Then our parsha proceeds to recite the punishments for failure to keep that covenant and a reminder of all the transgressions over the past forty years, a reminder of each and every misdeed along the way. It goes on to offer victory going forward, warning against self-pride for what Adonai has given them.
You know, as I read this, I couldn’t help but smile a bit. My Mom of blessed memory had an amazing memory of every misstep us kids ever committed. It wasn’t uncommon during an angry lecture for her to drag out that laundry list of past misdeeds. In a sense, I think the relationship between Adonai and Their people seemed much like a parent who is raising a group of children preparing them for adulthood. In the Kaddish Symphony written by Leonard Bernstein, our narrator in a dream screams he is going to say Kaddish for Adonai. He then points out the shortcomings, the failure of the original covenant, and they enter a new covenant ultimately agreeing to “suffer and recreate each other.” Not unlike the new relationship the adult child may have with their aging parents, roles transformed by the new reality.
Another perspective from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory suggests that Eikev is all about remembering where we came from, our history both good and bad, lest we fall into the same practices again. Kind of like those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. I wondered how this Parsha might apply for us today?
Buried in this litany are the promises. We are chosen not for how wonderful we are, but the ideal we can strive to become. We do good deeds not to bring credit to ourselves but to strive towards being a better people. D’varim 10:18 says “Adonai, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends (literally loves) the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You too were strangers in the land of Mitzrayim.”
I would like to speak personally right now. I was raised to be independent and self -sufficient, part of that Texas thing I suppose. Most of my life I was. But then over the last few years, a combination of spinal issues and old age have left me using a wheelchair for my legs and living an impossible reality in an upstairs apartment making my journeys downstairs difficult at best. My wife is on oxygen and has mobility issues as well. Good people in our community, some right here in this meeting, have been so loving and gracious, helping in a host of ways, from helping with trash, help preparing for a move to somewhere more accessible, transportation, the list goes on. Overall this experience has opened my own eyes, filling my heart with gratitude, realizing that even in my so-called independent days that I still needed that thing called community. How many years ago, I had my beloved Skip and then my dear friend Dee in a horrible twist of fate died in my arms within two weeks of each other and I remember those loving souls who slipped in and out of my life, holding me up when I was lost in grief. This is what Caring Community is all about and I am so grateful to be a part of it. How in my small way I can “pay it forward.”
Rabbi Sacks writing about Eikev points out a phrase that begins the parsha. The phrase, “et ha-brit ha-chesed” (D’varim 7:12). The relationship between Adonai and Israel is defined by brit, covenant. But in addition is the call for chesed. Covenant and Love” This phrase seems to appear at key moments throughout Tanach.
Chesed according to Pirkei Avot 5:7 is denoting excess. Extraordinary kindness… towards those who have no claim on us, to those to whom it is due, in greater measure than is due to them, an imitation of Adonai’s loving kindness. Sacks suggests Chesed is “the highest achievement of a moral life.” He goes on to say “In chesed we create moments of moral beauty, that brings joy and hope where there is darkness and despair.”
I am reminded of a poem I once wrote about grief that somehow seems appropriate to all of this.
On Loss and Community (by Jessica Wicks 9-19-07)
Loneliness
descends like a dark shroud
Upon the heart which continues to beat
Even as
everything else seems to come
Crashing at our feet.
Inside the emptiness grows,
interrupted
Only by the periodic numbing pain
Beyond description and people
point where
We must go and we go, step by aching step.
Alone nothing seems to
work and
Nothing seems to help and
Nothing is all we seek in this
Oppressed
depressed suppressed
Spirit where light cannot shine
And darkness prevails.
Our
illusion of living is gone.
Our dreams failed.
Still even as we flounder,
Gentle
webs surround us
Holding us lovingly, softly. Gently without our even knowing.
It is in that cocoon where community and friends
Whose threads around us have
sewn,
Those who love and care never having left
Even if we could not feel them
there
Allowed us to slowly once again grow strong.
Weeks and months pass then
We
rejoin that community, where
Our threads of gentle strength will
Support
another, weaving webs and offering prayer.
Alone the journey is too difficult,
Our blessing is the journey that we share.
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