Eikev
Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11:25
In the middle of this Torah portion, Moses once again admonishes our people for our intractable stubbornness:
“Know, then, that it is not for any virtue of yours that the Eternal your God is giving you this good land to possess; for you are a stiffnecked people.” (Deut. 9:6)
It’s true. If God had a side, we would be the proverbial thorn. We chronically argue, kvetch, oppose, and contradict; we are never satisfied. It started with Adam and Eve, who ate from the forbidden tree. It continued with the patriarchs and matriarchs, and with their descendants, down to this very day. It is, by now, etched in our DNA. We abhor dogma, dispute any “fait accompli,” and revolt against the very idea of “blind following.” Because we are a people that questions everything, we have challenged every oppressor, every bestower of forced-conversions, every emancipator; we have stood up to the most conformist regimes, yet sustained and expanded our own national, cultural, and religious identity in the process.
But Torah isn’t interested in the outer manifestations of our stiffneckedness—beneficial or otherwise. As the Spiritual Treaty of our people, Torah concerns itself mostly with inwardly directed matters. Though our stubbornness may serve us when dealing with the outer world, it is our greatest obstacle when it comes to our spiritual unfolding. As Moses explains: “When you have…built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased… you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me’” (Deut. 8:12-17). We claim authorship of all the blessings in our lives; we see them as our own accomplishments. We look past our privileged upbringing, the wealth of our nation, the benefits of living in a pluralistic and democratic society, and all the myriad other circumstances that allow us to accomplish so much. We claim authorship of our failures too, by the way. That’s why we get so upset with ourselves when things don’t turn out as we expect. Even when we are victims of an incident, we assign ourselves the blame—as if we were the ones in charge, the ones in control. Absurdly, we see ourselves as the sole authors of our fate.
This false claim of authorship, addicted as we are to control, is what keeps us mired on our journey to awakening. It’s what props up the illusion of a separate sense of self. Wayne Liquorman, an Advaita teacher, calls this delusion the False Sense of Authorship (FSA). In Judaism, this False Sense of Authorship is called Yetzer HaRa, literally, “The Evil Inclination”—i.e., that which estranges us from God, from Self-Awareness. It is so powerful that even in meditation it tricks us into falsely believing that we are the ones meditating, the ones who are aware. In true meditation, the “meditator” ultimately dissolves.
For all the problems it may cause, our stiffneckedness could also become our greatest asset. When applied in the service of awakening, our stubbornness and relentless questioning can be turned into a finely sharpened sword to slay the false separate sense of self. Slashing through our own dogmas, beliefs, and certainties, our own conformism vis-à-vis our undisputed received ideas and concepts, would be the first step on the long journey to “the good land” that “the Eternal your God is giving you…to possess.” But isn’t that exactly how a journey of a thousand miles—or a wandering of 40 years—always begins?