Parashat Eqev
Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11:25
When Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was still a young man, before his fleeing the Shoah and before he became known as one of the leading spiritual voices of the middle of the twentieth century, he wrote these words: “Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and He gave it to me.”
For the rest of his life Rabbi Heschel taught that cultivating a feeling of wonder is essential for living a life of meaning and holiness. I believe that the consciousness of this value can help us read a piece of this week’s Torah portion.
Moses has hit his stride in his exhortations to the Children of Israel, seeking to prepare them for the next stage of their journey, their entry into the Promised Land. In his direct address to the people, calling on them to faithfully love God, he emphasizes their personal experience of God’s might and God’s love for Israel. His words ring forth: “Know this day that it is not to your children, who do not know and who have not seen the message of the Eternal, your Almighty God – His greatness, His strong hand and outstretched arm …[- here Moses lists some of God’s great miracles, mentioning the Exodus and the opening of the earth to swallow the rebels against Moses and Aaron] but it is your very eyes that have seen all the acts that the great Eternal One has done.” (Deut. 11:2 – 7)
But there is something strange here. Isn’t the audience that Moses is addressing precisely the generation that did not witness these things? That generation died out in the wandering years. It is a new generation that is poised to enter the land and whom Moses must prepare. So how could Moses get it so backwards as to insist that he is speaking to the eyewitnesses of God’s miracles?
To understand Moses’ impassioned appeal, we must remember what God actually decreed when the Israelites were condemned to wander and die in the wilderness. We should remember that this verdict was applied to anyone twenty years old or older. That means that there was a substantial population of people who were youngsters – children, even – who were spared when God made this decision. And these children and young adults did, indeed, witness the Exodus and all the rest. While the bulk of the population was now comprised of people who did not witness Israel’s amazing journey, it is at this point that Moses explicitly turns to those who survived. And he calls upon them to summon up their memories of what they witnessed long ago, in their “wonder years,” when they were innocent and young enough to experience the enormities of God’s interventions with naivite and wonder.
It is not the veracity of the eyewitness report that Moses seeks to arouse and utilize. Rather, it is his hope that this older generation – who were once the young ones! – will give the gift of wonder to the next generation, those who will bear the greatest burdens of securing the land for all. This is, indeed, a crucial part of every generation’s challenge, as they seek to teach the next generation. It is not only about information, or even memories, per se. Rather, to build a bridge to the future we must also reach back to our own past, to our own youthful hope and wonderment. Adding to the chain of tradition is about creating a chain of wonder.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein
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image: “the wonder of it all, baby” © “Eric Hunsaker” used with permission via Creative Commons License.
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