Rabbi Rosenfeld's Blog

ב״ה | ערש״ק פ׳ עקב ה׳תשפ״ד

The internet has made it possible to dip into every aspect of life and learn about every human experience. Drop into a Wikipedia rabbit hole or search around enough and worlds open up to you. One particular area that I really love, my own niche, is watching videos of professional athletes and their Hall of Fame acceptance speeches. In this little corner of the internet, you find people at the absolute top of success, usually beloved by millions, reaching back to their very beginnings to reflect on life at the top. Invariably, their speeches are about those who helped them get there. 

Here, at the pinnacle, they reflect on the high school coach who believed in them, the parents who put their own lives on the back burner to help them follow their dreams. Allen Iverson, my favorite basketball player of all time, weeps as he recalls the path he would’ve gone down had it not been for all those who helped him and taught him along the way. “I want to also let you know that I feel quite inadequate here this afternoon, or this morning”, said Jackie Robinson in his short, historic acceptance speech, going on to say “this honor that was brought up on me here could not have happened without the great work and the advice and guidance that I’ve had from three of the most wonderful people that I know. And if either of them weren’t here today, I know that this day could not be complete.” 

The theme, again and again, is that at the moment of greatest success, the time of triumph is only complete with the recognition that it was not achieved alone, not by a long shot. Inevitably, they thank God. It is amazing to see these athletes, many of whose careers were marked by bombast and supreme self-confidence, reduced to such humility when encountering their ultimate achievement. 

Unsurprisingly, this is a key theme of our Parsha this week. It amounts to a core Jewish value that permeates every aspect of our religious lives. Once you learn of it - really consider it - it burrows into your consciousness and doesn’t let go. Religion is very good at guiding, anchoring us when we struggle and suffer. The question here is quite different: How do we serve God, how do we turn to the Divine when we experience success? 

Moshe Rabbeinu is continuing his epic, epochal address to the Jewish people standing at the cusp of entering Israel. As we have spoken about, Moshe’s goal is to prepare the people for Life After Moses, for Judaism in the long-awaited-for Promised Land. Here, Moshe strikes a profound and prophetic note (Devarim 8:11-14):

הִשָּׁ֣מֶר לְךָ֔ פֶּן־תִּשְׁכַּ֖ח אֶת־ה׳ אֱלֹקיךָ…

Watch out! Says Moshe. You might forget Hashem your God, and eventually the Mitzvot that I am teaching you,

פֶּן־תֹּאכַ֖ל וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ וּבָתִּ֥ים טֹבִ֛ים תִּבְנֶ֖ה וְיָשָֽׁבְתָּ׃

Lest you eat, be satisfied, build beautiful homes and settle in them, with large flocks and great wealth - everything you have will be in true abundance… 

Let’s pause for a moment to think about this amazing verse. Why would one of the great blessings of the Torah - riches, great communities, long-term stability - be prefaced with the word “פן”, lest? In the Torah, this word is usually synonymous with “avoid this thing.” What could possibly be bad or negative here? What are we watching out for?

The next verse makes it all very clear: 

 וְרָ֖ם לְבָבֶ֑ךָ וְשָֽׁכַחְתָּ֙ אֶת־ה׳ אֱלֹקיךָ הַמּוֹצִיאֲךָ֛ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם מִבֵּ֥ית עֲבָדִֽים׃

“And your heart will become arrogant and you’ll forget Hashem - who took you out of slavery in Egypt.” 

Ibn Ezra makes the consequences clear: “you will forget that you were a slave and your heart was downcast. You will forget the affliction and the hunger which you experienced in the wilderness and that it was Hashem that sustained you.” The Chizkuni comments, chillingly, that “the phenomenon of becoming haughty is tragically all too common.”

Moshe is certainly not telling the Jewish people that all those things - beautiful homes, generational wealth, the finer things in life are negative. Not at all. Halevai the Jewish people should be blessed with them. He is warning them that these things come with a great, existential spiritual challenge. When the going gets tough, we know exactly who to turn to. When we are not surviving, but thriving, it is only human to turn to ourselves and give a nice pat on the back - כחי ועוצם ידי עשה לי את כל החיל הזה, “all this success was all me.” It is very easy to forget your humble beginnings, a slave in Egypt, and the people that led you out of hell, once the Moshes are gone, you have conquered the Land, and are finally enjoying the vistas of ארץ נחלי מים, “a land with flowing streams” as you settle into beautiful homes in the Promised Land. 

This summer, I finally got around to a book that I had been meaning to read for some time. When it was published in the 60’s, it made a stir. Sitting at the top of the non-fiction bestseller list for several months, Our Crowd purported to reveal the stories and inner workings of the great German Jewish families who rose from literal rags to form banking and business dynasties that arguably represent the most impactful Jewish contribution to American life. We learn, for example, of the Seligmans, who went from being chased and beaten as peddlers in Alabama to Stephen Birmingham, the historian and author, describing one of Joseph Seligman’s many private dinners with President Grant, saying, “by the war’s end, though he may not have actually “won the war,” Joseph Seligman was very dear to Washington’s heart.”

I read the book with interest and some sadness. These men and their achievements - stowaways on transatlantic voyages who went on to found one of the most powerful and successful banks in the world like Joseph Sachs or a basement crockery merchant who ended up owning Macy’s in Isidore Straus - inspire and fill you with pride, and then a rueful sigh when you read of their steady distancing from their religion and identity as successes accrue. Shockingly, some of them are left without a single Jewish descendant. A theme of the book is forgetting, or rather shedding, where they came from once at the top. 

It is therefore especially uplifting to read of a different model in the book - that of Jacob Schiff, who played “a decisive financial role” in the defeat of Russia, spending $25 million (the equivalent of almost a billion dollars today) to take up Japanese war bonds. Schiff took this action to punish Russia for its treatment of its Jews and received from the Japanese emperor the “Second Order of the Sacred Treasure” for his investment. In funding the Jewish Theological Seminary and other causes like Montefiore hospital, Schiff’s friends recognized him to be “a God-fearing man who discerned the finger of Providence in the lives of individuals and nations.” 

In many ways, Jacob Schiff’s remarkable life teaches us that even then, even here, even at the very top of the world, it is possible to not forget. 

Baruch Hashem, despite the incredibly trying circumstances of the past year, we still live in the most prosperous and comfortable diaspora Jews have ever known. Despite the suffering, after thousands of years, Jewish people again crossed the Jordan and dwell in beautiful homes in the Land of Israel. Baruch Hashem, this has been marked in our generation with a surge in Jewish pride, a veritable renaissance of Torah and our culture, and an incredibly bright future. 

As we live this part of our people’s history, we would do well to remember Moshe’s timeless admonition to turn to God just as fervently in our times of success as in our times of need.

 Shabbat Shalom.