By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Eikev 5783 (2023)
Why do we do what we do? Answers vary with circumstance: hope of getting ahead, fear of falling behind, family, laws, goals, traditions, love, memory, pain, habit and more.
And why does it matter what we do? Answers vary with perspective: self-image, reward or punishment for ourselves or others, social impact, philosophy, theology and more.
This week’s Torah portion (Eikev) wrestles with both questions – our why and because. It comes at a time in the spiritual year that especially calls our attention to them.
Eikev 5783 (2023)
Why do we do what we do? Answers vary with circumstance: hope of getting ahead, fear of falling behind, family, laws, goals, traditions, love, memory, pain, habit and more.
And why does it matter what we do? Answers vary with perspective: self-image, reward or punishment for ourselves or others, social impact, philosophy, theology and more.
This week’s Torah portion (Eikev) wrestles with both questions – our why and because. It comes at a time in the spiritual year that especially calls our attention to them.
This week’s portion is named for "consequence" and "connection." Its Hebrew name (Eikev • עקב) means "because," but hails from the Hebrew word for "heel." Jacob (Yaakov • יעקב) was named for grasping at birth his brother's heel, our connection to the ground (Gen. 25:22-26).
Jewish mitzvot ("commandments," from the Aramaic "to connect") teach us to connect intent, action and consequence – in this week's portion's 1500 BCE terms, so things will go well (Deut. 7:12-13) and not poorly (Deut. 8:19-20). If so, rationally we ought to align our actions with the outcomes we seek. The assumption is that what happens is the consequence of our choices; the implication is that we deserve what happens to us.
Consequentialism – judging the rightness of action based on impact – tends to work well at the collective level. Unchecked greenhouse emissions cause climate change. Healthy lifestyles tend to enhance quality and duration of life. Petroleum-engorged societies tend to be despotic. High educational investments reduce violence. Consumer pessimism tends to reduce spending and bring on recessions. This week's Torah portion teaches us, urges us, warns us that our collective fate depends on our collective choices.
Jewish mitzvot ("commandments," from the Aramaic "to connect") teach us to connect intent, action and consequence – in this week's portion's 1500 BCE terms, so things will go well (Deut. 7:12-13) and not poorly (Deut. 8:19-20). If so, rationally we ought to align our actions with the outcomes we seek. The assumption is that what happens is the consequence of our choices; the implication is that we deserve what happens to us.
Consequentialism – judging the rightness of action based on impact – tends to work well at the collective level. Unchecked greenhouse emissions cause climate change. Healthy lifestyles tend to enhance quality and duration of life. Petroleum-engorged societies tend to be despotic. High educational investments reduce violence. Consumer pessimism tends to reduce spending and bring on recessions. This week's Torah portion teaches us, urges us, warns us that our collective fate depends on our collective choices.
But consequentialism tends to break down at the individual level, because life ain’t fair. Bad things happen to good people. Children get cancer. Pedestrians die in hit-and-runs. Hard work doesn't always pay off. And meanwhile, good things happen to folks who seem not to deserve them. Tyrants flourish. Cheaters get ahead. Dolts get promoted. People are born on third base and think they hit a triple.
So a transactional approach to life, spiritually speaking, seems no true approach to life at all. Because intention, action and consequence often don't align in individual life, theologians across many traditions re-read sacred literature through a "time-shifting" lens. In essence, they say, like actress Maggie Smith's character said at the end of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, "Everything will be alright in the end – and if it's not alright, then trust me, it's not yet the end." Christian and Muslim theologians of eschatology herald ultimate "reward" and "punishment" not in this life but after this life – amidst various notions of "heaven" and "hell." Buddhism centers on karma and reincarnation to rectify past wrongs.
How about Jews? Judaism doesn't hold doctrine so rigidly, and Jews are strikingly diverse in belief. Some believe in a responsive God (others not), a cohering universal power (others not), that we're commanded (others not), in life after life (others not), that humanity's power to repair this world reflects our own divinity (others not). As for eschatology, traditional Judaism has no afterlife "hell," but some believe in a messiah (others not), some in a messianic age (others not), some in a better world we can bring forward (others not), etc.
Conventional wisdom holds that Judaism focuses on this life rather than whatever might come next. Judaism calls us to live ethically for its own sake, and to build the best families, communities, and societies we can imagine. Many mitzvot can help us serve these spiritual goals and thereby live better lives.
So a transactional approach to life, spiritually speaking, seems no true approach to life at all. Because intention, action and consequence often don't align in individual life, theologians across many traditions re-read sacred literature through a "time-shifting" lens. In essence, they say, like actress Maggie Smith's character said at the end of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, "Everything will be alright in the end – and if it's not alright, then trust me, it's not yet the end." Christian and Muslim theologians of eschatology herald ultimate "reward" and "punishment" not in this life but after this life – amidst various notions of "heaven" and "hell." Buddhism centers on karma and reincarnation to rectify past wrongs.
How about Jews? Judaism doesn't hold doctrine so rigidly, and Jews are strikingly diverse in belief. Some believe in a responsive God (others not), a cohering universal power (others not), that we're commanded (others not), in life after life (others not), that humanity's power to repair this world reflects our own divinity (others not). As for eschatology, traditional Judaism has no afterlife "hell," but some believe in a messiah (others not), some in a messianic age (others not), some in a better world we can bring forward (others not), etc.
Conventional wisdom holds that Judaism focuses on this life rather than whatever might come next. Judaism calls us to live ethically for its own sake, and to build the best families, communities, and societies we can imagine. Many mitzvot can help us serve these spiritual goals and thereby live better lives.
Yet over the years, I've lost track of how many people have shared with me that they turned from Judaism or spiritual life because of teachings about reward and punishment in "slot machine" terms – insert a mitzvah, get a cookie; disobey, and God will strike you down. This week's portion can be read that way, and it's alienated more Jews than perhaps any other.
For some reason, I never read it that way.
When I was nine years old, I attended a Jewish day school and learned from that era's Doctrinal Teachers™ that one faces punishment for saying the Ineffable Name of God, the Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered YHVH that is a Hebrew anagram for conjugating the verb "to be." YHVH in this understanding means "Was • Is • Will Be," meaning Eternal or timeless. (It's what Judaism's Adon Olam liturgy depicts: והוא היה והוא הוה והוא יהיה... / v'Hu hayah v'Hu hoveh v'Hu yihyeh: God was, God is and God will be.)
After I learned this week's Torah portion at school, and being very nine, at recess I stood surrounded by kids and teachers, and put the teacher's teaching to the test. I yelled "YHVH! YHVH! YHVH!" at the top of my pipsqueak lungs. "Come get me!" And shocker: lightning didn't reach out for me (though the principal did).
It'd be another 25 years before I learned that the Hebrew letters YHVH (י ה ו ה), arranged vertically, hint at a human form. Each of us, whom Torah proclaims are made b'tzelem Elohim / in the divine image (Gen. 1:27), literally bears the "image" of the Name.
Over time, that's how I came to re-understand this week's portion, the core of Judaism, and our very best why and because. What if God and the meaning of life are as close as the divine fractal on each person? What if our behaviors and hurts, at the very deepest levels, are about how we yearn for relationship beyond ourselves, to be seen and known? What if we let these truths seep into our hearts without obstruction? If we truly knew that a fractal of God is as close as the next person – and, as Muslims might say, even "as close as [our] own jugular vein" (Qur'an 50:16) – wouldn't we behave differently?
We would, I suspect. And it'd be easy because instantly our awareness and choices would shift. As this week's Torah portion puts it (Deut. 10:12-19):
For some reason, I never read it that way.
When I was nine years old, I attended a Jewish day school and learned from that era's Doctrinal Teachers™ that one faces punishment for saying the Ineffable Name of God, the Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered YHVH that is a Hebrew anagram for conjugating the verb "to be." YHVH in this understanding means "Was • Is • Will Be," meaning Eternal or timeless. (It's what Judaism's Adon Olam liturgy depicts: והוא היה והוא הוה והוא יהיה... / v'Hu hayah v'Hu hoveh v'Hu yihyeh: God was, God is and God will be.)
After I learned this week's Torah portion at school, and being very nine, at recess I stood surrounded by kids and teachers, and put the teacher's teaching to the test. I yelled "YHVH! YHVH! YHVH!" at the top of my pipsqueak lungs. "Come get me!" And shocker: lightning didn't reach out for me (though the principal did).
It'd be another 25 years before I learned that the Hebrew letters YHVH (י ה ו ה), arranged vertically, hint at a human form. Each of us, whom Torah proclaims are made b'tzelem Elohim / in the divine image (Gen. 1:27), literally bears the "image" of the Name.
Over time, that's how I came to re-understand this week's portion, the core of Judaism, and our very best why and because. What if God and the meaning of life are as close as the divine fractal on each person? What if our behaviors and hurts, at the very deepest levels, are about how we yearn for relationship beyond ourselves, to be seen and known? What if we let these truths seep into our hearts without obstruction? If we truly knew that a fractal of God is as close as the next person – and, as Muslims might say, even "as close as [our] own jugular vein" (Qur'an 50:16) – wouldn't we behave differently?
We would, I suspect. And it'd be easy because instantly our awareness and choices would shift. As this week's Torah portion puts it (Deut. 10:12-19):
"So now, Israel, what does your God יהו''ה ask of you? Only this: to have awe of your God יהו''ה, walk in all God's paths, and love and serve your God יהו''ה with all your heart and soul.... And circumcise the foreskin of your hearts, to not be stiff-necked anymore."
Only this? That's all? Maybe that's everything.
We can keep our hearts steeled and defended against life's inexplicability and unfairness. We can resist the call to see and feel deeper, lest we confront the risk of meaninglessness or the hurts we've held at bay. We can't know with precision all the consequences of what we do, and we can't know for sure what motivates others, so we fill in the gaps to protect ourselves.
But we can make different choices. We can harness this inherent uncertainty to quell the unhealthy excesses of ego (which will always press belief that we know more, that we're right more, than we actually are). Knowing that we don't fully know, we can try to tread gentler on our world. We can try to treat each other with greater generosity of spirit and not assume that we know another's motives or reasons. We can try to summon awe and openness even amidst life's uncertainties.
And no matter what may happen in our limited time on this plane, we can choose to respond in ways that see and honor the Divine Name on each person.
Let that be our every why and because, our foundation, our connectedness with the world. Let that calling gently turn us, as these precious weeks lift us into the season of renewal.
We can keep our hearts steeled and defended against life's inexplicability and unfairness. We can resist the call to see and feel deeper, lest we confront the risk of meaninglessness or the hurts we've held at bay. We can't know with precision all the consequences of what we do, and we can't know for sure what motivates others, so we fill in the gaps to protect ourselves.
But we can make different choices. We can harness this inherent uncertainty to quell the unhealthy excesses of ego (which will always press belief that we know more, that we're right more, than we actually are). Knowing that we don't fully know, we can try to tread gentler on our world. We can try to treat each other with greater generosity of spirit and not assume that we know another's motives or reasons. We can try to summon awe and openness even amidst life's uncertainties.
And no matter what may happen in our limited time on this plane, we can choose to respond in ways that see and honor the Divine Name on each person.
Let that be our every why and because, our foundation, our connectedness with the world. Let that calling gently turn us, as these precious weeks lift us into the season of renewal.
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