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Devarim 8:10 reads, "And you shall eat, and become satisfied, and bless the Lord your God over the good land that He has given you." This is the source of the obligation to say Grace After Meals. Seeing as this verse speaks specifically about this blessing, it is considered obligatory from the Torah itself. According to the Rambam, we are obligated from the Torah itself to pray every day, but even he holds that the formulation of prayer as a blessing is Rabbinic. Other authorities believe that the blessings we recite in the morning over the study of Torah are also obligatory from the Torah itself. However, the only case of a blessing which is explicitly commanded in the Torah is Grace After Meals.

As we discussed two weeks ago (SALT for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of parashat Devarim), the use of blessings as a form of prayer seems associated with a similarity between them. Both blessings (between one person and another) and prayer are attempts to relate to another by bringing something of one's self towards the other. For this reason they both must also relate to the one speaking, besides the one being addressed. We also discussed how certain philosophical problems are common to both.

What exactly blessing God means is obviously a tough issue, and it would seem that our Rabbis used the format of blessing in order formulate a type of prayer. As such they amended both the wording of classical blessing and its meaning. Blessing becomes a form of prayer. There is one exception, however, it is Grace After Meals. Here, the injunction is to bless God - whatever this means. This difference between all other prayer and this benediction may be noticed in the wording of the second blessing of Grace After Meals.

The format of all blessings, used as a form of prayer, is as follows: "Blessed are you (or "May you be blessed") Lord, our God, king of the world, creator of…(the fruit of the tree) / who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to…(read the Megila)." The blessing is to God who is the creator of something, or has commanded us to do something. We do not bless Him over something, but rather bless Him generally. Whether we are merely acknowledging His blessing, or in some manner blessing Him, it is certainly a general statement; we do not bless Him over the mitzva of megila, or the fruit of the tree. The one exception to this rule is the second blessing of Grace After Meals. It ends with the words: "Blessed are (or "May you be blessed") over the land and over the food." Why is this blessing different to all others?

The Torah tells us that after we eat and are satisfied we must bless God over the good land that He has given us; we must bless Him over both the land and the food that it produces. Here we are explicitly told to bless God over the thing itself. This is not merely a case of the format of a blessing being used for prayer, but rather, an actual blessing. The Torah tells us to bless God over that which we have benefited from. Because this blessing is from the Torah, it is not a Rabbinic application of the format of blessing, by which we would bless God generally on the occasion of benefiting from something, or performing a mitzva. It is a direct blessing.

Before we eat, we have a Rabbinic commandment to say a blessing. We have not yet benefited from the thing itself. We bless God that He is the creator, as we bless Him that He has sanctified us and commanded us to perform His mitzvot. In both cases we do not bless Him over the thing itself. But after we have eaten, we bless Him over that which we have benefited from. We bless over the actual thing, as the Torah commands us to do.

Shlomo Dov Rosen

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Verses 11 to 20 of Devarim chapter 8 deal with the dangers of forgetting God when things are good and the resultant danger of serving false gods. We are warned not to forget the Lord (verse 11), and we are told how this could happen: "Lest you eat and become satisfied, build good houses and settle…and all you have shall increase. And your heart shall be exalted and you shall forget the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt…"(12-14). The enjoyable life that God gives us may turn us away from Him. Pleasures can make one vain and not wish to acknowledge the source of one's luxury.

But why would such a state of mind make one serve false gods? If one leaves the service of the true source of good, due to a conceited heart, exalted by luxury, why would one turn pagan? We would assume atheism a possible danger; but serving many gods instead of the One seems odd. Yet verse 19 explicitly continues the sequence: "It shall be, that if you do forget the Lord your God and you go after other gods, and serve them…I testify against you today that you shall perish." Since this verse is separated from the previous verses with a break in the original Hebrew text, one may claim that it is not a continuation. Verse 17 tells us that we may declare that it was our own strength that generated the success. We are then told in verse 18 that we must remember God, who gave us the strength to be successful. Since the text breaks at this point, one may argue that the subject has changed. However, a simpler reading would connect the two as stages in a terrible moral decline. First one becomes proud and forgets God. If one does not catch oneself, by remembering God who is the source of any strength to be successful, then a new stage of decline becomes possible: one may recede into a pagan mindset. According to this explanation, the break in the text does not separate the issues completely, but makes us aware that this is not a necessary continuation; the person would hopefully catch himself before he falls this far. I think that this explanation seems more plausible given the context of these verses. We must therefore ask ourselves why one who left the service of the one true God out of pride, not wanting to acknowledge the source of his success, would become pagan, and serve many gods.

This issue touches upon a fundamental difference between Monotheism and Paganism. One God does not simply mean that there is only one. It means that all power and meaning in the world emanates from Him. Everything in existence receives its life, strength and creativity from God; "You shall remember the Lord your God, for He is the one who gives you strength to beget wealth" (verse 18). Intoxicating pride in human achievement directly contradicts a truly monotheistic consciousness. However, Pagan thought works differently. In Greek mythology, for example, gods are remarkably human, and even in other cultures we may assume that a multiplicity of gods usually meant that one could weave one's way between them. Ritual to appease the gods was a way of dealing with powers which man wished to escape. When one does not believe in an all-powerful and all-encompassing God, the many gods that people believe in instead become players in the same field. The human being is considered weaker, but to some extent independent.

If one forgets God because of the pride that comes from prosperity, not wanting to attribute one's successes to God, one may indeed degenerate into pagan worship. Vanity and a conceited heart contradict belief in a monotheistic God; they do not contradict service of many powers in the world. The proud human being wants to believe in his absolute autonomy; he does not want to attribute his success to divine goodness, and belief in the one absolute source of everything deflates his pride. He turns to idols, as they present no challenge to his human vanity. Every generation has its own idols, and every human being his or her own pride. True belief in God saves one from the pride and from the idols.

Shlomo Dov Rosen

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Moses warns the people not to forget God after they enter the land and settle contentedly; he tells them how this could happen: "Lest you eat and become sati, build good houses and settle…and all you have shall increase. And your heart shall be exalted and you shall forget the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt…"(12-14). The enjoyable life that God gives us may turn us away from Him. Pleasures can make one vain and not wish to acknowledge the source of one's luxury. Yesterday we discussed what such pride in one's accomplishments can lead to; but if a person is successful, how can he or she not feel pride?

After the Torah warns that the individual's heart may become exalted, this leading to the forgetting of God, it says: "And you shall say in your heart, my strength, and the might of my hand, has made for me this wealth." It then continues: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you strength to beget wealth." (verses 17-18) How does the Torah view the claim, "my strength and the might of my hand, has made for me this wealth"? Most readers understand it negatively. Attributing success to human power is incorrect; everything emanates from God; your strength is not your own, nor is your wealth. By this reading, verse 18 counters verse 17 by contradicting it. The person had become proud and had forgotten God (verse 14), the expression of this pride, in disregarding God, is his attribution of success to himself. Considered thus, these verses require a radical view of human interaction in the world. Providential influence is total, and must be considered the exclusive cause of all that takes place.

While we may naturally nod to such a claim, we must realise what it assumes. We know that our actions are not determined in advance; we have free choice, and are therefore morally responsible for our behaviour. But if human success is not to be attributed to human effort, we must believe that while God does not interfere with our choices, He not only reserves control of their effects, but is in reality their sole cause. One can argue this, but it demands a total review of our understanding of reality. Usually one assumes that free choice means that one is able to act in the world freely, and cause things to happen. If one wishes to accumulate wealth, one can do so; within certain parameters, God has enabled us to direct our destiny. But the reading that we are now considering insists that human beings make no real changes in the world; everything is providential; you only choose to act, but the effect is divine.

The Ran (Rabeinu Nisim, Spain, 1320-1380) in his Derashot (10^th derasha), offers an alternative reading of these verses (adopted by Abarbanel). The Torah does not contradict our natural assumption that we are able to make effects in the world. Verse 17 tells us what one may feel upon finding oneself successful: "my strength and the might of my hand, has made for me this wealth." This is not incorrect. We might say that it is a wrong focus, but not an empirical mistake. The Torah does not argue against such an intuitive notion, rather, we are told: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you strength to beget wealth." The human being is reminded of the source of his success - where his strength comes from. Pride has no place because God is the ultimate source of everything. But one's intuitive sense of being an actor in the world is correct; you did gather wealth, but it was God who gave you the ability to do so, and He helped you all the way. When one understands what is really going on human pride is illogical, not because you do not cause things to happen, but because there is a wider and deeper picture.

Shlomo Dov Rosen

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Moses warns the people that they may forget that God is the source of their success. "Lest you eat and become satisfied, build good houses and settle…and all you have shall increase. And your heart shall be exalted and you shall forget the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt…"(12-14). The enjoyable life that God gives us may turn us away from Him. Pleasures can make one vain and not wish to acknowledge the source of one's luxury. Belief in God as the source of one's success contradicts a conceited mindset, by which one would wish to credit oneself with the attainment of prosperity.

Moshe then speaks about the powerful nations the people would encounter upon entering the land. "Nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven" (Devarim 9:1). But the Jewish People would be victorious; God would go before them. Again Moses warns against attributing success to oneself: "Do not say in your heart, when the Lord your God thrusts them from before you, saying: Because of my righteousness God brought me to possess this land" (verse 4). This internal conception, the idea of worldly success because of one's own merit (a very Protestant idea) is explicitly contradicted: "Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, will you possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God will dispossess them from before you, and in order to honour the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." The narrative continues with a long discussion about the making of the golden calf.

The Ran (Rabeinu Nisim, Spain, 1320-1380) in his Derashot (10^th derasha), explains this section as a logical continuation of the previous one, about forgetting God because of wanting to attribute one's prosperity to oneself. Two dangers lie awaiting one who becomes successful in the physical world. The first is seeing prosperity as the direct result of one's own efforts, without internalizing how the source of all energy and practical success is divine. The second danger results from an opposite inclination. Often a religious person, finding him or herself successful, may understand very well how it is God's will and intervention that enabled the success. But this apprehension acts as a stepping stone towards meriting oneself with the glory; everything that God does for the individual is seen as a reward for one's good deeds. In this manner the human desire for pride is answered; 'if it can't be my power, let it be because of my goodness'.

If the first feeling (that one's own strength made the wealth) is not flatly contradicted (see yesterday's SALT), but rather, given a different focus, the second psychological attempt is completely rejected. You must not attribute your prosperity to God's goodness in rewarding your own good actions. We can never know what God's reasons are, and must never credit ourselves for God's goodness to us. The Ran (Rabeinu Nisim) explains why this idea was presented here, and in this way. The nations of the land were extremely powerful. One would not be able to explain one's success as a result of undivided human power. Therefore, the human ego, craving for a possibility to be conceited, attempts to translate God's goodness into human greatness. But God has many considerations (see an interesting attempt to postulate some in Derekh Hashem, part 2, chapters 2 & 3.) We can never know what His reasons are, and in this case actually know them to be different to what we may wish to suppose. For this reason Moshe described the nations of the land in such exceptional terms. 'You will not be able to attribute success to your own strength; know that it is also not a result of your merit.' One must learn to be humble, even religiously.

Shlomo Dov Rosen

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The concluding section of Parashat Ekev is very familiar; it includes the second paragraph of the Shema (Devarim 11:13-21). We are told of how our keeping the mitzvot causes our good in our present physical life. Yesterday we dealt with the problem of trying to attribute success to our own religious goodness, which God answers in the form of reward. That is a dangerously conceited approach. But this does not mean that it could not be correct, only that you must not let such a supposition take hold of you.

The assurance we are given that keeping the mitzvot results in our physical good is a subject of much lack of clarity and contention. Leaving aside extreme questions of cases where the opposite was experie, the question stands whether such is the nature of the reward we know that we are to experience. The question of whether reward for mitzvot exists in this physical world has been the subject of debate since the time of Chazal (the sages of the Talmud).

The Rambam is of the opinion that reward of mitzvot does not exist in this world. Temporal reality is but a corridor into a future purely spiritual existence, and no good experienced in this physical life could possibly be a reward for a mitzva. Spiritual goodness cannot be properly answered in physical terms. But, when a person does good, God helps the individual along, so that he or she will be able to do more good, and thereby grow more spiritually. Part of this assistance to stay on the good path and be able to develop further is the physical prosperity and success that God may confer upon one who keeps mitzvot. By such an optimistic approach, physical good is seen as predominantly positive. It is a chance to be able to serve God undisturbed, under optimal circumstances. The Rambam does not seem to believe that this means that it is legitimate to gather wealth beyond necessity: this world is but a corridor; but being successful should be seen as a spiritually positive situation. "In order that we should not be busied our whole lives with matters of physical necessity, but will be free to study wisdom and to keep mitzvot, in order to merit the life of the world to come" (Rambam, Mishne Torah, Hilkhot Teshuva, 9:1).

The Rambam is consistent. He believes that if this temporal world is but a corridor, and can never, by definition, be the stage for a reward of spiritually meaningful acts (mitzvot), then this can never change. The coming of the messiah does not, therefore, constitute a reward for the good of mankind in the complete sense. It is not the aim; it is to be seen as merely functional. Humanity will come to a time in which this temporal world will be run in an optimal manner for people to become immersed in wisdom, and do good, in order to merit the world to come. This is the point of the coming of the messiah; it will help us towards our future purely spiritual existence (Hilkhot Teshuva, 9:2). The Rambam repeats this idea, as a conclusion to his Mishne Torah (Hilkhot Melakhim 12:4-5); even the coming of the messiah is merely to help us study Torah and wisdom and thereby merit greater closeness to God in our future purely spiritual existence.

Shlomo Dov Rosen

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Yesterday we discussed how the Rambam understands that reward of mitzvot does not exist in this world. Temporal reality is but a corridor into a future purely spiritual existence, and no good experienced in this physical life could possibly be a reward for a mitzva. Spiritual goodness cannot be properly answered in physical terms. But, when a person does good, God helps the individual along, so that he or she will be able to do more good, and thereby grow more spiritually. Part of this assistance to stay on the good path and be able to develop further is the physical prosperity and success that God may confer upon one who keeps mitzvot. Similarly, the coming of the messiah does not constitute a reward for the good of mankind. It is not the aim; it is merely functional. Humanity will come to a time in which this temporal world will be run in an optimal manner for people to become immersed in wisdom, and do good, in order to merit the world to come.

The Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzato), in his succinct philosophical tract: Derekh Hashem, disagrees on both points. Firstly, he offers a multiplicity of reasons why God may give one a good life in this world. They include arguments to the general tune of reward and punishment, but also considerations of varying individual missions within the general cosmic plan and framework. One may receive reward in this world for one's mitzvot, but it would be very unfortunate. Secondly, the Ramchal is of the opinion that the future final and ultimate reward is not a purely spiritual existence, but a refined physical one. These two points are connected. According to the Rambam, there is a basic lack of correlation between the spirituality of mitzvot and the physicality of this world. Therefore, no kind of good life in this world could actually reward the spirituality of even rationally moral behavior. Even the coming of the messiah is part of the physical corridor, preparing us for infinite spirituality. The second part of the Shema does not relate in any sense to reward for good deeds, but should rather be seen as a description of the ideal existence we shall live in this world, if we observe mitzvot in an ideal way. But according to the Ramchal, the issue is more complex. Physical existence will in the future be refined; the world will change drastically, and spiritual meaning will be intertwined with a physical reality. Even before then they are not absolutely incongruous.

In the last chapter of his Hilkhot Teshuva, the Rambam speaks of the importance of one's serving of God not being for ulterior motives. What is novel in his argument is his identification of the correct intent that one should have, and hence, a surprising description of the types of considerations considered motives which are external to the proper reason for action. Only acting out of love of God, identification and closeness, may be considered proper, and everything else, while important, is far from ideal. Serving God in order to receive reward, even spiritual in the world to come, is not service out of love and identification; the Rambam therefore considers it an ulterior motive.

We therefore miss little when we find the second part of Shema describing non-meaningful physical reward. Were it to describe the ultimate spiritual setting, it could be dangerous to contemplate, as it would distract us from the proper aim in life: serving God out of love and identification. In our inability to even fathom the real meaning of a purely spiritual existence, and the spiritual danger of working for it, we are told to think about how God helps us serve Him. Every day we read about how God responds to humanity through the physical reality in which we live. This is not a reward; it is a response.

Shlomo Dov Rosen

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In Devarim 10:8-9 Moses recounts how God separated the Levite tribe for religious service. For this reason, he continues, they do not receive a portion of land in Israel; "God is his portion, as the Lord your God has spoken concerning him." Rashi explains that this relates to the financial system of support made to answer his needs. Such a determined social structure guarantees a strong and enduring religious system, but it risks irrelevance for the average person. However, if we read this quote carefully we notice an opening for a philosophically inclusive approach. Because the Levite is separated, because he takes his life seriously, he becomes holy: God is his portion, and he need not worry about temporal demands.

The Rambam ends his Hilkhot Zeraim, the section of his Halakhic work dealing, amongst other issues, with the tithes received by Levites, with a development of this idea. He argues that the promise of God becoming one's portion is not even reserved for Jews only: "Not the tribe of Levi alone, but every single person, out of all those that enter this world" ("kol ish va'ish mikol ba'ei olam"). If he decides to throw off from his shoulder the yoke of physical interests that human beings create for themselves, "and walk straight, like God made him," he becomes "holy." God will take care of his physical needs, just as he took care of those of the Kohanim and Levi'im. The Radvaz points out that the Rambam means that God will help the individual earn a living, not that he may live off charity, or be supported by the community; the Rambam is explicit elsewhere that one may not use the study of Torah as a means for a livelihood. The Radvaz also says that the Rambam did not have a definite source for this idea. We will suggest a possible one here.

Before the giving of the Torah, God sent the Jewish People a message through Moses. It was a proposal,similar to one of marriage. "You shall be for me a kingdom of priests, and a holy people" (Shemot 19:6). The first half of this sentence is very unclear. What does a kingdom of priests mean? If a priest is someone who functions on behalf of others it is obviously problematic; indeed, the Seforno understands the phrase to relate to our relationship with the rest of humanity. However, presumably the simplest explanation is that every member of society becomes like a priest. What does this mean?

The Gemara in Sanhedrin 59a (see also Bava Kama 38a) says that a Gentile who studies Torah is like a high priest. The Gemara continues to explain that this relates only to sections of the Torah dealing with issues relevant to him; but the fundamental point is that the study of Torah makes anyone like a high priest. This parallel illustrates that the holiness of Torah is open for all; and that holiness effects the person who studies, making him or her like a high priest. If we consider the message God sent the Jewish People in the light of this Gemara we may see the phrase, "a kingdom of priests" as a way of indicating a potential greatness in each individual. Every individual is expected to become a priest. This was God's message to the Jews before the giving of the Torah, but the Gemara makes it clear that this is correct about all human beings. As we see from the verse we opened with, from this week's parasha, being a priest means that God takes care of your physical sustenance. If we bring the two ideas together, we get the Rambam's argument.

Shlomo Dov Rosen

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