A D’var Torah for Parshat Ekev by Cantor David A. Lipp
The 1986 film The Disputation is a fictional recreation of the famous 13th century Barcelona debate between Pablo Christiani, a former Jew who converted to Christianity, and Ramban, or Nachmanides, the brilliant doctor and rabbinic commentator from Gerona.
Christiani makes a salient argument against our stubborn Jewish insistence to remain in our ancient faith: Based on our lowly political and social status, the argument goes, God must hate us. After all, look at their military strength and domination over us. A data-driven examination of the historical record of 95% of the last 2,000 years seems conclusive. Why not see the light and join one of the winning teams?
Our forebears confronted this claim throughout history over and over again, especially from adherents of our daughter faiths. And the sad truth is that over the centuries, many of our people did abandon ship. Threats of bodily harm and economic ruin were often persuasive even if our ancestors’ hearts weren’t fully convinced by the argument.
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Fortunately, enough of us could differentiate between God’s punishment and God’s rejection and stood fast for what we saw as our authentic relation to the Divine.
Today the argument looks different, with Israel an economic, military, and technological powerhouse. When I consider those Jews who would justify harrassing Palestinian olive growers, burning their trees, beating up Jewish activists who ally themselves with their agricultural cousins – often under the benign watch of heavily armed Israeli soldiers who choose not to intervene – I wonder whether they forget how recently the tide has turned in their favor.
Do they really believe they always have God’s approval for their actions simply as a result of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis? Does that justify these actions, and other such human rights abuses? So-called “price tag” operations and beyond?
Have they forgotten that there are other verses in the Torah that challenge this untrammeled triumphalism?
Ekev powerfully asserts from its very first word that actions have consequences. Ekev translates to “ergo” or “therefore.” The parshah includes the paragraph we recite twice daily in the Shema, which asserts that straying from God’s word will bring God’s wrath. Success does not automatically imply righteousness, nor does it give us carte blanche to do as we like.
Still, some settlers might argue that God has given us this land and all the rights associated with running any interloper off by any means necessary.
Then how do they explain that this portion commands them to love the ger (stranger), an emotion otherwise reserved for God? More importantly, they ignore the warning in Deuteronomy 8:19-20 that if we turn to false gods – in this case, belief in a false god that justifies violence against innocents – we will be removed from the land that we now live upon.
We should never assume our success is rubber-stamped or approved forever. Our actions can always be re-evaluated, and based on prophetic precedent, God tends to hold us to a higher standard of behavior than our neighbors, not a lower one.
Find more commentaries on Parshat Ekev.
One of the more powerful moments of The Disputation is when Nachmanides turns around the definition of Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant” from the Christian assumption that this is a prophecy of Jesus to the more traditional Jewish interpretation that it’s a collective description of the Jewish nation itself. This leads to a horrified response from the otherwise self-satisfied Christian authorities on site to make plain to the king just what the Ramban is saying: The Jews are the oppressed and holy entity, not their beloved Son of God who died for their sins.
If Isaiah were alive today to witness the actions of those vigilantes, would he really say they were representatives of the Suffering Servant? Surely Jews suffer today, but can the triumphalism exhibited by unprovoked and unjustifiable attacks on Palestinians be countenanced under any circumstances?
One of the interpretations of the word Ekev notes that it refers to the results of actions at the end of a process, not the beginning, as the akev/heel represents the end the way the rosh/head represents the beginning.
We haven’t reached the “heel/end” of time yet. It is not too late to reverse course and act justly instead of allowing our heels to trample the rights and property of those we are commanded to love.
David A. Lipp came to Congregation Adath Jeshurun, in Louisville, KY, as Hazzan in 1994. He is currently the immediate past President of the Cantors Assembly, the Conservative movement’s cantorial association.
