{"id":61753,"date":"2019-08-22T15:03:33","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T12:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=61753"},"modified":"2022-09-13T17:47:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T14:47:31","slug":"ekev-imbuing-places-with-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ekev-imbuing-places-with-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Ekev &#8211; Imbuing Places With Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[376,619,384,673],"acf":{"old_id":"61753","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36663,"related_cahpter":"1058","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"With luck, or the right intent, the places will imbue us right back","content":"<p>\u201cPut them in the right environment,\u201d was the first thing I could think\u00a0of when asked for parenting advice by a father of kids much younger than my own.\u00a0In this week\u2019s portion, <em>Ekev<\/em>, Moses too alludes to the necessity of this.\u00a0This land, he tells the Israelites, \u201cis a land which the Lord your God seeks after it, always the Lord your God keeps his eye upon, from the year\u2019s beginning to the year\u2019s end\u201d (Deut. 11:12).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The very characteristics of this land, the need to pray to God for rain and be dependent upon God\u2019s mercy rather than the constantly flowing streams of the gushing Nile in Egypt, aid in ensuring the obedience of the Israelites, part of the ways that God is educating them continuously.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t know how these lessons will take effect.\u00a0After all the people have already misbehaved in myriad ways. Moses reminds them in his review of the past of their &#8220;provoking God to anger in the wilderness\u201d (Deut. 9: 7), from the Golden Calf (Deut. 9:16) to the provocations at Taverah (first in Numbers 11:1-3 and reminder in Deut. 9:22), Massa (Exodus 17:1-7 and Deut. 9:22) and Kivrot-hata\u2019avah (Num. 11:4-34 and Deut. 9:22).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In fact, one of the understandings in the Talmud of the verse \u201cAnd now, Israel what does the Lord your God request of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk only in his paths, to love Him and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul\u201d (Deut. 10:12)\u00a0is that \u201call is in the hands of heaven except fear of heaven\u201d (Brachot 33b).\u00a0I believe this is expressing that even when things are foreseen, it is still our choice how we will behave in response; in other words, humans are endowed with free will.\u00a0In a paradox, despite so many aspects of life being beyond our control, what <em>is<\/em> within our abilities is whether to behave with fear of heaven or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>None of us know the future or the outcome; in fact, this portion opens with a conditional statement, \u201cIf you do obey these rules and observe them carefully the Lord your God will observe for you the covenant and the kindness that he swore on oath with your ancestors\u201d (Deut 7:12). However, Moses does know something.\u00a0He knows where his words will end up.\u00a0When Moses is reviewing events of the past and discussing\u00a0how he went to fetch the commandments that God wrote \u201call the words that God had spoken to you\u201d (Deut 9: 10), the Talmud says that Moses saw all the inferences that would come of his words, even to the reading of the book of Esther (Megillah 19b).<\/p>\n<p>Words too can imbue physical places with meaning.\u00a0 Let us hope that the land of Israel can continue to be an environment conducive to seeking God and enabling God to seek us, a place we allow God to continue our education, not a place whose values do not reflect the totality of the Jewish tradition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":84672,"id":84672,"title":"ps62-meaning","filename":"ps62-meaning.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/multiplicities-of-meaning\/ps62-meaning\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ps62-meaning","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":84671,"date":"2020-12-07 12:16:35","modified":"2022-09-13 14:47:29","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1280,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-300x200.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":200,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-1024x683.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":683,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1280,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-1200x800.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":800,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-630x420.jpg","home_baner-width":630,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Parashat Ekev  5779","main_caption":"Imbuing Places With Meaning","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"With luck, or the right intent, the places will imbue us right back","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":84672,"id":84672,"title":"ps62-meaning","filename":"ps62-meaning.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/multiplicities-of-meaning\/ps62-meaning\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ps62-meaning","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":84671,"date":"2020-12-07 12:16:35","modified":"2022-09-13 14:47:29","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1280,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-300x200.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":200,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-1024x683.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":683,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning.jpg","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1280,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-1200x800.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":800,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/ps62-meaning-630x420.jpg","home_baner-width":630,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107943,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61753\/revisions\/107943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}