Parashat Ekev

 

Rav Haim Lifshitz

 

 

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 Three Paths in serving God:
Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut Hasadim.

 

 

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

 

 

   “On three things, the world stands: On   

Torah, on Avoda, service, and on Gemilut  

Hasadim, acts of generous kindness.”  Would

 it be relevant to try to determine which of

?these is preferable

 

In Parashat Va’Etchanan we find the “Shma Yisrael” that deals with accepting the yoke of Heaven’s rule, while in our parasha, Parashat Ekev, we find “VeHaya Im Shamo’a,” the continuation of the “Shma” that deals with accepting the commandments.

 

The way of the world, and of the religious perceptions of other peoples, is that the masses adopt beliefs crawling with superstition – ghosts and demons, quasi-mystical beliefs such as astrology and numerology and what not – and compress into these their own fate and their own hopes, on their road to the One Who dwells on high.  They then attribute to Him such titles as king of the demons or ruler of witchcraft and mysticism.

 

Whereas logic and methodical continuity, they save for themselves, out of the goodness of their hearts.  Rationality and clarity they entrust, as it were, into their own faithful hands.  It lies with human creatures, dwellers of dust and rust, despite the temporariness of their own existence.

 

Yet they are the first to humbly admit that their supposedly powerful hands fall slack the moment any force of nature strikes disaster upon them.  Their approach is astonishingly split: During periods of routine, when the world is running as it should, man is king.  Suddenly when disaster strikes, as is the way of nature – which man has no part in – his hands slacken in utter despair.  Yet he is oblivious to the contradiction and fickleness entailed in his approach.

 

Even a Jew who is whole in his faith and at peace with his belief, and who seeks the well-being of his fellow Jews, finds himself in a constant state of dilemma as to where to draw the line and where to lay the limits of personal effort and hishtadlut, how much to make use of the pathways of financial and scientific logic – when facing problems of livelihood or health.

 

He inquire into things, he investigates frantically: In whose hands shall he entrust and which direction should he choose for his efforts for livelihood and health.  At such moments, he tends to forget that the One Who rules all, and Who encompasses the entire problem of survival, is the King of the universe, and it is in His certain and faithful Hands that the keys to livelihood and health lie.

 

An awareness of this sort would have to endow him with the mida of bitahon, a personal character trait whose main features are trust and confidence in God.  It would then be bitahon alone that would determine the boundaries of his hishtadlut

 

We are not referring only to efforts on the practical/technical plane.  We mean mainly on the spiritual plane, that lies deep within his life force.  It is there that bitahon must determine the extent to which anxiety or seriousness or bother or excitement should be aroused or moderated, when facing any survival issue whatsoever, whether in the area of livelihood or health. 

 

The mida of bitahon is the litmus test of the level of one’s connection with one’s Creator.  It is bitahon that must determine which paths of hishtadlut – be they rational/logical, practical or intellectual – one must take in order to properly cope with the survival problem one is facing.

 

For every person and for every situation, there is a different mida, a different measure of bitahon.  This mida is determined by the power of the dvaikut within the depths of the life force, which is created each time anew. 

 

Indeed there is a whole tangle of trials waiting to envelop, energize, or strangle the individual on his path of survival.  The phrase “do not bring me to the point of being tested,” accompanies and justifies the test and the trial.  Denying the need for hishtadlut means fleeing the incessant need for confrontation, which has been decreed upon human beings in their struggle for existence.

 

Escape methods are many and miscellaneous.  One person might immerse himself extensively in prayer, while neglecting – some more, some less – his obligation to exert himself, to invest hishtadlut in earning a livelihood for his hungry family, while another person may neglect his health to the point of reaching a life-threatening condition, because he views resorting to doctors as a spiritual deficiency that borders on apostasy, demonstrating a lack of trust in the One Who dwells on high.

 

Others put all of their energies into hishtadlut, investing incessantly in survival efforts.  This hishtadlut empties them of all their resources of time and emotion and other vital resources, so they are left with no leisure to occupy themselves with “‘serving God:’ This means prayer.” 

 

Which of this group is more God-fearing?  It is difficult to say.  The one has advantages and yet also disadvantages, which relate to one extreme, while the other, from the opposite direction, has advantages, yet also disadvantages that are no less severe.

 

Among the peoples of the world, the work of connecting directly has been handed over to religious professionals, whereas the employment of rational means is the lot of the majority, and especially of those who view themselves as talented and successful in the sciences and in technology.  Such people are exempt as it were from relating to the Creator of the universe, Who is then left to the mindless masses, who attribute to Him the title of king and ruler of the mystical realm, as mentioned above, and this realm is the source of their fears.

 

The Torah seems to complicate matters even further by claiming that the universe is established upon yet another foundation: Involvement in Torah, as a path of serving God in its own right, and as a way of life.

 

A guiding motto accompanies anyone occupied with Torah: “Whoever occupies himself with Torah is exempt from the yoke of government and the yoke of livelihood…and his work is done by others.”  Indeed?  A casual survey of the workings of the world would show evidence for this claim to be highly ambivalent at best.  Which means that a casual survey is inadequate to shed any light on the problem.  Casual surveys only create smoke screens, complicating the problem and deepening the test.

 

There is no escaping the need to delve deeply, to get to the bottom of the issue, for the sake of gaining clarity and building the foundations of bitahon, which alone can save the believer from the entanglements of trial and tribulation.

 

Among the peoples of the world, a certain path of serving God directly has won popularity and captured all hearts.  It is a path requiring one to officially ignore every other path.  Necessarily, such a perception has created a cult of monastics, men and women, monks and nuns, for whom monasticism has become a profession, and very often a position of power in every sense of the term, including monetary power and political influence to a significant degree.  The business of these professional worshippers of God is prayer.  They deal in prayer, which has become the instrument by which they serve themselves and by which they serve whoever believes in the power of their prayer.  Their profession is conspicuous, by their appearance and by their clothing.

 

We must admit the truth – that the likes of these have penetrated into our own midst as well, into our own camp.  They are to be found among ourselves, people who attribute the power of prayer to religious professionals, who efface themselves and do not trust in the power of every Jew’s prayer.

 

There is no doubt that the Torah looks askance at the development of an exclusive class of “worshippers”.  This is not only because it claims the authority to divest the other classes of their power of prayer.  A second reason for the Torah’s criticism of professional worshippers is that this social class becomes exempt from hishtadlut, as it were.  Those who hold the status of worshippers are exempted from the requirements of hishtadlut through natural means, and it all takes place out of an arrogant contempt for those who do occupy themselves with hishtadlut.  They view the latter as lesser worshippers, if they may be even called worshippers at all.

 

Some join this sect out of laziness, being unwilling to exert efforts of hishtadlut, claiming theirs is the only true path, as it were, and that there is no other.  Their method is to self-justify through the use of partial quotations of Biblical texts such as those found in our parasha: “And now, what does God require of you, except to fear Him.”  To this they join Hazal’s comment on this verse: “Everything is in the Hands of Heaven, except for fear of Heaven.”  To this teaching of Hazal’s they attribute the distorted meaning that all hishtadlut as it were is in the Hands of the Holy One, and we have nothing to do but rely on Him, and not to participate with Him in any way in hishtadlut.  What they are attempting to say is that hishtadlut only interferes, and does not assist in solving the problem.

 

Hazal’s intention is to focus on the truth that everything is in the Hands of Heaven, by dealing with hishtadlut specifically, so as to fulfill the verdict decreed on Adam HaRishon when he was evicted from Gan Eden: “By the sweat of your brow, you will eat bread.” 

 

This is a verdict decreed on every human being without exception.  There is no way to bypass this trial and this test: To relate to the natural ways of the world with appropriate seriousness, yet all the while to know and to believe that the source of blessing does not lie in this preoccupation, but rather all things come directly from heaven.  As it says: “I will bless you in everything that you will do.”  This means, you will do, because of your obligation of hishtadlut.  You will prepare the vessel to hold God’s blessing.  This vessel you are required to toil over and to prepare, if you desire life.

 

The attempt to bypass hishtadlut is found in the depths of each of us, in our longing to return to Adam’s primal condition of Gan Eden, where every toil and effort was done for him by heavenly beings.  They prepared even his meals for him; he had no effort to make and most importantly, there was no fight for survival lurking at his door.  Out of this longing for Gan Eden grows the tendency to err with delusions of grandeur, which is the source of the tendency to laziness.

 

Obviously the Torah does not encourage this tendency.  To the contrary, the Torah places upon man a heavy burden and a difficult mission: To make use of the life of physical matter in order to sanctify it, to use it as an offering of sacrifice, as a part of one’s service of God.

 

The other side of the coin of this temptation is to immerse oneself head and shoulders in the business of existence.  Such involvement also presents a danger, which appears in our parasha as well: “Lest you forget God, your Lord”.  “In order that you will remember…that “not on bread alone does a man live, but rather on all that comes forth from the mouth of God, man lives.” 

 

The Torah presents this ideal, the merging of spirit and matter.  Yet it should be pointed out that this ideal merging (and we have mentioned it elsewhere) exists mainly in the Holy Land.  In the Diaspora, the merging of matter and spirit is less successful.  There, one must minimize physical matter and maximize the spirit on one’s path of serving God.

 

A Preoccupation with Torah

 

It is not incidental that the service of God is called preoccupation with Torah, rather than study of Torah, because what characterizes this path is a breadth of knowledge that encompasses the universe and all that it contains.   Under the hems of its mantle, it collects all of universe and human being, both theory and practice, and spirit and body as one.  What is most characteristic of the Torah occupation is its exclusivity.  From here we find that someone who is solely preoccupied with acts of generous kindness for his fellow human beings, for the sake of heaven, out of the depths of sensitivity to their pain, and out of utter devotion and self-sacrifice – he too is called one who walks the path of Torah, just as one who is preoccupied all his days with the interactions of Abayai and Rava, and who teaches Torah and writes Torah hidushim, is walking the path of Torah, and his status is higher than all the others.

 

By the power of his learning, he brings the Torah down from heaven to earth, as Moshe Rabeinu did in his time, and the keys of Heaven were given to him, to bestow abundance of blessing on earth.  Someone preoccupied with Torah bestows shefa no less than – and indeed more than – someone who is preoccupied with prayer.

 

The preoccupation with Torah focuses on the essential substance.  It activates the best of the creative quality with which the Holy One has graced that choicest of His creatures, man.  The one who is occupied with Torah applies the rules of serving God as they are written in the Torah, the halachot, the legal rulings, as well as the conceptual principles, such as: “You shall do what is right and good,” (meaning above and beyond the legal rulings) in the best way possible, and he immerses all of these into physical matter. 

 

In this way, unity is created between spirit and physical matter.  Spirit finds tangible realness, and physical matter serves as garb and garment for the spirit.  Thus container and content are formed.

 

An important principle stands behind these remarks: The spirit of creativity in man, the Godly quality characterizing the essence of the one formed in God’s image, finds that preoccupation with Torah provides the best of self-expression.  The study of Torah encompasses one’s material world within one’s spiritual world, all as one: One’s details and one’s whole, one’s private and one’s public, are enveloped in unity and perfection.

 

 

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