Mati Kirschenbaum
The Book of Deuteronomy, Devarim, which we’ve started reading two weeks ago, is a collection of speeches delivered by Moses before the Israelites entered the Land of Israel. Moses is aware that he will not accompany them on this journey. This makes him anxious about the future of the People of Israel. He doesn’t know if, without his leadership, the Israelites will not lose their national and religious distinctiveness when confronted with the nations inhabiting the Land of Canaan. That’s why Moses wants to strengthen their identity by recalling events which took place over the course of the journey and have defined the national character of the Israelites. This “history review” has also a religious dimension; Moses focuses on the events that played a significant role in shaping the relationship between the People of Israel and the Eternal. As the name itself suggests, the Book of Deuteronomy intertwines descriptions of the past with a reminder about the laws revealed to Moses, the keeping of which was supposed to be rewarded with a prosperous life in the land of abundance – the Land of Canaan. At the same time Moses admonishes the Israelites that if they break the commandments, they will lose favor with the Eternal. No wonder then that the recurring motif and the main point of many passages of the Book of Devarim are the words “faithfully keep God’s laws” and “obey diligently all the laws and commandments that I (Moses) enjoin upon you this day”. In this week’s parashat Ekev we find verses expressing concisely the central theme of the Book of Devarim – a conviction about a close link between keeping/breaking [the laws] and Divine reward/punishment associated with it.
“If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving your God and serving [God] with all your heart and soul, [the Eternal] will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil… Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For [the Eternal’s] anger will flare up against you, shutting up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that [the Eternal] is assigning to you.” (Deuteronomy 11, 13-14,16)
The above succinct presentation of the consequences of keeping/not keeping the commandments was easy to remember. I think that is exactly why the sages made it a part of the Shma prayer which we recite every day. Thanks to that these verses have become one of the most recognizable fragments of the Book of Devarim. Their popularity makes us ignore the intriguing words of Moses that precede them. He states:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“For the land that you are about to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come. There the grain you sowed had to be watered by your own labors, like a vegetable garden; but the land you are about to cross into and possess, a land of hills and valleys, soaks up its water from the rains of heaven.” (Deut. 11:10-11)[/perfectpullquote]
We must remember that Moses says these words while looking at the Jordan river, the largest watercourse in the Land of Israel and at the majestic Judaean Mountains rising behind it. In this context they are an accurate observation about the topography of the Land of Israel, in which due to significant altitude differences it was impossible to construct a comprehensive irrigation system like the one the Israelites knew from Egypt. Therefore the Israelites would be dependent on rainfall, perceived as a reward for keeping the Eternal’s commandments. The awareness of being dependent on the Eternal was supposed to protect the Israelites from thinking that their prosperity was the result solely of their own hard work and ingenuity.
In the modern-day world it is hard for us to accept such a message. Both on the individual and social level a conviction is being instilled in us that success depends on our individual talents and efforts. Parashat Eikev reminds us that natural conditions have a considerable impact when it comes to determining the extent of our possible achievements.
What’s important, having mentioned the role of the Israelites in building and maintaining the Egyptian irrigation system, Moses points our attention to the role of the social structure in dealing with the limits imposed by the natural environment.
His words remind us that the ancient Egyptian civilization centered around the Nile valley was based on the oppression of slaves serving the pharaoh. The blood in the Nile, the first of the Egyptian plagues, was a physical embodiment of a critique of such a social order. The arrogant attitude of the pharaoh, who ignored this warning, led the Egyptians to an ecological and social catastrophe of the subsequent plagues. Moses reminds the Israelites that they are supposed to build a community based on a universal, collective responsibility for the state of the natural environment which surrounds them. In the Land of Canaan there is no place for pharaohs deriving benefits from subjugating nature regardless of the costs the environment and the society will have to pay for it.
In the last weeks the ecosystem of the Oder river has become a place of an environmental catastrophe of a scale comparable to the consequences of the Egyptian plagues. It has revealed the indolence and alienation of public institutions sitting idly by before undertaking steps necessary to find out the causes of the river’s pollution and to reduce the damages. The belated firing of the top representatives of the institutions responsible for protecting Polish rivers is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, this will not bring the Oder back to life. But the Torah teaches us that we can undertake actions to avoid such tragedies in the future. Just like Moses in Egypt, we can condemn egoism, incompetence and indolence of the authorities. In the face of the Oder tragedy we can, just like Moses on the bank of Jordan, build a sense of community based on caring about the nature which surrounds us. Its flourishing will be the Eternal’s reward for keeping His commandments. A journey to the contemporary Promised Land doesn’t require crossing Jordan without getting our feet wet. We must make sure that Jordan, Nile, Vistula and Oder become so clean that we are not afraid to immerse ourselves in them. I hope that this moment will come soon. Shabbat Shalom.
Translated from Polish by: Marzena Szymańska-Błotnicka
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