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Parashat Eikev – 5785
August 11, 2025
Rabbi Greg Schindler (’09)
The Heart of the Matter1 A D’var Torah for Parashat Eikev by Rabbi Greg Schindler (2009) In this week’s D’var Torah, Rabbi Greg Schindler digs deep to see if there is a central lesson hidden in our Parashah. If you are a frequent reader of Divrei Torah, then you are probably familiar with some of the great Torah commentators: Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra and many others have helped generations to better understand the weekly parashah. But what if I told you that there was a Torah commentator even more ancient than these great scholars, older even than the Talmud? And more “plugged in” than any of them. Well, there is such a commentator, and it has been hiding in plain sight for millennia. That commentator is the Torah itself2. No, this does not require any Torah “codes” or the use of gematria (ascribing numbers to letters). Rather, the Torah comments upon itself using certain literary techniques3. For example, the...
Parashat Eikev 5784
August 19, 2024
Rabbi Marge Wise (AJR '21)
Parashat Eikev brings to mind a personal remembrance – it was the first parashah which I called by its name!
Parashat Eikev 5782
August 18, 2022
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah Of Bread and Potential A D’var Toraj for Parashat Eikev By Rabbi Katy Allen (’05) The grass dries out in the heat– it’s brown now. Flowering plants, and even shrubs, are wilting, their leaves dull and stiff, the bright blue of the sky day after day broken only by occasional fair-weather clouds, as the temperatures soar and relief doesn’t come. Here in my yard, the visible life and death question is focused on plants, and perhaps some pollinators or creepy crawlers in the soil (though the bunnies and woodchucks no longer graze outside my window, and I’m wondering where and what they are munching instead). Elsewhere, however, earthlings are dying. Humans cannot live by bread alone, (Deuteronomy 8:3) our Torah text tells us, and some rabbis say this means we actually can live on less– although I find it impossible to imagine...
Parashat Eikev 5781
July 29, 2021
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah The Ties That Bind A D’var Torah for Parashat Eikev By Rabbi Enid Lader (’10) In his book Be, Become, Bless: Jewish Spirituality between East and West (Maggid, 2019), Rabbi Dr. Yakov Nagen points out that the internet age is characterized by the unprecedented access to limitless information. However, all this information alone is not sufficient to generate change in our lives; true change comes about through deeply internalizing the knowledge. This requires a shift in consciousness; helping us to do and to be. (p. 286) Eikev, our Torah portion this week, contains the fourth of as many passages from the Torah that mentions tefillin. These passages, written on parchment and placed in the boxes of the tefillin serve as a reminder of four basic principles in Judaism: 1. Exodus 13:1-10 – Our obligation to remember the Exodus from Egypt 2. Exodus 13:11-16 – Our obligation...
Parashat Eikev 5780
August 6, 2020
A D’var Torah for Parashat Eikev By Cantor Sandy Horowitz (’14) In an episode of the Peanuts comic strip by Charles Schultz, Linus tells his sister Lucy that he wants to be a doctor. She replies in her big-sister way, “You could never be a doctor, you know why? Because you don’t love mankind, that’s why!” To which Linus replies: This seems to illustrate Moses’ feeling towards the Israelites in Parashat Eikev. One can’t argue with his commitment to the Israelites as a people (“mankind”), while at the same time we experience his deep frustration with their behavior. As they prepare to enter the Promised Land, Moses’ words include a series of rebukes as he tells them, “You have been rebelling against the Lord since the day I have known you” (Deut. 9:24). He recounts their transgressions in detail – how they built a golden calf idol, and how the scouts...
