Parashat Eikev continues with Moshe’s second Farewell Discourse to his beloved nation of Israel - the discourse which began last week in Parashat Va-et’chanan (Deuteronomy 5:1), and will continue until Parashat Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26:19).
As with all Moshe’s orations, this is saturated with his love and yearning for the Land of Israel, his exhortations to the Children of Israel to be eternally faithful to the Land, and his determination to infuse his beloved nation with the courage to conquer the Land of Israel:
“If you say in your heart, These nations are greater than I am, how can I expel them?! - Do not fear them! Remember well just what Hashem your G-d did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt" (7:17-18).
The S’forno states the seemingly-obvious: “Because they [Pharaoh and all Egypt] were greater than you, yet He delivered them into your hands and you destroyed their very name" (commentary to verse 17).
The Ba’al ha-Turim (Rabbi Ya’akov ben Asher, Germany and Spain, c.1275-1343) notes that in the words for “remember well" (זָכֹר תִּזְכֹּר), the Torah spells both words for “remember" without the vav: זָכֹר instead of the more usual זָכוֹר, and תִּזְכֹּר instead of the more usual תִּזְכּוֹר. The vav, whose numerical value is six, is omitted here, says the Ba’al ha-Turim, so that you may remember what Hashem did to the six-hundred chariots of Pharaoh’s elite forces (Exodus 14:7).
The past is the guarantee for the future. What G-d did for us in the past serves as His credentials for what He will do for us in the future. Remember what He did to Pharaoh and Egypt, and you will have no reason to fear the mighty nations who inhabit Canaan.
Last week, in Parashat Va-et’chanan, we read Moshe’s restatement of the Ten Commandments, opening with “I am Hashem your G-d, Who took you out from the land of Egypt, the slave-house" (Deuteronomy 5:6).
According to the Rambam, this is a positive Commandment - the Commandment to know that G-d exists; not to believe that He exists, but to know that he exists (Hilchot Yesodei ha-Torah/Laws of the Foundations of the Torah 1:6).
The Sefer Mitzvot Katan (compilation of the Mitzvot composed by the Tosafist Rabbi Yitzchak of Corbeil, 13th century France) has the same understanding, and develops the theme:
“To know that He Who created Heavens and earth - He alone rules everything, as it says ‘I am Hashem your G-d’… G-d indeed rules all Creation by His word; and He brought us out of Egypt and wrought all these miracles for us… Thus He says: Just as I want you to believe in Me that I brought you out [from Egypt], so too I want you to believe in Me that I am Hashem your G-d, and I will in the future ingather you to redeem you" (Mitzvah #1).
In these final few weeks of his life, Moshe knew that part of his final mission was to infuse his beloved people with the courage they would soon need when crossing the River Jordan into Israel, to take possession of their Land, and to confront enemies vastly greater than themselves.
And he rose to his task magnificently: he reminded them over and over again of their past, and thereby infused them with faith in their future.
The Haftarah for Parashat Eikev is abstracted from Isaiah 49:14-51:3. Though the Haftarah usually echoes or complements the theme of the Torah-reading, the final ten weeks of the year follow a different paradigm:
For the three weeks of mourning from 17th Tammuz to the 9th of Av, the Haftarot are the תְּלָתָא דְּפֻרְעָנוּתָא, the three Haftarot of castigation - frightening and depressing prophecies from Isaiah and Jeremiah, warning of impending destruction.
And then the next seven weeks, until the final Shabbat of the year, are the שֶׁבַע דְּנֶחֱמָתָא, the seven Haftarot of consolation - inspiring and magnificent prophecies of our eventual redemption.
Nevertheless, I suggest a direct connexion between the Parashah and the Haftarah:
The Haftarah opens with Isaiah’s words, “Zion said, ‘Hashem abandoned me and my Lord has forgotten me’" (Isaiah 49:14) - and the Prophet immediately refutes this terrible notion: “Could a woman forget her nursling? Not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even if these would forget, I would not forget you" (v.15).
And our Haftarah concludes with the proof that Isaiah brings that G-d will never - could never - abandon or forget Israel:
“Look to Abraham your forefather, and to Sarah who bore you; because when he was only one alone I called to him, blessed him, and made him great. Therefore Hashem will comfort Zion, will comfort all her ruins, will make her desert as Eden, her desolate wastelands as the garden of Hashem; rejoicing and celebration will be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of song" (51:2-3).
The Parashah and the Haftarah proclaim the same message: If you don’t believe in the future, then believe in the past. If you don’t believe in what will yet happen, then believe in what has already happened.
Moshe’s words resonate with us today - the generation which is still in the process of taking possession of our Land, and being forced to confront enemies vastly greater than ourselves.
It can seem daunting. We are a tiny nation in a vast and hostile Middle East. Our enemies have support from half the world, while we - even our ostensible friends seem unreliable, even hostile sometimes.
It can seem sometimes that we need an almost-superhuman faith in G-d.
But that same principle which Moshe taught to the generation which was about to conquer Israel, and which the Prophet Isaiah taught three-quarters of a millennium later, applies equally today:
Just about within living memory, our people were devastated by the greatest and most concentrated evil the world has ever seen. We could have been dejected and demoralised to the point of being unable to go on.
Yet at that moment in history, we rose up to retake our homeland, unstoppable and inexorable. The attempt must have seemed futile, if not absurd: Israel was a colony of the British Empire, one of the mightiest empires the world has ever seen, “the empire on which the sun never sets".
How could the tattered remnants of Jewry even hope to defeat such a formidable empire?
And yet, using primitive weapons, hounded at every turn, they indeed succeeded in wresting their homeland from the occupier.
And then, immediately upon becoming independent, all seven Arab nations that were independent at the time launched a war of aggression and attempted genocide against the nascent Jewish State.
On paper, they had everything in their favour: Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Trans-Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iraq outnumbered and outgunned Israel on four fronts, fighting with weapons more modern than anything Israel had access to.
But when the G-d of Israel decrees that it is time for His children to come home, then nothing and no one can prevent it. So this mighty Arab coalition, so proud and confident, lost, and Israel, small and overwhelmed, not only survived but decisively defeated the overwhelmingly superior enemy.
And nineteen years later, they tried again to exterminate us all. They were so proud and so confident in the summer of 5727 (1967), supremely assured that Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, and Pakistan together would defeat Israel swiftly and easily.
But again, when the G-d of Israel decrees that it is time for His children to come home, then nothing and no one can prevent it, and Israel decisively defeated this vast military coalition in six days.
So when we face our ostensibly superior enemies today - know that the same G-d Who led us to victory against overwhelming odds in the past will continue to protect us, His children.
The past is the guarantee for the future. What G-d did for us in the past serves as His credentials for what He will do for us in the future.
Believe in what G-d will yet do for us.