Parshat Ekev

In Parashat Ekev, Moshe Rabbenu informs the Jewish people that God has chosen them to inherit the land of Israel not because they are worthy of that prize, but rather because of the evil of those who presently inhabit the land, and because of the merit of the Patriarchs and the oath made to them. These are very sobering words, to say the least. Moreover, they seem to contradict the message delivered to us by Moshe Rabbenu in last week's parasha. There we were told that we were chosen not because of our great size, but rather because God loves us. The implication is that God chose us for our "quality," not for our "quantity." This certainly implies that qualitatively we are worthy and that this worthiness expresses itself in the spiritual realm.

The Ramban resolves this difficulty in his commentary to Parashat Va'etchanan. There he explains that the Jewish people always exist on two planes. One is the Jewish people at any particular point in history. Sometimes we are worthy, sometimes we are not, all depending on the religious and spiritual level achieved by the particular generation.

But there is another plane on which we exist called "Knesset Israel." This is the totality of the Jewish people in all times, the past, the present, and the future, including the Patriarchs, the Matriarchs, and the righteous of all generations. The Jewish people eternal are always worthy qualitatively and truly merit inheriting Eretz Israel.

Our goal must always be to make the Jewish people of our own generation as similar as possible to Knesset Israel, the Jewish people eternal.