In Parshas Va’eschanan, the Torah depicts the blessings which await the Jewish people upon their entry into the Land of Israel:
“And it shall be, when Hashem your G-d brings you into the land that He swore to your forefathers, to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Yaakov, to give you—great and good cities that you did not build, houses full of all good things that you did not fill; cisterns hewn out that you did not hew; vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, lest you forget Hashem...” (Devarim 6:10-12).
This is a danger we are familiar with. With prosperity, the potential for spiritual complacency can swiftly set it. And yet, in Parshas Ekev, we learn of a similar danger, and yet it is couched in subtly different terms:
“Lest you eat and be satisfied, and build good houses and dwell in them... and your herds and your flocks increase, and your silver and gold increase, and all that you have increases—then your heart will become proud, and you will forget Hashem your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery...” (ibid. 8:12–14).
At first glance, the message of these two passages is the same: be careful of abundance and prosperity leading you to forget Hashem. But Rav Yitzchak Isaac Sher notes an important distinction.
In Parshas Va’eschanan, the concern is that of distraction. The blessings can become overwhelming in the form of dazzling cities, palatial homes and abundant vineyards and we come to forget that Hashem is the Source of it all.
In Parshas Ekev, on the other hand, there is a different danger. It is not that of distraction, but delusion. The Torah incisively adds the words, “Then your heart will become proud.” Arrogance will set in and you will not only forget that Hashem is the Source of all the blessing in your life, but begin to believe that you are the source. You start to think that your success is the result of your own doing, proclaiming, “Kochi v’otzem yadi asah li es hachayil hazeh—It is my strength and the power of my hand which provided all this wealth.” At that moment, you remove Hashem from your life and deem that you are the sole generator of the blessing and goodness you have. You push Hashem out of the picture. That is beyond a distraction from the truth; it is a delusion of it.
I once asked Rav Moshe Shapiro zt”l during the Purim of 2008, when the economic collapse impacted global markets, causing countless businesses to crumble and families to lose everything overnight. “People have been asking me why Hashem did this,” I said to Rav Shapiro. “What should I tell them?” He looked back at me, and said, “Did they ask the same question—why did Hashem do this—when they were making all that money?”
If you see the hand of Hashem throughout your success, you can ask where Hashem is when things go wrong and you experience hardship. But if during moments of your success, you attribute it to your own doing and intelligence, then just as the market goes up, the market goes down. You were subject to the doings of natural law and order, of the so-called “market” when things went up, and now they just happen to go down.
The Torah’s teaching is clear. When we forget who the Source of the goodness in our life is, we engender our downfall. And equally so, and even more so, we bring ruination into our life when we begin to think that we ourselves are the curator and creator of that beracha. Instead, we are to always, even with the efforts and labor of our own hands, remember that Hashem provides us with all that we have in life. It is that humbled recognition and acknowledgment which secures our continued success and the ongoing beneficence of blessing in our life, because Hashem sees that we know to Whom it all belongs.
