In this week's Parasha, Eikev, Moses continues with his recap of the events of the last forty years and then makes it extremely clear that God will facilitate the destruction of the people inhabiting the Promised Land not because the Jews are so good, but because the others are so evil!
A good chunk of time is spent reminding the Israelites that they are "a stiff-necked people." Moses lists every single time they gave him "push back" and lets them know that God wants them to "cut away" this hardness from their hearts and "be a stiff-necked people no more." From this comes the oft confusing phrase, to "circumcise your heart" as the translation we usually hear is from the Latin, a literal translation that means "to cut around."
A good chunk of time is spent reminding the Israelites that they are "a stiff-necked people." Moses lists every single time they gave him "push back" and lets them know that God wants them to "cut away" this hardness from their hearts and "be a stiff-necked people no more." From this comes the oft confusing phrase, to "circumcise your heart" as the translation we usually hear is from the Latin, a literal translation that means "to cut around."
You'll also find this familiar section of the V'ahavta -
Again, we are presented with a "Ripped from Today's Headlines" section about possessing the Land. If we read it, then perhaps we can begin to understand why in Israel today, the Ultra-Orthodox feel that they contribute to Israel's existence by praying and observing the Mitzvot.
18 Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a -symbol on your forehead, 19 and teach them to your children — reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; 20 and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates — 21 to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth.
22 If, then, you faithfully keep all this Instruction that I command you, loving the Lord your God, walking in all His ways, and holding fast to Him, 23 the Lord will dislodge before you all these nations: you will dispossess nations greater and more numerous than you. 24 Every spot on which your foot treads shall be yours; your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River — the Euphrates — to the Western Sea. 25 No man shall stand up to you: the Lord your God will put the dread and the fear of you over the whole land in which you set foot, as He promised you.
Let me leave you with some lyrics from the score of the film classic Exodus. "This land is mine, God gave this land to me,
This brave and ancient land to me."
This brave and ancient land to me."
Let these words be a mantra that we repeat over and over again as we read and listen to the news. Between cease-fires and negotiations let's not forget how long our attachment to this specific piece of real estate has been.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rose
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