The Essence

Eikev (Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25) opens listing the rewards the Jews receive for keeping G-d’s mitzvahs. G-d guarantees to overthrow the kingdoms living in Israel to allow the Jews to live and prosper there. The Jews are warned not to be distracted by physical comforts so as to forget G-d, or they will be punished. Then they are reminded of all the good and miracles G-d performed for them and His forgiving of their numerous provocations, including the sin of the golden calf. Moshe tells how he carved the 2nd tablets and learned Torah with G-d for 40 days and nights. Moshe goes on to praise G-d, encourage the Jews to follow His ways, and recognize His great deeds done on their behalf. Since the Land of Israel especially requires rain, it requires G-d’s close attention. (Verses 11:13-21 are the second paragraph of Shma), G-d will cause good rains to fall (as well as other rewards) if the Jews keep His commandments.

The name of our Parsha—Eikev—has a few different interpretations. Rashi understands that Eikev refers to those commandments that are treated lightly, that people tread upon with their heel—eikev—meaning that these laws are the last thing one would worry about. Rashi explains that if we will follow even the ‘lighter’ commandments, we will receive the blessings enumerated in the beginning of our parsha. The Baal Haturim, connects the end of last week’s parsha to the beginning of this week’s. Last week’s ends with “Do (the mitzvahs) today!” The Baal Haturim connects this to the first words of this week’s portion: “In the end—eikev—you will hear.” Put together, all this means that when Mashiach comes (in the end of days), we will get the reward for the mitzvahs we do now. Rebbe Michael of Zlatshuv follows the Baal Haturim but with a twist. “Do the Mitzvahs today because, “In the end—eikev—you will hear”: in the end you will anyway follow all the commandments, so why wait… do it now! With the 9^th of Av behind us, reminding us about the sadness of the exile, and our momentum-building journey towards the High Holidays just beginning, the Rebbe is forceful: He said that it should be G-d’s will that each of our efforts in spreading Judaism to others, which we do with joy, will bring the desired result—the promises stated in the beginning of the parsha. In the end—eikev—finally, you will hear, that the Almighty has fulfilled His covenant and the kindnesses that He swore to your forefathers. This is why it is imperative that every Jew voices his and her frustration with the current exile. It is incumbent on each of us to shout, “Until when?!” How long do we have to wait until the redemption happens already? Moreover, because of our shouting, we will cause the immediate redemption to happen now!

The Talmud discusses the difference between seeing and hearing an event. Someone who hears an event is not impacted in the same way as someone who visually witnesses it. The affect of seeing is more indelible and complete. Therefore, when the redemption occurs our spiritual efforts will not be only on a level hearing (as the verse in our portion says, “In the end you will hear”) but even on a level of seeing, which has much greater advantage. This is promised in the verses “...and your eyes will see your Teacher”; “And all fleshly beings will see together...”; “And everyone will point with his finger as it says ‘and he will say, here, this is my G-d...’”

A person might ask, aren’t miracles happening all around us every minute; don’t we just need to open our eyes and through Divine Providence we can see G-dliness revealed? The answer is that this is a quality of the times that we live in. We are so close to the final redemption, the entire world is already automatically moving toward a higher level of clarity. And this itself gives us encouragement and pushes us to learn more Torah and do more mitzvahs, so that we can see that G-d is the Source of everything. This will cause us to realize that, “in the end we will hear” is NOT enough, we want to SEE IT! We want to merit the ultimate redemption, when we will be able to see the essence of G-dliness, similar to the Giving of the Torah 3350 year ago.

Around the turn of the century, the two biggest financial firms in the U.S. each had a major stake in controlling a cross-country railroad and was trying to close on the last leg somewhere in the center of the country. The companies were Lehman Co. and Morgan Co.. Each had agents negotiating to buy the last piece of land to make the railroad coast to coast. A couple of hours before Shabbos, the Lehman agent finally struck the deal, to the chagrin of the Morgan people. Lehman’s agent telegraphed NY for the OK. In NY, it was candle lighting time. Though Mr. Lehman was not Shabbos observant, he learned from his father to refrain from doing business on Shabbos. Mr. Lehman refused to approve the deal till that Saturday night. In the meantime, the Morgan people got new financing and closed the deal. Of course, everyone at Lehman was depressed. They quickly sold out their share of the railroad and watched as Morgan Co. began to invest more funds in the railroad. Interestingly, less than 10 years later Henry Ford invented radical manufacturing methods making cars and trucks the most effective travel method. The value in the railroad went down to 10 cents on the dollar. With plenty of capitol on hand, Lehman Co. was in the forefront and overtook Morgan Co. as the national financial leader. What do we learn from the story? Simple, 100 years ago, sometimes G-d's Providences took a while. But today, if we shout...