Eikev: Living With Eyes Wide Open

By Eric Lenefsky

Perhaps the most famous line in all of פרשת עקב is משה רבינו's question to בני ישראל, ועתה ישראל מה ה' אלקיך שואל מעמך? And now, Israel, what is it that God wants from you? And Moshe says כי אם ליראה את ה' אלקיך. Hashem wants you to fear him. Moshe adds a bunch of other things, not topic for now.And the גמרא asks is יראת ה', is fear, is awe of God such a simple task that anyone can do? Seemingly not, seemingly it's something we all struggle with for a lifetime. So why is it that Moshe makes it seem like יראת ה' is such a simple task? This is the גמרא says, לגבי משה, that by משה רבינו it is an easy task.

So the people ask for that, okay, Moshe is speaking to בני ישראל, not to himself, so how are we meant to understand this? And I think the explanation of the כלי יקר does away with that question and offers a nice perspective on the topic.The כלי יקר says that the words לגבי משה should be translated literally, that by משה רבינו, in משה רבינו's vicinity, this is an easy task. And he focuses more on the word ועתה ישראל, and now, ישראל. He's saying, you people who have left Egypt, you people who have witnessed incredible things in the desert, both miraculously good things and punishments, you have seen what Hashem can do. You've lived a life surrounded by God, surrounded by miracles.

So for you, fear of God should be an easy thing. But for the rest of us, that might not be so. We didn't see these great miracles. So what are we meant to do with this?רבינו נסים, הר"ן, writing after the bubonic plague says that for his parents' generation, yeah, maybe they couldn't have יראת שמים, maybe it was a very difficult task because they lived in great peace and harmony.

Everything was fantastic for them. But for his generation who went through a pandemic that wiped out 50 to 75% of Europe, they, they could understand what it means to have יראת ה'. They could understand what it means to have fear of God. And we've used this דבר תורה in the past to discuss our personal challenges, but I think on a national level, it's significant as well.And that we are still in a war, we're still missing hostages of our brethren of בני ישראל.

Things are not perfect. We witnessed a lot of miraculously good events. We've seen the fall of Syria, חיזבאללה, and attacks that dismantled to some degree Iran's nuclear program. We have seen such tremendous things, and at the same time, we've seen such tremendous losses.

And so you could focus on one, you could focus on the other, you could focus on both, but to completely ignore what we're going through, to view it as just another day in the world, is ludicrous. The times that we live in are special times. And we have to acknowledge that. And living in that reality, acknowledging that reality, is the first step to having better יראת ה', is to see what happens in the world around us, to notice the crazy things that are happening every day in this country.

And by doing so, we can be on that path to having יראת ה', and maybe we could even say that יראת ה' should be an easy task for us. May we be נזכה to live up to that challenge, to open our eyes, see what is happening in the world around us, and by doing so, be able to connect better to God.