Eikev: the crux

The parsha continues to repeat the contingency: if you do the commandments, you will succeed. You will conquer your enemies, live in peace and prosperity.  This is the fulfillment of the covenent made with the ancestors. 

Two kinds of documents that are written this way: contracts and instruction manuals.  

In a contract, each party to the agreement is obligated to uphold her part. The buyer and the payer, the borrower and the lender, the boss and the worker.  Failure to fulfill the obligations leads to either specified consequencs or nullification of the reciprocal obligation.   If this is a contract, we know that we are in the weaker, more dependent position

Who enforces a contract with Gd? Who can arbitrate the fairness?  This is a pact that is born to fail.  The conditions are too hard, the enforcement too strict.  It is only by the grace  of Gd that a remnant of the covenent continues.  

There is an aspect of instruction manual here.  At least that is the way I think  Jews interpret it.  

I have a patient who was a Seventh Day Adventist preacher.  He told me that he has great fondness for the wise laws of the "Old Testament." He loves that Sabbath as a day to meet with the Lrd and do the Lrd's work, instead of your own.

It was an awakening to hear this Protestant interpretation of the Sabbath.  To them, it all makes sense.  Consequently, one should do what makes sense: drive to church; do work that is for the needy and the community.  This is not my Orthodox Jewish view.  I do not presume to  understand the meaning of the Sabbath (or any other mitzvah). A commandment is an instruction that has been worked out previously, the steps are followed, as they are written.  The experiment, if done as prescribed, will give the desired result. The  benefit is a surprise.   I can feel the relief of giving up most technology. And that was certainly not the intention of the ancients,and  not something I would do out of pure reason.  The mitzvah is the instruction, a guaranteed methodology.  Any deviation - I am on my own.

The parsha also repeats the obligation to teach the next generation about the glory of Gd.  It says that the children have not seen the miracles and wonders done in Egypt and the desert.  But the Torah is talking to me. I have not seen Egypt or the desert wonders.  But I did see the pit in which my parents dwelled and I did get into and complete medical school.  I know that these were miracles. These are the acts of Gd... for ill and good