We sometimes forget to bless God for the simple things that He does for us. This week we are reminded not to take anything for granted.
Don’t Take the “Easy” Things for Granted
Now for a quick Devar Torah.
This week’s parsha is Eikev, a word that can literally mean “heel.” The rabbis see a lesson in that unusual word. There are mitzvot that seem so ordinary, so easy, or so minor that we barely notice them. They are the mitzvot that a person might figuratively trample under his heel.
And the Torah is telling us: Be careful. Just because something seems small does not mean it is unimportant.
There are mitzvot that obviously feel significant. Keeping kosher, observing Shabbat, fasting on Yom Kippur—we know these are important. But Judaism also reaches into the most mundane parts of life. There are traditions governing something as ordinary as how we put on and tie our shoes. The lesson is that holiness isn’t reserved for the dramatic moments of life. It can be found in the things we do every single day without thinking about them.
Bread is a wonderful example.
After eating bread, we recite Birkat Hamazon, the Grace After Meals, a detailed series of blessings. Why such an elaborate blessing over bread, one of the most ordinary foods imaginable?
Perhaps precisely because it is ordinary.
Bread has been a basic food of human civilization for thousands of years. We see it so often that we can easily take it for granted. Yet think about what is required to produce a loaf of bread.
Look at a field of wheat. If you did not know what was going to happen next, you would never imagine that those stalks would eventually become the loaf sitting on your table. The wheat must be harvested, separated, ground into flour, combined with other ingredients, kneaded, allowed to rise, and baked. Human beings must take what God provides in nature and transform it into something we can eat.
So when we eat bread, the Torah requires us to stop and recognize both sides of that partnership: God provides the raw materials, and human beings provide the labor.
That leads directly into another major theme of Parshat Eikev.
Moshe warns the Jewish people about what will happen once they enter the Land of Israel and become successful. When people are poor, frightened, or desperate, it is easy to turn to God and say, “Please help me.”
The greater spiritual danger can come after we succeed.
Moshe warns:
“My power and the strength of my hand have made me this wealth.”
Of course you worked hard. Judaism does not deny human effort. You built the business. You went to work. You took the risks. You made the decisions.
But don’t convince yourself that you did it entirely alone.
You needed the health to work, the opportunities to succeed, the customers who walked through the door, and circumstances that allowed your efforts to bear fruit. Our responsibility is to work hard while recognizing that success is never entirely within our control.
I remember the story of a Jewish baker in Washington Heights. He was offered kosher certification, but there was a condition: he would have to close on Shabbat. He refused. He wanted his business open seven days a week.
But the business struggled.
Eventually, he agreed to close for Shabbat and received the certification. And afterward, he realized how foolish he had been. He had been working seven days a week, exhausting himself, convinced that every additional hour the store remained open was necessary for success. Yet after he began closing on Shabbat, the business prospered.
The lesson he took from it was simple: Take a day off. Trust that the world can continue without you for twenty-four hours.
And perhaps that is the connection running through the beginning of Eikev.
The mitzvah that seems too small to notice. The bread sitting on our table. The successful business we have built. These things become dangerous spiritually when they become so familiar that we stop seeing them.
We begin to assume they will simply be there tomorrow.
Eikev teaches us not to trample on the ordinary.
Sometimes the things we take most for granted are precisely the things for which we should be most grateful.
Leave a Reply