Parashat Ekev - Sixth Aliyah

There are lands a person waters with their feet, and there is a land that waters the person’s heart. The sixth aliyah sets two farming pictures side by side and teaches that the climate of this land is itself a lesson in faith. In Egypt the water was a technique. In the Land of Israel the water is a conversation.

Not like the land of Egypt

“ha’aretz asher atah va shamah lerishtah lo che’eretz Mitzrayim hi” (the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, 11:10). There, sowing and irrigation depended on a river and on channels a person controls: “asher tizra et zar’acha vehishkita veraglecha kegan hayarak” (where you would sow your seed and water it by foot, like a vegetable garden, same verse). Rashi turns that picture into labor: “the land of Egypt had to bring water from the Nile, by your foot, to water it”, and therefore “you must lose sleep and toil” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 11:10). Facing it stands “eretz harim uvka’ot limtar hashamayim tishteh mayim” (a land of hills and valleys that drinks water from the rain of heaven, 11:11). Not control of a channel, but a lifted gaze.

An eye that never looks away

“Eretz asher Adonai Elohecha doresh otah tamid einei Adonai Elohecha bah mereshit hashanah ve’ad acharit shanah” (a land that Adonai your God seeks out, the eyes of Adonai your God are upon it always, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, 11:12). Rashi reads here a providence that keeps checking rather than a fixed stare: “to see what it needs, and to renew decrees upon it, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 11:12). This is not geography but a definition of a relationship: a land measured anew each year invites a people that lives in constant attentiveness.

The terms of the rain

“Vehayah im shamoa tishme’u el mitzvotai” (and it shall be, if you truly listen to My commandments, 11:13), and immediately the content is defined: “le’ahavah et Adonai Eloheichem ul’avdo bechol levavchem uvchol nafshekhem” (to love Adonai your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, same verse). Rashi asks what service of the heart is and answers: “service that is in the heart, and that is prayer” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 11:13). And on love he warns against a calculation of return: “do not say, I am learning so that I will be rich, so that I will be called rabbi, so that I will receive reward; rather, whatever you do, do out of love” (same).

The outcome is given in precise agricultural language: “Venatati metar artzekhem be’ito yoreh umalkosh ve’asafta deganecha vetiroshcha veyitzharecha” (I will give the rain of your land in its season, the early rain and the late rain, and you will gather your grain, your wine and your oil, 11:14), and after it “Venatati esev besadcha livhemtecha ve’achalta vesava’ta” (I will give grass in your field for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied, 11:15). Facing it stands the warning: “Hishamru lachem pen yifteh levavchem” (guard yourselves, lest your heart be seduced, 11:16), and if so, “ve’atzar et hashamayim velo yihyeh matar veha’adamah lo titen et yevulah” (He will shut up the heavens and there will be no rain, and the ground will not give its produce, 11:17). Nature itself becomes a mirror of the moral and spiritual state of national life. There is no automatic mechanism here, there is a living relation between listening and love on one side and survival and abundance on the other.

Embedding the memory in the body and in the home

The words of the covenant do not stay in the air: “Vesamtem et devarai eleh al levavchem ve’al nafshekhem ukshartem otam le’ot al yedchem vehayu letotafot bein eineichem” (place these words of Mine on your heart and on your soul, bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be frontlets between your eyes, 11:18). From there into daily routine: “Velimadtem otam et bneikhem ledaber bam beshivtecha beveitecha uvlechtecha vaderech” (teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way, 11:19), and onto the wall itself: “Uchtavtam al mezuzot beitecha uvish’arecha” (write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 11:20). Rashi hears here an instruction that continues even when the land is taken away: “even after you are exiled, be marked by the commandments: put on tefillin, make mezuzot, so that they will not be new to you when you return” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 11:18). This is how the small acts of a day become the large acts of generations, and this is the aim of “Lema’an yirbu yemeichem vimei veneichem al ha’adamah” (so that your days and the days of your children may be many upon the land, 11:21).

This land trains a person to live between heaven and earth: not to rule nature by hand alone, and not to abandon responsibility. In a land that leans on the rain of heaven, the heart too learns to be an open sky.