This is the second movement in a trilogy of reflections tracing the Shema’s unfolding presence across Va’etchanan, Eikev, and Re’eh. Three parshas that go from declaration to embodiment, from sacred utterance to sacred practice.
In Va’etchanan, we declared the Shema: “Hear, O Israel…” A moment of thunder and tenderness, of inheritance wrapped in presence. In Eikev, we continue it, not in recitation, but in enactment. Here, in the second paragraph of the Shema (Devarim 11:13-21), love becomes responsibility. It asks not only what we believe, but how we live.
The name Eikev itself means “heel.” It’s the part of the body often overlooked but essential to motion. The Torah offers it not just as anatomy, but as metaphor: blessing comes through what follows, what sustains. Holiness, too, moves through the heel.
Covenant doesn’t live in spectacle. It lives in rhythm. Not in thunder, but in footsteps. In the choreography of continuity. Its faith practiced through the heel, the unnoticed, the daily. Eikev reminds us that holiness isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s quiet enough to miss unless you’re listening with memory.
The Shema isn’t a singular moment of belief. It’s a pattern. A loyalty that rises with us, walks with us, speaks through us. It asks not for drama, but for return. Morning by morning, we choose again. Not permanence, but presence.
Love, too, is rhythm. Not just the vow, but the choosing. Not just the declaration, but the enactment. In marriage, in mourning, in the messy grace of co-parenting and career. In the way we hold memory – not as archive, but as axis.
Covenant grows up here. It moves from bedtime prayers to morning spreadsheets. From mezuzahs on doorposts to mercy in hospital rooms. Not because we are commanded, but because we remember.
Inheritance and the Heel: Memory that Moves
Eikev opens quietly. Not with spectacle, but with footsteps. The blessings come not because we’ve earned them, but because we listen, we remember, and we walk in rhythm.
I lost my father in my early twenties. That grief didn’t just punctuate my life: it calibrated it. His voice remains inside mine, not as echo but as axis. He taught me that righteousness isn’t loud; it’s consistent. That kavod isn’t simply about honor but about holding others with weight and intention.
Eikev commands us to remember not only the miracles, but the failures. The wilderness wanderings, the Egel HaZahav (Golden Calf), the hunger, and the doubt. In Devarim 8:2, Moshe tells the people, “Remember the long way that Hashem your G-d has made you travel… to test you by hardships” vezacharta et kol haderech asher holichacha Hashem Elohecha zeh arba’im shana bamidbar, lema’an annotcha lenassotcha, lada’at et asher bilvavecha… hatishmor mitzvotav im lo.
It is not forgetting that redeems us: it is how we remember.
For me, memory is not a passive archive. It’s a living continuity; a sacred unfolding that remakes covenant in every generation. Covenant, then, is not simply remembered. It’s remade. This moral memory does not isolate; it prepares.
To remember is to carry time within us. Not as burden, but as compass. It steadies me: not with certainty, but with presence. It shapes how I choose covenant in marriage, how I mentor in complexity, how I walk through adulthood with rhythm and grace.
Marriage as Embodied Covenant
Covenant is not one vow; it is rhythm. In Eikev, we step into the second paragraph of the Shema, where love is no longer declared but sustained. “And it will be, if you listen…” (Devarim 11:13). It’s conditional not in its threat, but in its invitation: to live faith in the field, in the family, in the mundane.
I am blessed to walk beside a man whose intellect cuts through fog and whose heart steadies what’s fragile. He’s fluent in Torah and the Multiverse, Pirkei Avos and pop culture. Our marriage lives in commentary and coffee, in late-night laughter and quiet dignity. We don’t talk only about Hashem – we talk about the weird, the magnificent, and the mundane. He is not a knight in shining armor. Instead, he’s my partner who knows I can fight my own battles, but stands ready, shield and sword in hand, when I call. His levity feels like mercy. It lifts without diminishing.
Our marriage is a second for both of us. That means it was not assumed, it was chosen. Not just once under the chuppah, but every morning since. To choose one person, again and again, is not a rejection of freedom. It’s the courage to walk into it. Love, in its mature form, isn’t possession: it’s participation. It’s the daily risk of showing up, of being known, of building something that didn’t exist until we made it together.
Relationships don’t sustain themselves on sentiment alone. They ask for commitment, loyalty, patience, and persistence. They ask us to return, even when the path is foggy. To listen, even when the words are hard. To hold, even when the weight shifts.
In Eikev, Torah doesn’t offer us a contract: it offers us a covenant. Not a transaction, but a transformation. Not a list of interests, but a shared identity. Covenant says: you and I form an Us. And that Us is where holiness lives.
Sometimes I anchor. Sometimes he does. Sometimes I burn; he reflects. Sometimes we switch. Always – always – we move in orbit. Our co-parenting is imperfect but stitched with grace. We guide through complexity, offer empathy, teach resilience with the same steady hands my parents once extended to me.
The Shema is not only a statement of belief: it is a structure of loyalty. And loyalty isn’t proven in declarations. It’s proven in dishes and diagnoses, in calendar invites and quiet apologies. In our home, covenant doesn’t hover above; it moves between us.
Working and Guiding: Adult Faith in Action
Eikev cautions against forgetting the source of strength. “And you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth’” (Devarim 8:17). But Torah reminds us: labor is not license. It is responsibility, memory, and moral stewardship.
In my professional life, I build systems to hold others, not in abstract policies, but in actual people. I guide teams and institutions toward justice, resilience, and compassion. I translate data into equity, compliance into care. Because leadership, like covenant, is not declared: it is practiced.
Faith doesn’t live in declarations: it lives in decisions. In hiring with integrity. In preparing for what we pray will never be needed. In asking not just what needs doing, but who is missing from the room. Provision is never just resources: it’s responsibility. It’s remembering that behind every spreadsheet is a story. Behind every policy, a person.
I don’t just build systems. I build trust. I build care.
I co-parent in complexity, and I mentor across systems. The Shema lives here too: not only on parchment, but in strategic plans, staff meetings, and in listening to what’s fragile. In choosing integrity when it’s inconvenient. In reminding institutions that compassion isn’t an afterthought: it’s architecture.
Faith in adulthood asks for structure. But it also asks for grace.
Choosing Daily, Remembering Always
As covenant unfolded in Va’etchanan, it was inherited and declared, bound to memory, legacy, and the gravity of loss. In Eikev, it is enacted. Chosen through marriage, mercy, and mundane faith. The Shema continues, not just recited, but lived.
Covenant is not kept in memory alone; it must be practiced. Eikev does not ask us to believe blindly, nor to act flawlessly. It asks us to remember well. To walk faithfully. To choose, again and again.
The Shema continues here, not with the thunder of its first line, but with the steadiness of its second. Not in proclamation, but in process. The blessings, the rain, the rhythm of the land. They all hinge on our willingness to live with intention.
In my own life, covenant appears not only in sanctuary, but in strategy. In bedtime prayers, yes; but also in prepping for Shabbos, in drafting these divrei Torah, and in the quiet logistics that make meaning possible. I carry my mother’s lessons on dignity and discernment. The ethics of knowing when to speak and when to listen. I choose my marriage each morning. I carry my father’s kavod each time I lead. I thread compassion through systems and decision-making; not because it’s required, but because I remember. Covenant, for me, is not a declaration. It’s a compass. It steadies my steps across sacred and secular terrain, pointing me back to mercy when the map feels unclear.
And this is the gift of Eikev: it meets us in adulthood. In the heel. In the overlooked. In the morning cup of tea cooling beside a meeting agenda. In the subtle acts that sustain community, marriage, and meaning.
As we prepare to enter Re’eh, Torah will ask us to see and to choose vision and moral clarity. But first, Eikev reminds us: before we can see rightly, we must remember deeply. In this remembering, we begin again.
May memory steady our steps. May mercy shape our choices. May covenant hold us close. In rhythm, in love, in every quiet morning.
