removing Israeli citizens from their homes.
Where is the mutual caring?
I was educated in a school and a youth movement, where they taught us about mutual caring toward all parts of the population. Where was this education in the disengagement? In the blind obeying of an immoral command?
This author wrote back, in part, as follows;
No thought seemed to be given by these young men to the wider issues such as;
- 1/ The morality of a military order for Jew to expell Jew from Jewish Land.
- 2/ The Kedusha of the Land of Israel of which Gush Katif is part.
- 3/ The impact of precedence upon the Arab enemy, the terrorists — Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, the Pa. etal.
- 4/ The impact of the great heartening which was given the above terrorists which inspired the Kassam bombardments which formerly struck the Gush Katif towns daily, now turned full-blast these past 3 years at Sderot, the other Negev towns, Ashkelon, etc. as well as the kidnapping of soldiers and the Lebanaon conflict.
- 5/ The impact of giving credence to Arab claims that the Land of Israel never belonged to the Jews; For if the Land was the Divine possession of the Jews, why would they so easily give it away?
- 6/ That the government of Israel, having seen that they could institute and succeed in forcing thousands of Jews from their homes, neighborhoods, parnossa and Batei Knesset and stealing their belongings and their lives and never provide even a fraction of restitution; that prime ministers under Israeli governance and leftist institutions could successfully barter away sectors of B’nai Yisrael and parts of Jewish land in order to avoid prosecution for their personal political corruptions and wrong-doings.
I have noted deep feeling and sincerity which has gone into your request for forgiveness. Hashem gives us all tests.
What matters is, in my humble opinion, that we learn from our failures, our shortcomings. It seems to me that there can be no greater vindication of the honesty and sincerity of the forgiveness being asked than if, confronted with a similar test in the future, that one not hesitate to protest a heinous wrong being done or about to be done our brethren. That even at the cost of loss of parnossa, even at a cost of how friends or contemporaries will hold of a person, possible legal consequences, etc. one must not accept and tolerate a grievous, immoral wrong done by the government toward any sector of the governed, the Jewish people.
May we, the B’nai Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard and captive Gilad Shalit and the other MIAs be liberated alive and be returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem and that we fulfill 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, as Dov Shurin sings; “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, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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