Parashat Eikev – 5785

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 Torah may use particular words or phrases in one place, and then use the same words or phrases in another place, thereby inviting us to see how these sections shed light upon one another.

Chiastic Structure

Another technique the Torah employs is chiastic structure. A chiasm is a text where the words follow a pattern of A-B-C- C’- B’-A’, where the words at A match those at A’, the words at B match those at B’ etc. “Chiasm” comes from the Greek letter “Chi” which looks like an “X”⁴. You can see why this name was chosen by looking at a familiar example found in Genesis 9:6:

Sometimes a chiasm takes the form of A-B-C -B’-A’ where the text seeks to draw our attention to the unmatched center phrase C.

Finding a chiasm in the Torah is exhilarating – the textual archeologist’s equivalent of Indiana Jones finding the Lost Ark (albeit usually without snakes⁵).

Well, get out your fedora and bull whip, for we are about to go on a chiastic adventure! (If you would like to play along at home, I invite you to read Deut. 7:12 – 8:20.

The Search Begins

Parashat Eikev discusses the opportunities and challenges that the People will face as they enter the Land. Will they continue to follow the Torah’s laws when G-d’s Presence is more hidden? Or will they be blinded by the material world?

One somewhat unusual word jumped out at me when reading the parashah: the very first word – עֵ֣קֶב -“eikev” – “on account of” (Deut. 7:12). Thirty-six verses later, in Deut. 8:20, this word is used again. “Eikev” appears only six times in the entire Torah, and only five of those times does it mean “on account of”⁶. Here – in close proximity to one another – were two of those usages. That seemed odd.

Moreover, the entire phrase, עֵ֣קֶב תִּשְׁמְע֗וּן – “eikev tish-m’-un” – “on account of heeding” in Deut. 7:12 mirrored (with a key difference) the phrase in Deut. 8:20: עֵ֚קֶב לֹ֣א תִשְׁמְע֔וּן – “eikev lo tish-m’-un” – “on account of not heeding”.

Having found the ends of a possible chiasm, we read in from each side towards one another (i.e., from Deut. 7:12 forwards and from Deut. 8:20 backwards). This revealed more matches:

o The verse in Deut. 7:12, “G-d will keep for you the covenant (הַבְּרִית֙) and the kindness that [G-d] swore to your ancestors” mirrored the verse in 8:18: “to fulfill [G-d’s] covenant (בְּרִית֛וֹ) that [G-d] swore to your ancestors.”

o Deut. 7:14 and 8:15 looked like a pun: 7:14 used the words “akar עָקָ֥ר – and akarah” – עֲקָרָ֖ה – meaning “infertile male and infertile female”, while 8:15 used the extremely rare word “akarav” – עַקְרָ֔ב – meaning “scorpion”.⁷

o Deut. 7:14’s “or your domestic animals -וּבִבְהֶמְתֶּֽךָ ” had the same meaning as 8:13’s “your herd and flocks – וּבְקָֽרְךָ֤ וְצֹֽאנְךָ֙.”

“Where was all this heading?” I wondered.

o The word חְסַ֥ר – “remove/lack” – appeared in both Deut. 7:15 and 8:9.

o Then a mirrored phrase jumped off the page: זֶ֛ה אַרְבָּעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה – “these 40 years” – was present in both Deut. 8:2 and 8:4.

We were only two verses apart!

o One last mirrored phrase appeared: In Deut. 8:3, after “Not by bread alone,” we read, “יִחְיֶ֣ה הָֽאָדָ֔ם – will the human being live.” This is followed four words later by the exact same phrase “יִחְיֶ֣ה הָֽאָדָ֔ם – will the human being live.”

And there – right in the middle of the two occurrences of “will the human being live”– was a central, unmatched phrase:

“כִּ֛י עַל־כָּל־מוֹצָ֥א פִֽי־ ה”

 “Rather, by every utterance from the Mouth of G-d” (Deut. 8:3) 

Here is what the entire chiasm looks like:

It is not enough to find the chiasm and its center. We must ask ourselves, “What is the Torah teaching us?”

Parashat Eikev is set as the People are poised to enter the Land of Israel. Miracles – such as Miriam’s well, the manna, the clothes that never wore out – will now cease, and the world of materiality will take center stage.

Our parashah talks about how we might forget G-d in this world. When we succeed, we may say, “It is my strength and the might of my hand that have accumulated this wealth for me.” (8:17). But if we forget G-d, the Torah warns us, we lose ourselves as well. “If you forget God…you will perish” (8:19).

The antidote to this mindset is the truth taught by our chiasm:

“[Not by bread alone] will the human being live.

Rather, by every utterance (מוֹצָ֥א) from the Mouth of G-d will the human being live”

We are familiar with the centrality of Divine Speech in Creation: “Gd said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). Pirkei Avot tells us, “With ten utterances the world was created” (Avot 5:1). Imagining the great cosmic forces by which the Universe was formed, it is easy to believe that Gd’s creative utterances occurred once, at some macro-level, a long time ago. But that would ignore another miracle of Creation:

The existence of each one of us.

We may think that it is the material world – “bread alone” – that created us and sustains us. Rather, the Torah teaches, we are continuously being spoken into existence by Gd.

Our chiasm reflects this truth in both its structure and its meaning:

It is not seen, unless we really look.

Then we see that it lies at the very heart of our chiasm and of our being.

Here

hidden in plain sight

to those who really look

in the center of our chiasm

G-d is speaking

in the center of our world

to those who really look

hidden in plain sight

Here

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Greg Schindler

While at AJR, Rabbi Greg Schindler (2009) was honored to serve as President of the Student Association. He is a community rabbi in Westport, CT where he conducts classes in Talmud and Tanakh. He has led Children’s High Holiday services for over 20 years. Each year, he writes and directs a new Yom Kippur comedic play based on the Book of Jonah , including “Jonah-gan’s Island”. “Batmensch”, “SpongeJonah SquarePants”, “Horton Hears an Oy” and more.