TORAH SPARKS
Parashat Eikev
August 5, 2023 | 18 Av 5783
Torah: Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25 Triennial: Deuteronomy 7:12-9:3
Haftorah: Isaiah 49:14-51:3
Empty Quivers
Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Parashah
What does it mean to be the most blessed? What is the very highest blessing that God can give us? How is it that God promises to differentiate us from the other nations? Through the words in this week s parashah: Blessed shall you be more than all the peoples. There shall be no sterile male nor female among you nor among your beasts.
Just as we enter the land and fulfill our side of the covenant, God is giving us the means to fulfill God s side. We will be able to not only take the land promised to us but also to greatly increase in number because of our fertility. Each and everyone of us and even of our animals will be fertile.
The verse speaks of both male and female fertility. While today this is common and accepted scientific discourse, discussion of male infertility is uncommon in the Tanakh. A parallel to our verse in Exodus 23:26 reads, There shall be no woman miscarrying or barren in your land. The count of your days I will fill, with female infertility mentioned and male infertility absent.
Likewise, the plot of Genesis is driven by the barrenness of its women. Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel all experience times at which their wombs are closed by God. The covenant is passed down from generation to generation by these women during the times at which God chooses to open their wombs. Fulfilling the first commandment, we are able to be fruitful and multiply only when God chooses to allow the women to be fruitful. The opening of the wombs of these women is read as a sign of divine favor, of chosenness.
Similarly, Israel is imagined as a barren woman, to whom God gives children when God chooses to do so. As we will read in the haftarah in a few weeks, on returning from exile we are exhorted to Sing gladly, O barren one who has not given birth for he who takes you to bed is your Maker, the LORD of Armies is His name, and your redeemer is Israel s Holy One, God of all the earth He is called. And in this week s haftarah, we find an image of someone else bearing our children for us, while we ourselves are unable to bear children. We imagine ourselves as barren women both in our foundational stories and in the telling of our exile and return in order to show our dependence on God.
Yet here, in our parashah, we explicitly imagine ourselves as barren men as well. This is most unusual. The patriarchs are never described as barren. The closest we get to male infertility in the Tanakh is the image of Sarah laughing at the idea of her aging husband being able to give her sexual pleasure and also in the scene in which a very old King David can t get warm with a young woman to accompany him. There is, perhaps, also a hint of male infertility in the idea of levirate marriage, that while one brother may not have produced children by his wife, his brother would be able to do so. But male infertility is not explicitly discussed.
The meaning of male infertility in the ancient near east is linked to more than inability to produce children. There is a fantastic ancient Assyrian potency incantation that reads: May the quiver not become empty! May the bow not become slack! Let the battle of my love-making be waged! Let us lie down by night." The mixing of sex and war metaphors in the incantation likely also applies to our verse in Deuteronomy. When we are promised an end to male infertility, it can be read as an end to men who are not able to fight for their country and pleasure their wives. It is not, as is the case for female infertility, a sign of relationship with God. (Of course, the ultimate sign of our covenant is circumcision, which is a uniquely male phenomenon that does perhaps relate to the idea of fertility.)
The Talmud also records a discussion of the weirdness of male fertility appearing in the Tanakh. In Bavli Bekhorot 44b, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi explains that male infertility refers to lack of students while female infertility refers to lack of prayers being received. In the same passage, Resh Lakish uses the idea of male infertility to promote urinating when the need strikes and not holding it in. Neither reading provides a definite answer to why the issue is raised in our parashah.
I choose to read the inclusion of male infertility as a reflection of the utopian nature of the passage. In imagining a perfect world, we are wishing an absence of pain onto everyone, giving blessings to all whether or not they are needed at the moment.
Prophecy College
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Haftarah
Rarely do prophets speak about their personal experience of being prophets, and Isaiah seems to do so even less than some of his fellow prophets. But in this haftarah Isaiah takes us into his personal space for a few brief verses (vv. 4-9). Let us look at some of that experience:
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught,
That I should know how to sustain with words he that is weary.
He wakens morning by morning,
He wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
The Lord GOD has opened my ear,
And I was not rebellious,
Neither turned away backward. (Vv.4-5)
Apparently, being a prophet is not simply a matter of receiving a revelation, it requires having been taught. Reading through our prophetic texts we discover traces of such an education as they suggest other texts that their listeners should be familiar with to fully comprehend the references. For example: Isaiah might hint at the Exodus from Egypt (as he did in last week s haftarah) or at the story of the creation. Jeremiah s second chapter resonates with themes from Hosea. Micah speaks about the end of days in an almost-identical prophecy to Isaiah chapter 2, albeit changing its ending and its message. We discover that our prophets (at least those who whose words have reached us) are quite educated and well versed in the world of prophetic and other literature (including that of other nations myths); much as today we might expect a writer to be skilled in matters close to his or her trade if we are to take their opinion seriously.
Isaiah tells us his perception of his role. We might have thought that a prophet s job is to forward God s word to the people, but Isaiah suggests a much more delicate task: He is supposed to know how to sustain with words he that is weary. Know how to formulate words into a message that conveys the support of God to those who hear it. A prophet must figure out how a message might penetrate the hearts of his audience, bringing about change. Isaiah is facing a weary generation, one that is losing hope. His words are crucial for continuing the connection between the people and God.
All this requires open ears, for a good messenger needs first to listen. God opens his ears, makes him able to listen, to accept. The message might not be a pleasant one to receive, and even worse to translate to a transformative experience for the audience, but he does not balk.
When we step outside with Isaiah we meet the bitter reality of many a person with a message: no one is interested, or worse: I gave my back to the smiters, I hid not my face from shame and spitting (v.6). Indifference and ridicule have met many a prophet, of God or of other ideas.
From the distance of about 2500 years we can admire Isaiah s determination while appreciating the effort of those who listened and believed and made sure that his messages reach us. As we read these haftaroth, we are invited to join the audience of Isaiah. What kind of audience would we be?
What Berakhah Do I Say After Eating
This?
Rabbi Joshua Kulp
The Halakhah in the Parashah
For the past few weeks I ve been at Camp Ramah in New England, my beloved summer home. I want to paint for you a picture of what a typical meal looks like for me. I sit down at the staff tables, begin to eat my food (the food is quite good here!) and I look up and I see someone approaching me. The age is usually somewhere between 20-24, old enough to be staff but not senior staff (here I m considered ancient). I m sort of hoping they re coming over just to be nice, to say hi Josh, or now, hi Rabbi Kulp. How are you? How was your day? But that will not be the case. The question is inevitably, what berachah do we say over . and a little less often, what berachah do we say after? Sometimes, they re just curious, sometimes I think they really want to ask me something else, but this is a good icebreaker, but most of the time the system of berakhot before and after eating is just really confusing.
Parashat Ekev contains the well-known verses that are the source of Birkat Hamazon, the blessing recited after eating. The following is Deuteronomy 8:6-10:
6: Therefore keep the commandments of your God: walk in God s ways and show reverence.
7: For your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill;
8: a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey;
9: a land where you may eat lehem (bread or food) without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper.
10: When you have eaten, and been satisfied, bless your God for the good land given to you.
Verse 8 mentions what later comes to be known as the seven species with which Israel was blessed. Verse 9 mentions lehem, which in the Bible means food or maybe meat, but by rabbinic times usually means bread. Verse 10 is the source for the positive commandment of blessing after eating food. The gist of the verses seems to be that whenever you eat and have been satisfied, you should bless God for the food that comes from the land.
But of course, in rabbinic law, nothing is ever so simple. In at least two places in tannaitic literature the rabbis create a two (and eventually three) tiered system for ranking foods and which berakhah is recited after eating which food. In Mishnah Berakhot 6:8 there are three positions as to when the full Birkat Hamazon is recited and when an abbreviated one is recited:
If one has eaten grapes, figs or pomegranates he blesses after them three blessings, the words of Rabban Gamaliel.
The sages say: one blessing which includes three.
Rabbi Akiva says: even if one ate only boiled vegetables and that is his meal, he says after it the three blessings.
A similar dispute appears in Tosefta Berakhot 4:
Rabbi Yehudah says in his name: Anything [made] from the seven species [for which the Land of Israel is blessed] and is not a type of grain or [it is made from] grain which has not been made into bread,
Rabban Gamliel says: [After eating it] he makes the Three Berakhot (Birkat Hamazon).
And the Sages say: [After eating it] he makes the One Berakhah.
And anything which is not from the seven species [for which the Land of Israel is blessed] and is not a type of grain,
Rabban Gamliel says: [After eating it] he makes the One Berakhah, And the Sages say: He does not make any berakhah [at all].
This is a classic case where it helps to see that normative behavior is being shaped mainly by midrash, rabbinic interpretation of the verses, and not, or not exclusively, by what rabbis simply think should be done. According to Rabban Gamaliel, there is no option of not reciting any concluding blessing whatsoever. To him, it seems that verse 10 refers to verse 9, but that Rabban Gamaliel interprets lehem as all food, as it can mean in the Bible. Thus the species in verse 8 receive a special blessing, what we call Birkat Hamazon and the tannaim called Three Blessings. And anything that s not one of these species receives a concluding blessing, but a lower level one what was called back then, One Berakhah and in the Bavli is called, One Berakhah out of Three.
The other rabbis read lehem as bread. Since bread is made from grains, and those grains were already mentioned in verse 8, it must be that bread receives a higher blessing, Birkat Hamazon. The species in verse 8 receive the lower blessing, One Berakhah. And this leaves no concluding blessing at all for any other food. This is remedied in the Bavli and subsequent halakhah by the creation of a third type of blessing, Bore Mine Nefashot.
Rabbi Akiva in the Mishnah seems to be anchored in a different element of the verses namely the phrase, and you have been satisfied in verse 10. The types of foods mentioned in verses 8-9 do not play a factor in what blessing one recites. Verse 10 is read in isolation and therefore as long as one is satisfied with what they ate ( it is his meal ) they would recite Birkat Hamazon.
Today, as would be expected, we follow the ruling of the sages. Birkat Hamazon is recited after meals based on bread, the One Blessing (known usually as Al Hamihyah) is recited after eating grains or one of the seven species, and Bore Nefashot after everything else. But I want to emphasize here a point that people sometimes miss. Rabbinic law is a combination of rabbinic thought and biblical interpretation. Through halakhah, verses in the Torah that were at times not meant to be law, are transformed into such. Concluding blessings over food bring to mind chapter 8 of Deuteronomy, a chapter which reminds us not only that we should be thankful for our food, but that there was a miraculous time in our history when God taught us that there is something that can nourish even more than food God s words.