Eikev. Small things, the birth of ethics- and how I can change the world

Today I would like to speak about something so simple, and yet foundational for me — literally, something that lies at the foundation of my world.

We are in the midst of a war, a war that hurts so much that I threw out my lower back after seeing, this week, yet another painful image on social media.

And yet, I am about to share with you reflections on a book written over two thousand years ago, just as I do every week.

Just as we have done every week for millennia. Almost as if nothing were happening.

Isn’t that strange?

Why do we do this? Out of habit? Out of tradition?

Tradition, certainly. Out of habit, certainly not.

Reading torah, and commenting it, is deeply alive for me.

And here is why:

This millenia old text helps me to think about the human condition — and above all, in a practical way, it helps me to reflect on how I want to act in the world as it is today.

This takes on even more meaning when I feel so powerless, as I do now in this time of war.

Today I want to speak with you about the way Rashi, the famous French commentator of the Middle Ages, reminds us of this simple and powerful teaching contained in the very first word of the parasha:

Little things matter.

How does he arrive at such a conclusion?From the word Eikev, which in the biblical narrative means “since,” “because,” or “as a consequence.” But Eikev also means “heel.”

Here is the opening verse of the parasha:

“If you obey these laws and safeguard and keep them, the Eternal, your God, will keep for you the covenant and the kindness that He swore to your fathers.” (Deuteronomy 7:12)

וְהָיָ֣ה | עֵ֣קֶב תִּשְׁמְע֗וּן אֵ֤ת הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים֙ הָאֵ֔לֶּה וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֥ם וַֽעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑ם וְשָׁמַר֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהֶ֜יךָ לְךָ֗ אֶת־הַבְּרִית֙ וְאֶת־הַחֶ֔סֶד אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבַּ֖ע לַֽאֲבֹתֶֽיךָ:

Wordplay is a powerful interpretive tool in the Jewish tradition. If a word has two meanings, it is worth looking at what this parallelism of form might be pointing toward.

This is what Rashi does in commenting on the opening words of the parasha.

For him, the word Eikev, inasmuch as it also means “heel,” points to a teaching about the care we give to the details — the things we tend to step on, to trample with our heels, without paying attention to them.

Here is how he rereads the first verse of our parasha:

“If you pay attention to the light commandments that a person tramples with one’s heel (Eikev)…”אִם הַמִּצְווֹת קַלּוֹת שֶׁאָדָם דָּשׁ בַּעֲקֵבָיו תשמעון

If I translate Rashi’s teaching into the language of spiritual practice, it would say:

Deepening my connection with the Source of Life begins with the care I give to small things.

Why?

Because the way I treat the tiny, the seemingly insignificant, that which appears to have little impact, is deeply significant.

It is an indicator of my ethical stance.

Small things don’t have an immediate impact.I

don’t immediately see the consequences of neglecting them — I don’t pay the price for my inattention to them the way I would for bigger things.

For example:“It’s just a scrap of paper” — thrown into the forest.“It’s just a bit of running water” — left flowing in the shower in a time of drought. And here we are, with our planet running out of resources.

This is what the Torah reminds us in this week’s parasha:

Caring for the small things is the beginning of ethics.

Ethics is the choice I make to prevent myself from neglecting or abusing another — not because I would have to pay a price for it, but because I choose not to.

If we are honest, this may be one of the most difficult tasks for us human beings.

At our own level, each of us can be tempted to abuse the small power we have.

I am talking here about everything — absolutely everything: my own body, other human beings, animals, nature, and objects.

Every detail in the way I treat what is “insignificant” is significant.

Sometimes I become aware of this when I see myself carelessly throwing my jacket and shoes when I come home tired.

Yes — the way I treat small things foreshadows the way I will treat bigger ones. And the way I treat objects is an indicator of the way I will treat humans.

There is a teaching drawn from the lived example of the 18th-century Hasidic master Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz, a close companion of the Baal Shem Tov.

It is said that every time he got up from the bench on which he had been sitting, he would turn back, look at it, and take a moment to quietly thank it for having supported him.

Every time I remember this — to take a moment to thank something as “insignificant” as the chair I was sitting on — it changes the quality of my relationship to life.

I take nothing for granted.

I become aware of all that, around me, is carrying me.

Think of all the things that constantly support us without our thinking about them: the shoes that protect our feet, the bags that hold our belongings, the bed we can rest on.

Taking the time to appreciate these small things, to thank the objects that support our well-being, may be one of the most fundamental — and yet most neglected — aspects of spiritual practice.

As I write these lines, in the middle of this painful and endless war, I cannot help but think of those who have lost the objects of their daily lives.

I think of civilians who have lost everything overnight.

Civilians attacked in their homes, their houses burned, and all they owned destroyed — simply because they live where they live and others believe they should not be there, or should not exist.

I am speaking of my people attacked on October 7th, but also before that, in ’48, in ’36, in ’29, in the land of Israel and around it, so many times during pogroms in Iraq and Yemen, in Syria and Lebanon, in Poland and Russia.

And I am also speaking of what some of my people are doing right now to anther people, in the West Bank, as while harrasing their Palestinian neighbors, they completely disregard of one of the fundamentals of Jewish ethics:

“Do not do to others what you would not want done to you” (this is Shammai’s comment on the verse “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” in the book of Vayikra).

I am speaking of civilians used as human shields — literally treated as weapons — by their own leaders. And of hostages treated as objects of torture by their captors.

I cannot do much to change this today.

All I can do is change myself.

Jewish mysticism reminds us that the human being is a microcosm of the world.

We are made up of the same middot — the same qualities — as the divine structure that underlies the world.I cannot change sinat chinam — baseless hatred — in the world right now.But I can change it in myself.

If I take seriously this central principle of Kabbalah — that human beings are called to help repair the fractures of the world — then instead of criticizing others, I can focus on what I can do, at my own level, right now.

Today, for me, that will begin with paying attention to the details in the way I interact with the world — and doing it with love.

Even with a broken heart, I can choose to keep acting with care, to choose ahavat Chinam- Gratuitous love over Sinat Chinam, gratuitous hatred, over and over again.

We are in the second half of the month of Av, still getting up from the brokeness we cried for on Tisha bAv. And we know love is the only remedy to hatred. And when ware and hatred are all over, the calling becomes more urgent than ever.

It is up to us to embody it.

If I believe that the world truly reflects the way I relate to things, then I have a responsibility for the world.

Shall we do it together?