Shabbos Parashas Eikev - 5780

Shabbos Parashas Eikev - 5780

Rabbi Hal Miller

And it will be because of your listening to these ordinances and your observing and

performing them, then Hashem your God will safeguard for you the covenant and

the kindness that He swore to your forefathers [Devarim 7:12]

The verse lists a reward for our doing what it describes in three verbs, listening,

observing, and performing. We can readily understand the latter two, but why would

we be rewarded for listening? What does it mean in context? How does the word

eikev (translated above as "because of") fit?

Rashi cites Sifrei who say that the verse refers to our paying less attention to what

we think are "light" mitzvos in favor of what we think are more important ones. One

who does this is trampling with the heel (the usual translation of the word eikev) on

these "light" mitzvos. Our verse then tells us to listen to even the light ones.

Ibn Ezra notes that in Hebrew, something at the beginning is called rosh, meaning

head, and something at the end is called eikev, or heel. Thus the mitzvos, in the end,

are important to the reward. Ramban concurs and translates as "because of".

Only slightly different, Talelei Oros translates eikev, "as a result of", and Onkelos

understands, "as a consequence of". It is hard to see these explanations applied to

the word eikev without further explanation. Talelei Oros makes an attempt by saying

that it means "as a result of the steps of your heels". Rav Moshe Feinstein has a

stronger entry in the field when he says, "on the heels of your observance".

If we accept the explanations of eikev, we are still left with tishm'un, "you will listen".

Ibn Ezra says it means "you will accept." Talelei Oros ties it back to eikev and

understands that you will go out on steps of your heels to find Torah teachers and

will listen to them.

Rav Moshe ties the whole verse together. "We think of certain mitzvos as minor

only because we do not realize what they involve. If we do mitzvos purely because

they are commanded by God rather than because we see wisdom and value in

doing them, we will see no difference between minor and major mitzvos and treat

them all as equally serious. Only when one does mitzvos because he thinks he

understands their worth is it possible to think that some are more important than

others. This leads one to doing what he wants rather than what God wants."

Listening then is the second part of the famous reply, na'aseh v'nishma, we will

do the commandments, and we will listen to understand how. There is nothing in

that about weighing them ourselves.