Shalom Friends,
I am getting an early start on the weekly portion thread which I have been posting for over a year now. I enjoy posting and learn more and more every year about the insights and secrets of the Torah. I truly believe that Torah (learning and teaching) and Mitzvot actually influence the world we live in, and affect our 'world to come' in ways we can barely comprehend (pleasure in Olam Haba is said to be unimaginable to mortal man). So let us learn as much as we can, it does not hurt, and the personal character improvement helps you help others.
So we are reading the portion of Eikev this week. This is the third portion in the final book of the Chumash (5 books of Moshe) and continues the path started last week. Moshe is relating the forty year journey in the desert to the the generation which is about to go into the land of Israel. He is educating them on the importance of keeping the commands of Hashem, promising us great blessing for keeping the covenant and promising us great troubles if we should forget to keep them, or G-d Forbid should we ever abandon Him.
Last week's portion contained the beginning paragraph from one of the most sacred Jewish prayers, the Shema. This weeks portion contains the second paragraph (as I posted in another thread this evening) which explains the blessings and curses which are the result of our own actions (following the correct path versus going on the wrong path).
This portion contains an explanation of why the Holy Land is called a 'Land Flowing With Milk And Honey'... The seven species of Israel are wheat, barley, grapevines, figs, pomegranates, olive oil and dates. The Honey is 'Date Honey' and not 'Bee Honey' as many people assume.
The Torah of Moses clearly abhors the idea of a Jew worshiping a physical object. We are commanded to reject idols with no mercy. Death to a Jew who engages in it, death to those who sell or make such idols, and we are to smash and burn idols where-ever we find them (assuming Jews have the authority to do so) in the Promised Land. The Caananites were expelled from the land for their filthy and despicable ways so that the Jewish people, who followed Hashem, would be able to inhabit it.
Here is Chabads Parsha in a Nutshell:
http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3041/jewish/Eikev-in-a-Nutshell.htm
In the Parshah of Eikev (“Because”), Moses continues his closing address to the Children of Israel, promising them that if they will fulfill the commandments (mitzvot) of the Torah, they will prosper in the Land they are about to conquer and settle in keeping with G‑d’s promise to their forefathers.
Moses also rebukes them for their failings in their first generation as a people, recalling their worship of the Golden Calf, the rebellion of Korach, the sin of the spies, their angering of G‑d at Taveirah, Massah and Kivrot Hataavah (“The Graves of Lust”). “You have been rebellious against G‑d,” he says to them, “since the day I knew you.” But he also speaks of G‑d’s forgiveness of their sins, and the Second Tablets which G‑d inscribed and gave to them following their repentance.
Their forty years in the desert, says Moses to the people, during which G‑d sustained them with daily manna from heaven, was to teach them “that man does not live on bread alone, but by the utterance of G‑d’s mouth does man live.”
Moses describes the land they are about to enter as “flowing with milk and honey,” blessed with the “seven kinds” (wheat, barley, grapevines, figs, pomegranates, olive oil and dates), and as the place that is the focus of G‑d’s providence of His world. He commands them to destroy the idols of the land’s former masters, and to beware lest they become haughty and begin to believe that “my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.”
A key passage in our Parshah is the second chapter of the Shema, which repeats the fundamental mitzvot enumerated in the Shema’s first chapter, and describes the rewards of fulfilling G‑d’s commandments and the adverse results (famine and exile) of their neglect. It is also the source of the precept of prayer, and includes a reference to the resurrection of the dead in the messianic age.
Let us start with Rabbi Finkelstein
Topic: Video Study for Parsha Eikev : (Read 3641 times)