The portion of Eikev, read in the synagogue this year on the third Sabbath of August,contains the second paragraph of the Shma (Deuteronomy 11:13-21). The first paragraph can be found at Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Two striking differences between these two paragraphs warrant close examination.
• The first paragraph is written entirely in the second person singular, and thus addresses the individual Jew. The second paragraph uses primarily the second person plural and is thus addresses Israel the nation.
• The first paragraph spells out several mitzvoth — Ahavat Ha-Shem (“the love of G-d”), the requirement to teach one’s children, the mitzvot of tefillin and mezuza — without any mention of reward for performance of these mitzvot or punishment for transgressing them. The second paragraph deals with the same mitzvot, but is explicit about reward or punishment.
Why this is so touches on a fundamental principle of Judaism. The concept of moral autonomy, that a human being can freely choose either righteousness or evil, is what’s at stake.
To be sure, that one course is labeled “righteous” and the other “evil” is indicative that the autonomy is not perfect and all choices are not equal. One’s choice, once made, entails consequences: G-d rewards righteousness and punishes evil.
The form that these consequences assume is problematic. If either reward or punishment is open and obvious, it impairs the freedom of human choice.
What idiots would ever transgress a negative commandment after having once seen a transgressor punished before their eyes? What fool would ignore a positive commandment after having seen its reward drop from heaven at the feet of one who has performed it? Under such a regime, the concept of “choice” is divested of meaning.
Therefore, the rabbis tell us, it is not open and obvious. “S’char mitzvah b’hai alma leika,” the Talmud says — “There is no reward for a mitzvah in this world” (Kiddushin 39b). Rewards are relegated to the next world.
What is more, “ein b’yadeinu lo mi-shalvath ha-resha’im v’af lo mi-yissurei ha-tzaddikim” (“Neither the prosperity of the evil nor the sufferings of the righteous are in our grasp”; Avot 4:15).
Why someone who seems to us an obvious scoundrel leads a “charmed” life while an equally obvious saint suffers is beyond our comprehension. We are not allowed to examine the books.
Accordingly, we do not directly perceive the real consequences of our actions, and so it is possible to fool in this world. For that very reason, only here do we have the opportunity to earn rewards.
“The world is for doing, the next world is for resting,” the present Ozherover Rebbe often says. This echoes Hillel’s famous formulation, “v’im lo achshav” (“if I do not pursue mitzvot now, in this world”) “eimathai” (“when shall I do it, since after death I can do nothing”; Avot 1:14, as interpreted by 15th century commentator Rabbi Ovadya mi-Bartenura).
But if there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world, how explain ourportion?“And it will be, if you will listen to My mitzvot … I shall grant your land’s rainfall on time … And I shall put grass in your field….”
However, “if your heart is seduced, and you turn aside and worship other gods…Ha-Shem will become angry with you, and stop up the heavens, and there will be no rainfall, and the ground will not grant its yield.”
This hardly indicates that there is no reward in this world. The answer is that the Torah addresses individuals and the nation differently.
While it is true that our temporary residence in this world grants us the capacity for self-deception, it does not necessitate it. All human beings, if they but will it, are able to know themselves, to know precisely which facets of thought and deed are all right and which need work.
The Torah teaches us what is right and what is wrong, where our duty lies, and provides us with the basis for faith in Divine reward and punishment.
To make things more obvious would impair our freedom of choice and make performance of our duties less an object of merit than of simple prudence. This is why the first paragraph of the Shma, addressing the individual, contains no mention of reward or punishment.
But the nation’s moral status is a different thing. It constitutes the statistical summation of each member’s status, and hence is unknowable in any absolute sense by human capabilities.
This means any individual member of a nation evil in the aggregate can personally be righteous, or vice versa.
Yet, as our portion makes clear, nations are judged similarly to individuals. Maimonides in the Mishnah Torah(Hilchoth Ta’anith 5:1) tells us that when a disaster befalls a community it is incumbent on the rabbinical authorities to examine matters to determine what caused it and what needs to be corrected.
This is why, on a national or community level, the rewards for mitzvot are in this world. Sensitive observation of Israel’s position in the world and her relative prosperity or poverty, of the degree and nature of persecutions suffered in various places, affords the great sages of each generation a gauge of where the nation as a whole is holding on the moral map, and in which direction things are trending.
That is why the second paragraph of the Shma, addressing Israel the nation, explicitly discusses reward and punishment in the here and now.
Rabbi Avner Zarmi is vice president of the Wisconsin chapter of Agudath Israel of America.
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