Soren Rothbaum [August 20, 2022] Eikev
Shabbat Shalom! Thank you all for coming in. I hope you had a safe trip. It's very nice to be celebrating shabbat with you all!
In my torah portion (Eikev) I read about how Moses is in his final days of life and is giving a speech about how the fellow Israelites need to follow, listen, and act in the ways God would like them to. Also the Israelites are reminded to “walk in God’s ways and to follow in God’s footsteps through faith, belief, and action. In Moses’s speech he reminds the Israelites of the Ten Commandments and the times the Israelites did not believe in God and had their doubts. He encourages the Israelites to follow him and remember mitzvot (which in Hebrew means laws, commandments). Also he reminds them of the story of Passover and how the pharaoh enslaved the Israelites. Moses retells the story of the time he told Pharoah to “let my people go” and started a revolution to get out of Egypt and free the Israelites from being locked up.
In Deuteronomy Chapter 7 verses 18-19 it reads
You shall surely remember what the Lord, your God, did to Pharaoh and to all of Egypt
The great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm with which the Lord, your God, brought you out.
In my mind, this verse teaches us to remember when we were vulnerable and scared, that this was a big moment in our lives, and it also teaches us how to show kindness and give care to others who are feeling vulnerable.
We learn a lot in Eikev about leadership, signs and symbols, God, sharing responsibilities, and how to manage challenging events that are a natural part of everyone’s life. All the wisdom and stories that we learn are important, but even more so when we tell them again and again. Memory and remembrance in Judaism is very important. The word zachor, meaning “remember”, occurs close to two hundred times in the Torah! The reason that we light two candles on Shabbat is often connected to two words: zachor “remember” and shamor “observe”. That’s how important memory is in Jewish tradition: that each Shabbat when we light candles we are reminded of the importance of memory and recalling the traditions that are important to pass on. It’s a beautiful custom and a meaningful symbol.
Passing on stories and lessons and being reminded to remember is important because it reminds us of ethics, morals, and tradition. We also learn to look for signs and symbols around us that signal what to do next. Signs, for example, help guide us. For example, stop signs, traffic lights, and baseball signs. The Torah portion also emphasizes that we might be frightened, but we need to figure out how to rise up and be a good leader. We learn about courage and how to do the right thing. We also learn that God is powerful and present in our lives. We retell the story to remember we were slaves in egypt so that we can understand hardship and be compassionate to others and also so we can feel gratitude for our freedom. Moses wants the Israelites to be thankful for all God has done for them to get them out of slavery.
In the Torah, so many years ago, the Israelites are being taught gratitude. That lesson is one that is important today as it was then. We can all connect to gratitude in our own lives just as Moses wants the israelites to be thankful for all god has done for them to free them from slavery. Times in my life when I am thankful and have a lot of gratitude are when my parents help me finish school work and teach me life lessons. For example, my parents have taught me the importance of focus and follow-through on my education. They teach me that if I work hard it will pay off. They have passed on the jewish tradition and the love for it. I don’t take for granted how they care for me. It’s the little things like when my parents bring home food from a restaurant or send me to camp. My sibling has also taught me many life lessons. One of those is to help me relax and not get too stressed and learn to let some things go.
My torah portion also teaches us relevant lessons about leadership through the example of Moses. I take those lessons into my own life. For instance, some lessons I have learned from the sports field are the importance of cheering people on, being positive, and having a good time together. I have also learned to have good communication with my teammates and get to know them better outside the baseball field. I have also learned perseverance and how to work hard and produce in the times I need to. Leading can also bring pressure and others can get angry and jealous of the leader. Moses knows this too. It can be hard to lead! But it's important. Leadership is also about taking care of others and the planet, and preserving what we have. We need to see life and the environment as gifts not to be wasted.
The last theme in my Torah portion I want to mention is the teaching about how to make decisions about doing the right thing and making the right choice. My Torah portion is all about the rules, or mitzvot, Jewish law, that Moses reminds Israel to follow. I think that following rules can be important, but we also need to know when it's more moral or ethical to break the rules. Following rules in a baseball game for example is important. It helps people have fun safely and holds people to an ethical standard. But rules can and maybe should be broken when they hurt others or deny others their rights. We as humans have to sit and question if that rule should be followed or broken. During the civil rights movement, people broke laws in order to defeat segregation. A time in my life when I thought a rule should be broken was when my friends and I were in our 5th period class and doing our homework to prevent doing it at home and we had a strict teacher who didn’t want us talking but wanted us to do our homework. We broke the rule by talking because we were helping out other people with the assignment. In this very class we had two teachers. Teacher A did not want us to talk and wanted us to do our work. Teacher B on the other hand thought it was great that we were working together to finish our assignment. In this case we felt that a rule should be broken for the better.
An idea I want to get across is that rules should be broken when it helps people for the better. Like when Moses helped people to leave Egypt he stood up against the laws of the land in order to end slavery and oppression.
Eikev provides us with plenty of examples on how to lead a good and moral life.
Thank you and Shabbat Shalom!