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Ekev

Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25

Isaiah 49:14-50:11; 51:1-3

On the eve of Tisha B'Av, I went to Mount Herzl to hear the Book of Lamentations read at the grave of Yitzhak Rabin. A great many people go to the Haas Promenade to read Lamentations while looking across the valley to the Temple Mount, truly one of the most spectacular vistas in the world.

But to me, mourning the destruction of the temple and Jewish sovereignty while sitting in freedom on the promenade seemed overly incongruous. So I went to Rabin's grave in the hopes of seeing Tisha B'Av from a less conspicuous angle. If, as the sages teach, the Second Temple was destroyed because of "baseless hatred," then the grave of a murdered prime minister seemed an appropriate place to worship.

The service was led by professor Uri Simon, one of the pre-eminent Bible scholars in the world. Before chanting Lamentations, professor Simon began by quoting the vision of Isaiah, "How has the city ... once filled with justice, where righteousness slept easily, become a place of murderers." What does it mean to Israeli society, he asked, to have the head of government assassinated? What does it mean to be morally challenged in our own society?

In Parshat Ekev, Moshe offers poetic praise for the Land of Israel: "a good land, with streams and wells of water flowing from the valleys and the hills; a land of wheat, barley, vines, figs and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey." (8:7-10) It is a beautiful land, lush and fruitful, a land where "you will lack nothing," a land in which one can eat and be satisfied. It is paradise on earth.

Immediately, however, Moshe reminds us that the Land holds a hidden spiritual danger: "Lest your hearts grow haughty and you forget Adonai your God ... you will be expelled from the Land just as the nations whom God expels before you ..." (8:14-20)

This is not a unique warning. The Torah often admonishes us that the Land is a gift, and only a righteous people can live there. We are obligated to follow the Torah, not just the ritual mitzvoth, but the ethical too, or else we will have no portion in this Land of Promise.

In this context, Uri Simon's questions are at the core of the religious Zionist project. What does it mean for Israeli society, and for us, that 30 percent of the Israeli population is at or below the poverty line? Or that a sex-slave trade functions without much legal interference? Or that the hungry are hungrier while the sated grow more so? Not to mention the significant moral dilemmas raised by a sovereign state ruling over a huge minority population of citizens, and having to decide which rights to extend to them and which not to.

It does no good for Israeli society or for us, for that matter, to see only the Land of Plenty — which it is — but to turn away from the moral dilemmas of sovereignty. It is exactly the haughtiness that Moshe warns against in our parasha to believe that Israeli society is without problems, or that we could not find some manner in which to upgrade our ethical behavior. In this regard, the state of Israel is far better than many states in the world. And yet, how can we afford to turn away from the real problems that corrupt a society?

I believe it is a fundamental mitzvah of our time for diaspora Jews to love and support the state of Israel. Perhaps, though, we can allow ourselves to know a mature love, a love that sees blemishes without being diminished, a love sure enough of itself to speak when injustice is seen.

A mature love would not merely revel in making the desert bloom, but would ensure that "righteousness flows like a mighty stream."

Isaiah would ask no less from us.




Rabbi Lavey Derby of Congregation Kol Shofar is concluding four weeks of study at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

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