Eike
Akar?
And if you do listen to my mishpatim and guard and do them …You shall be blessed above all other peoples: there shall be no sterile male or female [akar/akarah] among you or among your livestock.
Akar is not a common word: Jacob describes Shimon and Levi as castraters of oxen:
Let not my person be included in their council, Let not my being be counted in their assembly.For when angry they slay men. And when pleased they castrate oxen. Cursed be their anger so fierce, And their wrath so relentless.
Is the reference to castrating oxen a reference to what these brothers did to Shechem, literally unmanning a people?
The Torah seems to tells us about a strict causality: if we follow the rules that govern interpersonal relationships (mishpatim), then we will not be sterile.
Is there a connection to the first verse we quote – that Shimon and Levi did not treat other people the way that the Torah describes a mishpat – Shimon and Levi hardly treated the stranger like they treated themselves, after all. Shimon and Levi, by circumcising and then killing Shechem, terminated the future potential of the entire place!
Might this be read the other way around? That because of how Shechem treated Dinah, he, Shechem, was effectively sterilized?
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A harder question: the only sterile women mentioned in the Torah are Sarai, Rivkah, and Rachel! Is the Torah suggesting that their behavior was in some way lacking? Even if they were held to a higher standard than anyone else, would this not indicate some opportunity for improvement?
Or perhaps the rules of the Torah, given to us much later, were not in effect during the lives of our forefathers? Is there a better answer?
Mokeish?
And you shall not worship their gods, for that would be a snare (mokeish) to you.
Does this not seem backward? Are we not attracted before we are ensnared – not after? That is how it worked for the Egyptians, right? They were attracted, and then they ended up joining us.
So why does the Torah tell us that we would be ensnared after worshipping?
Might this explain how “fake it until you make it” works for idol worship? After all, today we often start doing things that are not halacha not because we want to worship idols, but merely because we are not trying to stick out: we often tend to accept assumptions about “natural is better,” and we do the service, the avodah, of recycling, and we pay lip service to Sustainability – but we mean nothing by it! We are not worshipping Mother Earth! The concept is laughable!
But perhaps this verse in the Torah is warning us: is it possible that we start by servicing another deity without meaning anything at all by it? But then over time we, too, become ensnared?
Should We Return To Har Habayis?
We know that some 90% of the surface area that is currently part of the Dome of Rock complex is NOT forbidden to normal Jews who have toiveled (dipped in a ritual bath). So is there a strictly halachic reason why we should not Go Up to those places?
There is, of course, a practical reason: that doing so might provoke might start a war.
Do we decline to Go Up for halachic reasons, or because of realistic political assessments?
What might the Torah say on the topic?
Should you say to yourselves, “These nations are more numerous than we; how can we dispossess them?” You need have no fear of them. You have but to bear in mind what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all the Egyptians: the wondrous acts that you saw with your own eyes, the signs and the portents, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm by which the LORD your God liberated you. Thus will the LORD your God do to all the peoples you now fear.
How can we decide to override the text on this topic? Do we somehow claim that the Torah does not apply to our world and our lives? Or that G-d is not with us now like He was then?
Are we being guided by the Torah on this question? Should we be?
You Call This Living?!
Man does not live by bread alone.
Might this be a mistranslation? What is “living”, יִחְיֶ֣ה, in the text?
Here is where it is found: G-d promises Avraham that he will have a son with Sarah. Avraham responds: “O that Ishmael might live by Your favor!”
While Ishmael will be blessed and successful, G-d rejects Avraham’s request. Instead, it is Sarah’s son who will continue the divine covenant. Does this not tell us that the Hebrew “to live” is connected not to biological life, but instead to a certain feature of life, a connection to G-d? Is this use of “life” more about intergenerational destiny and overarching purpose, about much more than mere physical existence?
The same usage is repeated in the very next time the word is used? After Jacob leaves Lavan’s house, Lavan pursues him, knowing that someone has stolen Lavan’s idols. The text is usually translated as: “anyone with whom you find your gods shall not live.” But if you read the text carefully, it just as reasonably reads: “Anyone who encounters your gods is not living!”
Or as the late Jackie Mason may have put it, “Worshipping an idol? Pheh! You call that living?!”
In other words: Is the Torah telling us that merely doing well (as Ishmael did) is not real living? Neither is having an encounter with pagan deities. Instead real living comes through encounters with the real G-d?