Recap for 20 Av 5773 (Parsha Eikev)

Last Shabbos we discussed the idea of clinging to Hashem, and how we do this by imitating his ways – doing mitzvah, acts of kindness, and following the Torah. This Shabbos we broadened the discussion to include the idea of loving Hashem. We discussed what it means to be commanded to love Hashem.  How can we be commanded to have this emotion of love?

We discussed how we can love Hashem, by studying the details of his creation. Hashem created everything, so anything that we study, such as the Torah, or secular subjects such as science, math, and psychology, are included. As we study these subjects, it should be amazing to us the beauty and intelligence of Hashem that is manifested in our physical world. And we discussed how the act of studying all these subjects and details doesn’t only lead to our love for Hashem, it is love for Hashem in and of itself.

David talked about how there are 3 levels to a relationship with Hashem. At the most primitive level, we fear Hashem and that we will be punished if we do not follow the Torah and act in a moral way. At the next higher level, we appreciate Hashem for what he can do for us, personally. And at the highest and most desirable level, we appreciate what and who Hashem is, in and of itself, regardless of what he can do for us. As we get to a higher level, we still have fear, but what we are fearing is missing out on opportunities to get closer to Hashem and grow spiritually, rather than some type of punishment.

We discussed the mitzvah of learning Torah and whether or not we get benefit if we don’t understand the learning. We did agree that maximum benefit comes from being able to recap what we learned and provide the knowledge to others. However, unlike secular subjects such as math and biology, making the effort to learn has benefit in and of itself regardless of whether or not we understand the material. If we simply give up learning, we may miss the opportunity to eventually get to a point where the learning is beneficial.  Our journey of learning may take us to a place where we don’t understand, but later lead us to a place where the learning is not only understandable but inspirational to us as well.

Efroni led a discussion about Torah commanded blessings with respect to meals and learning Torah. With meals, we say the Torah level blessing afterwards, whereas with learning we say the blessing in the beginning. We discussed possible reasons for this difference.  One possible reason is that with Torah study the learning never ends whereas with meals there is more of a definite end point.

Ariav gave a dvar Torah on this week’s parsha, Eikev. In the parsha, Moses tells the people what they have to do. We discussed why Moses acts like there is not really that much that the Jews need to do when there seems to be a very large number of commandments in the Torah. We discussed how we need to look at the volume of commandments relative to what the Jews are going to receive in return. When we look at all that Hashem gives us, we can see that what we are asked to do in return is not that much. We also discussed the fact that Hashem really doesn’t need us to do anything – all these commandments are actually for us.

Finally we had some discussion of science and religion. Howard pointed out that science will never be able to explain how something comes out of nothing. Science is concerned with cause and affect. What is most interesting is that Hashem created this concept of one event causing another, cause and affect.  Cause and affect rely on time, which is something else Hashem created.  The question of who created Hashem does not make sense, because cause and effect - if it exists at all - may work very differently in the spiritual world of Hashem, than Hashem's manifestation of this for us in the physical world.