Between Abundance and the Test of Faith: The Secret of the Land of Israel | Parashat Ekev
The parasha teaches that the great abundance of the Land of Israel might lead to forgetting the Almighty. The Malbim explains that dependence on rain strengthens faith and humility, while the Chatam Sofer explains why Canaanite nations settled in the land.
Parashat Ekev presents us with one of the most spectacular descriptions of the Land of Israel: 'A land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates,' but immediately after these words of praise, a sharp warning appears: 'Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God, by not keeping His commandments.' What is the connection between the immense physical good described in the first verse and the spiritual danger that follows?
The Malbim: The secret hidden in geography
To understand this, the Malbim (Rabbi Meir ben Yechiel Michel Weiser, one of the biblical commentators and poskim of the last generations, Eastern Europe 1809-1879) suggests looking at the comparison between Egypt and the Land of Israel. Apparently, if the Almighty had wanted to punish the Egyptians for hundreds of years of slavery and torture, He could have expelled them from Egypt and given their fertile inheritance in the Nile region to the people of Israel. However, the Malbim explains, in Egypt lies a moral trait that corrupts man. The key to the Egyptian's life is literally in his hand: when the field needs irrigation, he approaches the tributaries of the Nile, opens the water valves, and floods his fields. This independence, so to speak, creates an illusion of 'my power and the might of my hand,' releases man from the need to turn to the Almighty, and gives birth to moral callousness and cruelty toward the weak.
The Land of Israel, on the other hand, is completely different. It is not irrigated by water promised in advance, but 'it shall drink water from the rain of heaven' - its dependence on rainwater obligates its inhabitants to look upward, to pray for the mercies of the Lord, and to keep the values of the Torah in order to be worthy of abundance. Abundance in the Land of Israel is not taken for granted - it is the result of a living relationship with the Creator.
'A land which the Lord your God cares for, the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it'
The dependence on rain keeps the heart awake and attentive.
The Chatam Sofer: Infrastructure and purpose
From this concept of spiritual building, another question raised by the 'Chatam Sofer' (Rabbi Moshe Sofer Schreiber, 1762-1839, rabbi and head of a yeshiva in Central Europe and one of the greatest poskim of his generation) is resolved: if the land of Canaan was intended for the people of Israel from the six days of creation, why did the Almighty settle Canaanite nations in it who built 'great and fortified cities to the heavens'?
The Chatam Sofer answers that the Almighty in His mercy wanted the children of Israel to enter a ready-made land, without having to invest all their initial strength in backbreaking manual labor of digging wells and building cities. The Canaanites served, as it were, as 'contractors' who prepared the material infrastructure, so that the people of Israel could immediately free themselves for their central purpose - spiritual absorption, Torah study, and the building of a proper moral society.
In conclusion, the connection between the good of the land and the warning of forgetting is woven like a red thread: material abundance is a wonderful foundation, but it harbors a risk of arrogance. The Land of Israel was chosen precisely because its existence and flourishing is such that it requires morality, prayer, and a constant connection to the Creator on the part of its inhabitants, and if we disconnect between the gift and the conditions of its receipt, we may lose it.
