In one parasha you have the contradiction that defines much of our lives. Ekev is the expression of opposites, the opposites that, properly understood, enable both compassion and initiative.
On the one hand is the imperative of responsibility. “Ekev tishme’un” – if you listen. Here is the generation of the wilderness laid out in all its glorious irresponsibility. You have consistently disobeyed, the people are reminded. We know that God forbade the generation of Egypt from entering the Promised Land because of faithless ingratitude. When you enter the land, they are warned, your behavior will determine your fate.
The second paragraph of the Shema, contained in our parasha, is perhaps the best-known example of this charge of responsibility. Be good and the rain will fall. Disobey and your crops will not grow. The Torah firmly establishes that what happens to you is a result of what you do.
Yet God says, on the other side – “Do not say to yourself... ‘The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness’” (Deut. 9:4). In other words, it is not a consequence of your behavior that you are entering the land. What happens to you is sometimes the inexplicable result of God’s favor or disfavor.
What is responsibility and what is fate? This is not a simple question in general or in any individual life. In politics people debate whether a certain group has succeeded or failed because of effort or environment: are we victims, or victors, because of our choices or our circumstances?
Ekev places both of these ideas before us without seeking to reconcile them. One might conclude that we are to learn that the evil that befalls us we deserve and the good is unearned, but that is too cynical a conclusion. The Torah offers every combination: goodness is acknowledged and sometimes rewarded, good fortune is sometimes unearned (Lot is saved because he is Abraham’s nephew, not through his own decency), and wickedness is not always punished. The Rabbis (and Job before them) make clear that the righteous sometimes suffer and the wicked prosper. Yet at the same time we hold to an ideal that your life is shaped by your actions.
When we ask whether a person’s accomplishments are a result of their own merit or circumstances beyond their control, there is no clear cut answer. Was that person born with a brain that worked? In a society organized to support (or at least permit) the success? If so, we must admit that much of our accomplishments are unearned. Yet many others are born with gifts and do little. Effort and ambition are as determinative as giftedness and good luck.
The story Moses recounts in Ekev of the tablets help us to a partial resolution. The first set of tablets were a gift, and Israel proved unworthy to receive them. For the second set Moses had both to carve them and to build an ark for them. The new tablets were the product of effort, and they endured. They were still God’s gift, but also the result of partnership.
A self-made man, Mark Twain said, is as likely as a self-laid egg. God makes clear to the Israelites and to us that we cannot claim full credit for our successes; without the blessings God has given us, without the labor of those who came before us and those who surround us, no one can succeed. Equally, however, the use we make of these gifts is the measure of our gratitude for them and the quality of our achievements.
The conclusion of Ekev is the ultimate lesson. If you keep these commandments and teach them to your children, in the end you will dwell in the land. We are not promised a frictionless future nor one marked solely by success. But unremitting effort and passionate commitment will in time prevail. We cannot do it on our own, nor can we rely solely on God’s beneficence.
The Land of Israel, like all the goods of this world, is God’s gift, but the people must still fight to deserve it.
The writer is Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of David the Divided Heart. On Twitter: @rabbiwolpe.