Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha, diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself. This is Ari Levisohn, and I am joined today by my colleague, Evan Weiner.

Evan Weiner: Hey, Ari, thanks for having me on.

Ari: Evan, today I want to talk to you about the $64,000 question: What does God want from us?

Evan: That is a great question.

Ari: That's exactly the question that Moshe asks in this week's parsha, Parshat Eikev. This is part of Moses's goodbye speech where he's preparing the Israelites to enter the land of Canaan, and he asks: וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל – Now, Israel, מָה יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ – what does God want from you (Deuteronomy 10:12)?

So what does Moshe answer? Well, his answer is famously a little bit confusing. He starts off by saying, “All God wants from you is to fear Him, and you should walk in His ways. But not just that; you should also love God, and you should serve Him with all your heart and all your soul. Oh, and did I forget to mention, you should also keep all of God's commandments too.”

Evan: That sounds like a lot.

A Different $64,000 Question

Ari: Yeah, much ink has been spilled on the question of what's really going on here. Moshe starts off by sounding like he's just saying, “Oh, all God wants from you is to fear Him.” And then all of a sudden he lists, like, you know, everything. But it's actually not what I want to talk about today. I want to ask another question, which honestly I think is equally as challenging, on the very first word of what we just read. Moses starts out by saying: וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל – Now, Israel, what does God want from you? So, what does that imply, that word “now”?

Evan: “Now” sounds kind of like a break from the past. Maybe it's something new going on.

Ari: Yeah, it seems like something new; either something that we didn't know before or something that didn't exist before, right? As if, you know, all of a sudden, Moses is about to introduce some new revolutionary way of serving God that hasn't existed until this point. Only, I don't know about you, but does any of this seem new to you?

Evan: Sounds pretty classic to me – you know, loving God, fearing God – sounds like things that we've been hearing throughout the whole Torah.

Ari: Exactly right. It's like, what? Breaking news – God wants you to fear Him! Sorry, Moses, we already knew that. So, you know, maybe we need to keep reading, right? Maybe the rest of the paragraph is really where we talk about some new revolutionary way of serving God. But here's the problem: By the time we get just a couple verses in, it's like we've totally forgotten what we're talking about. Let me show you what I mean. 

A Seemingly Random Collection of Verses

So we started in Deuteronomy, chapter 10, verse 12. Evan, why don't we pick up from verse 14?

Evan: Okay: הֵן לַיקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ הַשָּׁמַיִם וּשְׁמֵי הַשָּׁמָיִם הָאָרֶץ וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁר־בָּהּ – The skies and the Heavens and the land, everything in it is Hashem’s (God’s). רַק בַּאֲבֹתֶיךָ חָשַׁק יְקוָה לְאַהֲבָה אוֹתָם – Only your fathers did Hashem have this burning desire for, to love them, וַיִּבְחַר בְּזַרְעָם אַחֲרֵיהֶם – and He chose their descendants after them בָּכֶם מִכׇּל־הָעַמִּים כַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה – Them, from all of the nations, like this day.

Ari: Okay, like, why are we talking about the forefathers now?

Evan: Yeah, even as I'm reading Ari, it's like, wait a second, what's going on? I'm like, where did the Avot (forefathers) come in over here?

Ari: Yeah, and I'm sure if we sat around long enough we could come up with, you know, some reason to include our forefathers in this paragraph or with the previous verses we just read. But Evan, I got even more confused when I looked at how this paragraph continues.

So this next verse is this general warning to, I guess, stop being bad. וּמַלְתֶּם אֵת עׇרְלַת לְבַבְכֶם – And you should circumcise the foreskin of your heart, this imagery that Moses uses from time to time to basically talk about, “Stop being stubborn.” And he actually says that in the next words. וְעׇרְפְּכֶם לֹא תַקְשׁוּ עוֹד – Your neck should not be stiff anymore. Okay, so – and you know, why should you behave? Continue in verse 17, Evan.

Evan: Okay, 17. כִּי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיכֶם הוּא אֱלֹקי הָאֱלֹקים וַאֲדֹנֵי הָאֲדֹנִים – Because God, your God, he's the God of all Gods. He's the God-est God that ever did God, right? הָקל הַגָּדֹל הַגִּבֹּר וְהַנּוֹרָא – He's big, He's strong, He's wondrous. אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יִשָּׂא פָנִים וְלֹא יִקַּח שֹׁחַד – He doesn't show favoritism and He doesn't take bribes, עֹשֶׂה מִשְׁפַּט יָתוֹם וְאַלְמָנָה – He takes care of the justice for the orphans and for the widows. וְאֹהֵב גֵּר לָתֶת לוֹ לֶחֶם וְשִׂמְלָה – and He loves ger, the convert, to give him bread and clothing. וַאֲהַבְתֶּם אֶת־הַגֵּר – You should love the stranger, the convert, כִּי־גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם – because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Okay. Ari, this is really confusing.

Ari: Right. And then also somehow now we're talking about how God does, you know, justice, and loves and takes care of all of these disadvantaged people, the orphan and the widow and the stranger. And now all of a sudden, we're talking about how we're supposed to love the stranger.

So, you know, if you're listening and you're a little confused at this point, that's because it is confusing. It seems like it's just one non-sequitur to the next. Jumping from, you know, topic to topic, and I feel like we've completely lost that original question which Moses asks, which is: וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ – Now Israel, what does God want from you?

And finally, in verse 20, we seem to get the kind of thing we would expect to hear; you know, like the things that God wants from you, right? Moses says: אֶת־יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ תִּירָא אֹתוֹ תַעֲבֹד – You should fear God and you should serve Him. Except those seem to be a complete repeat of those first verses.

Evan: I mean, that makes sense as a follow up from verses 12 and 13 that you started with. But the stuff in the middle is kind of confusing me.

Ari: Right. So, Rabbi Fohrman has a particular strategy that he likes to use when he encounters a series of verses like this and you can't figure out how one goes together. He says, just take it all apart and put it back together. Basically, in order to understand what everything in this paragraph is doing, we're going to need to start to understand piece by piece. And then we can kind of start to build the blocks back together, and finally understand this whole paragraph and maybe have an understanding of this question of, “Now Israel, what does God want from you?”

Breaking It Apart and Putting It Back Together Again

So just to lay out the pieces we've seen after this initial question: You know, we talk about God loving our forefathers, then some kind of random warning not to be stubborn. Next, it goes to a reminder about how God doesn't take bribes and He loves the orphan and the widow and the stranger. And finally, it's a repeat of the original command to love and to fear God. So usually when we do this strategy, we start with kind of a random middle verse, but one that I think is going to be the key to start unlocking everything. And once we get this, I think that everything is going to start to fall into place.

Evan: Okay. Ari. So which one is that piece? 

Ari: Yeah, that's this idea of שֹׁחַד, of God not taking bribes. So you know, generally when you think about bribes, Evan, why would you say it's immoral for a person to take a bribe?

Evan: Well, it seems to be a perversion of justice. Something should be happening and someone comes along and tries to influence someone and say, “Hey, I'll give you something of value if you make things turn out my way.”

Ari: Exactly. So I think that's the immediate problem, but I think that there is a much broader danger to society at stake when you start taking bribes. Just think about what a society would look like that's entirely run by bribes. I guess I could ask, who gets ahead and who's left behind?

Evan: Well, I think, in this society you're imagining here, the people who have the means to be able to bribe would, you know, just say, “Hey, make the laws in my favor or I'll use this ‘Get Out Of Jail For A Bribe’ card.” I don't think Monopoly has one like that, but that's the society it would be. If you can pay your way out of jail or you can pay your way out of trouble, if you can pay your way to get what you want, then you'll get what you want. And if you can't do that, then you're stuck.

Ari: Exactly. I think when everybody starts taking bribes, you end up with a society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and all of the opportunities are only available to those who can afford to bribe their way around the system. If you look at it, there are a lot of poor countries where the place is just run by bribery, that's just how you do business, and you see the disparity there. It's horrible, and it's extremely difficult for the disadvantaged to get ahead, especially if they don't have the means to bribe their way around the system.

Just as evidence to that, look at the very next verse that we have here, right after God says He doesn't take bribes.

Evan: So He talks about not taking bribes in verse 17, and in verse 18, it says, עֹשֶׂה מִשְׁפַּט יָתוֹם וְאַלְמָנָה, right – He does justice for the orphan, for the widow. Those would be the quintessential disadvantaged people in society, and it’s talking about doing justice for them.

Ari: Yeah, I think that's exactly what's going on here. I think God is basically acknowledging that bribery is the privilege of the rich and powerful. But God refuses to take bribes, not just because it's immoral, but perhaps most of all because God wants to take care of the disadvantaged. God wants to take care of the poor and the vulnerable, the orphan, the widow, the stranger.

Evan: I think what you were saying before, that it's not about one single case where the person with means is going to use their means to, to pervert justice. We're talking about a grander societal impact and how the orphan and the widow are really going to suffer under such a society. 

Ari: Right, exactly. And I think maybe that's the verse that comes right before this, which is, “God is the God of God, the King of kings, the Master of masters,” right? You know, it's one thing for you or I to take a bribe, but if God would take bribes, well then, an equal society could never exist.

So I think we've taken two or three small little blocks here and put them together. At least we understand what's going on in these few verses, right? Basically, if you could sum it all up, it's how God loves and takes care of the disadvantaged, the stranger, the ger.

Which Stranger Does God Love?

So I want to back up one more stage now and try to add another block in. It says in verse 15, רַק בַּאֲבֹתֶיךָ חָשַׁק יְקוָה לְאַהֲבָה אוֹתָם – Only with your forefathers was God attracted to, in order to love them. Okay, so why are we talking about the forefathers here? Well, look at that language: לְאַהֲבָה אוֹתָם – In order to love them. Evan, who did we just say that God loves?

Evan: We were just talking about the יָתוֹם וְאַלְמָנָה, the ger; you know, these disadvantaged people, right? In 18, it says אֹהֵב גֵּר, that God loves the stranger, the convert; again, another one of these kind of quintessential disadvantaged people.

Ari: Right. And you know, I seem to remember something about our forefathers being geirim, being strangers.

Evan: Yes. Our forefathers were definitely strangers, geirim. That's the promise made to Avraham, right?

Ari: This is future Ari popping in to clarify one thing Evan just said. You see, normally when we talk about the Avot, our fathers, we mean the forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And the Torah does describe both Abraham and Isaac explicitly as strangers, geirim, in the land of Canaan. But it isn’t just these fathers. God promised Abraham that his descendants would also become geirim, and that came true for the generations enslaved in Egypt, who were the literal fathers of the generation Moses is speaking to now. Verse 19 reminds us of exactly that when it says גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם – You were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Here is the argument I am about to make. This whole section seems to be about God’s love for the stranger. So when Moses says that God loved our fathers, he is saying that He loved them because they were strangers. 

So I think what verse 15 is saying is, God loved your forefathers, but He didn't love them because they were powerful. He didn't love them because they were even necessarily so incredibly righteous. He loved them, first and foremost, because they were strangers, and God loves the stranger. God takes care of the stranger.

And for those who are still dubious, if you think it's a stretch to say that this whole discussion of God loving the strangers is really a reference to our forefathers, look at what it says specifically God does for the stranger.

Evan: It says: לָתֶת לוֹ לֶחֶם וְשִׂמְלָה – To give him bread and clothing.

Ari: Evan, you know the only time that those two words come together, לֶחֶם וְשִׂמְלָה, food and clothing?

Evan: Are you going to tell me it has something to do with our ancestors?

Ari: Not just does it have something to do with our ancestors, it's actually just a couple chapters earlier in this week's parsha, too. Moses is describing how God led these strangers out of Egypt, and in chapter eight, verse three, Moses is telling B’nei Yisrael how God took them out of Egypt. They took them from this land that they were strangers in and led them into the wilderness, and it says He fed them the manna, the bread from Heaven. And not just did he feed them bread from Heaven, but in verse four: שִׂמְלָתְךָ לֹא בָלְתָה מֵעָלֶיךָ – Your clothing didn't wear out from upon you. So here it is – bread and clothing. The two things that Moses mentions God doing to provide for our ancestors when they were leaving the land that they were strangers in.

Evan: Okay. Ari. You've got this mention of the Avot. You've got the love of the geirim; our Avot were geirim. We said the way that God expresses that love is by giving them לֶחֶם וְשִׂמְלָה, food and clothing, and that's exactly what Moses is saying that God gave to our ancestors.

Ari: Exactly. So now I think we've put the pieces together in this middle section, right? It seems to be describing basically how God loved our ancestors because they were strangers, and that's what God does; He loves the stranger. But what's Moses saying by all of this, and how does this answer that original question of, “Now Yisrael, what does God want from you?” Seemingly, some new revolutionary way that we're supposed to be serving God.

Evan: Okay. How are we going to answer that question, Ari?

Preparing for a New Reality

Ari: So I want to skip ahead to verse 22, which is just after the verses we read before. Verse 22 says: בְּשִׁבְעִים נֶפֶשׁ יָרְדוּ אֲבֹתֶיךָ מִצְרָיְמָה – You descended into Egypt, just 70 souls. וְעַתָּה שָׂמְךָ יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם לָרֹב – But now God has made you like the stars of the sky. He's made you so numerous, you can't even count.

Evan: That word, וְעַתָּה, that's the same word you were asking about before, right? Is that what you noticed?

Ari: That's the key word. Moses starts us off by saying: וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ – Right now, Israel, God is asking of you something different. That word “now” separates between the reality before and the new reality moving forward. 

Evan: I mean, you really see that here in verse 22: That at the beginning, בְּשִׁבְעִים נֶפֶשׁ יָרְדוּ אֲבֹתֶיךָ מִצְרָיְמָה – originally, you were just this family of 70, וְעַתָּה — but now, in contrast to what was before, now, שָׂמְךָ יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם לָרֹב – but now Hashem (God) has made you as numerous as the stars. That word וְעַתָּה in this pasuk (verse) is so clearly highlighting a contrast of the before and after.

Ari: Exactly, and it's precisely that difference between the before and after that changes not just what your reality looks like, but also what God is asking from you. Because who were you when you went down, just 70 souls into Egypt?

Evan: You were, you know, these strangers in a strange land.

Ari: …and God loved you because you were strangers. God had this extra special care for you. And when He took you out, He took care of you with bread from the Heavens and this miracle where your clothes never wore out at all. Your shoes lasted the entire journey in the desert.

Evan: That would be really helpful to have. My kids' shoes are always getting worn out. 

Ari: Anyway, God took care of you before because you were geirim, you were strangers, but you're not strangers anymore. You're about to enter the land of Canaan. You're about to conquer the seven nations that live there, and you're going to set up a powerful kingdom eventually. You are going to become this great and powerful people living in the land of your own, and gone are the days when God is going to love you just because you were poor and disadvantaged, just because you were helpless. You're entering into a new stage of your relationship with God, where everything that He does for you is going to have to be earned. You're responsible for your relationship with God. If you live up to your end, things are going to be great. If not, God's not going to have much pity anymore. That's the new reality that Moses is describing, and that's the reality that he's trying to prepare them for as they get ready to enter the land of Canaan.

Evan: Yeah, the change in the fortune of B'nei Yisrael from being these strangers in a  strange land to now being on the cusp of being the rulers over a land. It just puts them in a different strata in society, if you will.

Where’s the Love?

Ari: Exactly, Evan, and I want to show you one more really neat thing. So in that first set of responses Moshe gives to this question where he says, “You should fear God and you should love him and you should serve him.” As we noted before, a bunch of those get repeated at the end of this whole section. We said originally, you should fear God, and we see that also in verse 20: אֶת־יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ תִּירָא. We said: וְלַעֲבֹד אֶת־יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשֶׁךָ – You should serve God with all your heart and all your soul. And we see that in verse 20: אֹתוֹ תַעֲבֹד – You should serve God. But there's one thing we don't see reflected in this repeat, which is: וּלְאַהֲבָה אֹתוֹ – You should love God. But there is someone whom it does say you should love.

Evan: It says: וַאֲהַבְתֶּם אֶת־הַגֵּר – You should love the stranger. What do you make of that?

Ari: Just to be clear, it does, later on in the next paragraph, come back to the idea of loving God. It's not like you should stop loving God now, but now Moses is describing this reality where you are going to come into the land and be this big, powerful nation, and now all of a sudden there are going to be poor strangers within your midst. And he's telling the Israelites, “Remember how you were strangers in Egypt. Remember how God loved you and took care of you and did everything for you not because you deserved it, but because you were poor and needed someone to take care of you. You were strangers, and now you come into the land, you're going to have strangers of your own.” And Moses says, “It's time for you to act like God. It's time for you to fill that role, and to take care of those strangers that are in your midst.”

Evan: You're pointing out from the missing love element that God is telling us to love the stranger, love the disadvantaged, and how the power structure is shifting. Previously we were the strangers, we were the disadvantaged, and now we're going to be in a position of power. And God is telling us, through Moses, to be aware of that, and to be sensitive to the shift in the power structure and what responsibility that places on us.

Ari: Exactly. And you know this original question Moses is asking, “What does God want from you now?” Well, it is very different from before, because before, God really didn't want anything from you. He was willing to love you and take care of you just because you needed it, just because there was no one else to take care of you. But now that you can stand on your own two feet, it's time for you to take some responsibility for your relationship with Him. It's time for you to actually start behaving. But not just that; it also means that you have a new opportunity that you never could have had before, that you never could have had when you were a stranger, because now you're in the position that God was in. You have strangers that you can take care of. You have people in your society who need your help.

Evan: Ari, the idea you're sharing with me really resonates, I think, with where we're standing in Jewish history now. For so many millennia, the Jewish people have been the strangers in the strange land, and we've been in unwelcome societies and societies where it's been difficult to have kind of a widespread sense of affluence. But I think, in the 21st century, we see this sense of affluence through large segments of the Jewish community. I'm trying to think about what you're pointing out here through the lens of this contemporary Jewish experience.

Ari: Absolutely, yeah. It's like, in case we forgot about the experience of Egypt, we've had most of the last two millennia to re-experience the plight of the stranger, of the one who is hopelessly disadvantaged in someone else's land. And now, not just have we achieved success but we also have a country of our own, and we're building a society of our own. And you know, when we talk about the strangers that are in your midst, right, that “in your midst” is really a thing now. Like, there is a land that people are in.

And you know, when we talk about what to do about those who need our help, I think it can easily get very political about how to help people, what the best method is to help lift people up, and I don't want to get involved in any of that right now. And in Moses' speech here, he's not getting into any of that. But the one thing that he does say is וַאֲהַבְתֶּם אֶת־הַגֵּר – That you should love the stranger and the orphan and the widow, because that is a Godly value. That's what God does.

Alright, and on that, Evan, I will thank you for joining me today. I think we successfully put the pieces back together.

Evan: Ari. Thank you so much for having me. This is a pleasure.

Credits

This episode was recorded by me, Ari Levisohn, together with Evan Weiner.

Editing was done by Evan Weiner.

Audio editing was done by Shifra Jacobs.

Our production manager is Adina Blaustein.

Our senior editor is me, Ari Levisohn. 

Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.