Parshas Eikev 5762 The Whole Thing
By Rabbi Joshua (totally known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

  In this week's parsha, Moshe continues to adjure the people, on the brink of entering the Holy Land, to observe God's mitzvos. After speaking at some length of various prohibitions in connection with idolatry, he says, " All of the commandment that I command you today you shall observe to perform, so that you may live and increase, and come and take possession of the land that God swore to your forefathers" (Devorim 8:1). The term "all of the commandment" is a bit peculiar, because the oration containing it appears to both begin and end in the plural. Rashi himself cites a midrash to explain that it should be translated as 'all of the mitzvoh,' meaning that a person should strive to perform the entire mitzvah, rather than begin it and leave it unfinished, for someone else to complete it. A mitzvoh, the rabbis tell us, is attributed to the person who completes it. Thus the burial of Yosef's remains was attributed to the children of Israel. Even though it was Moshe who actually took the bones out of Egypt, he was never able to bring them to burial. Since it was the nation that finally buried him, the Torah refers to them as being the ones who brought his bones out of Egypt. Because they were the ones who in actuality buried Yosef, the Torah refers to the bones as those which the Jewish people brought out of Egypt.

    Another midrash, cited by Rabbeinu Bachya, connects our verse to the previous verses, and says that observing the mitzvoh of refraining from idolatry is comparable to observing the entire Torah, and so is one mitzvoh that is, in a sense, equal to the entire Torah. This explanation can account for the connection of this verse to those that follow, according to which continued existence in the Holy Land is dependent on observing the mitzvoh referred to in the first verse. Idolatry characterized the Canaanite nations who dwelled in the land prior to the Israelites, and the earth, as the Torah tells us elsewhere, spat them out, unable to tolerate idolatrous practices. The laws of destroying idols are, in fact, more stringent in Israel than elsewhere. Thus, while outside the land one must destroy an idol he happens to encounter, in the Holy Land we are required to seek out the idols, find them and destroy them. The work of the Jewish nation in the land is to take the same land that was polluted by the Canaanite idolaters and practice sanctity there by observing the mitzvos of the Torah. This contrast between the Canaanite abuse of the land and the task of the Jewish people there in contrast to the deportment of the Canaanites, is a theme often elaborated upon by the late Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Goldwicht, zt'l, of Yeshivas Kerem biYavneh.

  Rabbi Chaim ben Attar, in his commentary Ohr HaChaim, takes a different approach. He says that people, even when basically religious, tend to fall into religious complacency. They believe that if they pray with a minyan three times a day, put on tefillin, and observe a few other commandments, they have already done enough to be considered as being "good Jews." A teacher of mine, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, in fact wrote an article back in the 1950s saying that the notion of being a 'good Jew' is of recent origin, and reflects an American attitude that religion is something that one must pay obeisance to by a certain number of acts, but need not become a central factor in one's life. Thus once a person has done a certain number of things, observed a certain number of commandments, he considers himself as being " a good Jew." In previous generations and settings, continues Rabbi Berkovits, the attitude of the religious Jew always was "when will my actions match with those of my ancestors," always seeking more things to do in their service of God. The Tanna De-Bei Eliyahu, in fact, tells us that we are obligated to ask ourselves this question constantly. Thus, following the Ohr HaChaim's explanation of our verse, the Torah is telling us not to fall into a state of religious complacency after we enter the land, but rather make sure to observe all of the mitzvos, not just a select number of them. I would like to suggest another explanation of the verse, based on the writings of Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok HaKohein Kook.

  Rav Kook, in his Oros HaTorah, writes that every commandment of the Torah contains within it, in a sense, all of the mitzvos of the Torah. The Torah as a whole constitutes a unity because it is comes from God and contains within it His divine light. Throughout the generations, the Jewish nation has discerned this divine light in the Torah, and sensed this unity of all parts of the Torah. When one observes one of the mitzvos of the Torah, he should do so with a recognition of this divine light permeating the Torah, and thereby connect this observance with observance of the entirety of the Torah. This idea is also reflected, according to Rav Kook, in the kabbalistic idea, already presented by Ramban in the introduction to his commentary to the Torah, that the entire Torah consists of names of God. Following this idea of Rav Kook, the term "all of the commandment" can be explained to mean that each commandment we observe should be done in a way that it reflects our awareness of the divine light that permeates the entire Torah. This notion has special meaning in the Holy land, which is the only place where we are able, in a practical sense, to observe all of the mitzvos, since many mitzvos are dependent on being in the land. Therefore, as the people were about to enter the land, Moshe told them that their observance of mitzvos there should be informed by the reality of the essential unity of the entire Torah and all of its mitzvos.