Eikev: the deal

Does everything have a price?  The parsha starts on a  transactional, fee for service, cause and effect, note. 

How to translate eikev?  Onkelos, the official (Talmudically sanctioned) translator of the Torah render it חֳלַף  chalaf, Aramaic for exchange . Eikev is the  root of the name  Jacob, it is a quintessential  Jewish thing.   Literature ( mostly, but not entirely, Gentile) portrays  the Jew as transactional.    The exorbitant gifts that Jacob gave to Esau bought off an attack.  The meal that Jacob presents to his father Isaac, the price for his blessing, is characterized by Esau as" ya'ekav- eni", he did the Jacob thing to me,.  I leave it to the reader to provide a simpler translation. Is it in this same spirit that Gd is offering reward for obedience and punishment for transgression?

Reward changes the road to progress. The exorbitant riches bestowed upon the captains of pharma has radically altered medicine in my professional lifetime. It has pulled great talents away from patient care  and toward the drug approval business. It has confused the process of choosing therapies by injecting  the  commercial goals of drug companies, insurers, hospitals , etc. Medicine has become (much more)  monetized. 

Usually, agreements of exchange are the product of negotiation. The dialogue that leads to the contract involves the buyer imagining what the seller wants and vice versa. How can I imagine what Gd wants?  This is not a deal, it is a covenant, a constitution, The terms are dictated. Take them or suffer the consequences. The only repercussion that  I can impose on Gd is denial, loss of faith. The agreement positions that abandonment of Gd  as the root of all violations, the most evil breech. 

All deals float on faith with barriers of details. Enforcement (in legitimate contracts) comes though disinterested parties; through  law that guarantees fairness for all parties ... and occasionally delivers that. Usually the honesty of the signatories  is sufficient. Behavior conforms to norms; there is no need for outside enforcement. 

Is that also the case with the important rules in Torah? Once we see the prohibition on murder, perhaps even before we see it writing, we know that manslaughter  is wrong  and should no be done.  A weekly day of rest for worker and beast, as well as master, optimizes productivity in addition to expressing kindness to self and others. Just as the secular law defines the parameters of  a contract and compels compliance with the threat of force, the Torah specifies  a domain of compliance enforced by the wrath of Gd. 

Moses recalls the multiple act of Israel that enraged Gd. Moses details the self-sacrificial acts that he performed: courageously arguing with Gd, fasting, forgoing patriarchy - to rescue the people from destruction.  This is Moshe's recollection; this is canon. All recollections are confabulations - a synthesis of events and fantasy - and words can never capture the richness of the events.  Memories are useful for what they bring to bear in the present.  Moses will soon die; this intermediary force will then  exist only in the words preserved by the followers. 

Moses addresses his contemporaries

וִֽידַעְתֶּם֮ הַיּוֹם֒ כִּ֣י ׀ לֹ֣א אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶ֗ם אֲשֶׁ֤ר לֹֽא־יָדְעוּ֙ וַאֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹא־רָא֔וּ אֶת־מוּסַ֖ר יְ

And know this day: for I speak not with your children who have not known, and have not seen the chastisement of the Lrd your Gd, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched-out arm,

He can not honestly relate to any future generation. 

 In every generation we must confront the face of Gd that is shown to us.  We must strike the bargain between our own understanding and the , sometimes inscrutable, Torah.