In the Jewish tradition, we make our way through the Torah — which some readers may more familiarly know as the Old Testament — over the course of the year. Each week we encounter a new parsha, or portion, as we make our way from Parshat Breishit, the very beginning of Genesis, week by week, through the whole scroll.
Our lectionary year begins with the story of creation, shortly after the fall High Holidays, which means that late summer is the time for the late innings, the Book of Deuteronomy. So in the season of ice cream and beach days and lazy evenings that stretch into forever, our tradition is also wrestling with Moses’ urgent messages to the Israelites about the importance of keeping the Torah’s commandments and, most especially, the importance of placing God at the center.
Although Moses himself has lost the privilege to carry his life’s work to fruition and enter the Promised Land with the people he has led over the previous 40 years, he continues to instruct. (It is not for nothing that Jewish tradition calls him Moshe Rabeinu — Moses our Teacher.) Like a parent who is preparing to make that first college drop-off, Moses desperately wants to impart everything he thinks the Israelites will need in order to thrive. Time is running short, and the big themes start to feel bigger and bigger.
There is a thread that emerges over the course of a few Torah portions in this time of year. It starts with Parshat Va’etchanan, the portion we read a few weeks back. In it, Moses tells the Israelites: when you go into the Promised Land, you will find yourselves with “great and flourishing cities that you did not build, houses full of good things which you did not fill, cisterns you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant — and you will eat and be satisfied.” He goes on to issue a warning; not to forget where they came from, but rather to keep God before them in all their strivings. (Deuteronomy 6:10-13)
Then, in last week’s reading, Parshat Eikev, there’s a similar warning, the words of which form part of the daily Jewish prayers. This warning reminds us: When things go well — when we are in right relationship with the commandments and the land is generous and all is right in our world — we must take care not to turn our attention to false gods. And in particular, we must at all cost be wary not to regard our success as self-made. Human nature allows us to imagine that we deserve all the good we have and don’t deserve any of the bad. When conditions are favorable in our lives, we develop amnesia for all the advantages that are ours, not because of any virtue or labor of our own, but by chance and privilege.
Some of our success is due to hard work, yes, but there’s also the support we receive from family, friends, and community. And then there are the intangibles — what some would call luck and some would call God.
This applies to people and, I would argue, to nations. The U.S. enjoys a good deal of prosperity and success. And yet some of us would just as soon gloss over the roles of the historic stewards of the unceded lands that we now dwell on; and the unpaid labor that built the wealth and stability we now enjoy; and the courageous and diligent immigrant population that continues to fuel so much of our society’s growth.
Not one of us individually is self-made, nor is our nation as a whole. We flourish because of one another, and because of unearned providence.
As the Torah reading continues this week, we pick up the thread in Parshat Re’eh, where we read about the Shmita year —a time every seven years when debts are forgiven, property is returned, and the land is allowed a year’s rest. As we are taught that God’s blessing comes unearned, we are obligated, every seven years, to stop taking.
All the wealth you have? It’s not yours.
The time comes for sharing blessing, for forgiveness, for return, for rest.
What follows in next week’s parsha, Shoftim, brings it home. Next week we will read in Deuteronomy 16:20, “Justice, justice shall you pursue, so that you can live and inherit the land which your God gives to you.”
The root of justice is in the sharing, the forgiveness, the return, the rest. May we seek it with the vigor it deserves and demands.
Rabbi Naomi Gurt Lind is the rabbi at Temple Ahavat Achim in Gloucester. Midweek Musings rotates among Cape Ann clergy.