In the Parshah of Eikev (“
Because”), Moses continues his closing address to the children of Israel, promising them that if they will fulfill the commandments (
mitzvot) of the Torah, they will prosper in the
Land they are about to conquer and settle in keeping with G‑d’s promise to their forefathers.
Moses also
rebukes them for their failings in their first generation as a people, recalling their worship of the
Golden
Calf, the rebellion of
Korach, the sin of the
spies, their angering of G‑d at Taveirah, Massah and Kivrot Hataavah (
“The Graves of Lust”). “You have been
rebellious against G‑d,” he says to them, “since the day I knew you.” But he also speaks of G‑d’s forgiveness of their sins, and the
Second Tablets which G‑d inscribed and gave to them following their repentance.
Their forty years in the desert, says Moses to the people, during which G‑d sustained them with daily
manna from heaven, was to teach them “that man does not live on
bread alone, but by the
utterance of G‑d’s mouth does man live.”
Moses describes the land they are about to enter as “flowing with
milk and
honey,” blessed with the “seven kinds” (wheat,
barley,
grapevines,
figs,
pomegranates,
olive oil and
dates), and as the place that is the
focus of G‑d’s
providence of His world. He commands them to destroy the
idols of the land’s former masters, and to beware lest they become
haughty and begin to believe that “my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this
wealth.”
A key passage in our Parshah is the second chapter of the
Shema, which repeats the fundamental mitzvot enumerated in the Shema’s first chapter, and describes the
rewards of fulfilling G‑d’s commandments and the adverse results (famine and
exile) of their neglect. It is also the source of the precept of
prayer, and includes a reference to the resurrection of the dead in the
messianic age.
