Parshat Eikev (,פרשת עקב Deuteronomy
7:12–11:25) warns against an aveirah (עבירה) that is especially common among the wealthy: namely, the
belief that I am singularly responsible for my own success in life and owe
nothing to anyone else.
Perhaps because this aveirah is so consonant with the
individualism of American culture, it is hard to condemn it in America without
stirring up political controversy. Consider, for instance, these remarks made
by former White House adviser (later U.S. Senator) Elizabeth Warren in Andover,
Massachusetts, in 2011:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
U.S. President Barack Obama reiterated Warren’s point in
a campaign speech in Roanoke, Virginia, before the 2012 U.S. Presidential
election:
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me—because they want to give something back. They know they didn't — look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business – you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
The fundamental point that both Warren and Obama made was
that wealth is a social product of many people working together. Of course, Karl
Marx had made the same point more than 160 years earlier in the Manifesto of
the Communist Party: “Capital is a collective product, and only by the united
action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of
all members of society, can it be set in motion.” Not surprisingly, then, some
Americans regarded the point as socialistic, and the phrase “you didn't build that” subsequently became a
political flashpoint. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared
that it was insulting to entrepreneurs, and the 2012 Republican National
Convention adopted the slogan “We Built It” in conscious opposition to Obama's
comments.
What does last week’s Torah portion teach us about who
built it? In his valedictory, Moses assures the people that they will enjoy bounty
and abundance in the Promised Land, but he warns them to be ever mindful of its
true source: “And you will say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my
hand made me this wealth.’ And you will remember the Lord your God, for He it
is Who gives you power to make wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). Just as it is God
who gives the people the power to defeat the fearsome Canaanites (Deuteronomy
7:17-24), so it is God who gives them “power to make wealth.”
Underscoring the lesson, Moses adds: “And you shall know
that not through your merit [צדקתך] is the Lord your God giving you this goodly land to take hold
of it, for you are a stiff-necked people” (Deuteronomy 9:6). As Robert Alter explains,
to be stiff-necked (קשה–ערף) signifies
“rigid pride: instead of bowing the head when submission is appropriate, the
stiff-necked person remains presumptuously, defiantly, erect.” He is too proud
to acknowledge that he owes or depends upon others, even when that other is God.
To drive home the dependence of each person on the One
who daily sustains them, Moses tells them: “the land into which you are coming
to take hold of it is not like the land of Egypt from which you went out.” Unlike
Egypt, which relies on human-initiated irrigation (“you sow your seed and water
it with your foot”), the bounty of Israel is dependent on “the rain of the
heavens” (Deuteronomy 11:10-12). The message of the portion is clear: human
beings are dependent on the One who causes the wind to blow and the rain to
fall; only God is truly independent and self-reliant because He alone is the
absolute master of nature and history (Deuteronomy 7:18-19, 10:14, 10:17). To think
otherwise is a form of idolatry, which the portion vigorously warns against.
If God is the source of wealth, then you didn’t build
it—at least not on your own. (It is significant that in the Hebrew, the “you”
to whom Moses directs his remarks is singular [אתה] and not plural [אתם]; this indicates that the admonition is to
the individual rather than the nation.) Fair enough, you might say; I depend
upon and owe God, but what, if anything, do I owe to society? If we equate God
with society, as the sociologist Emile Durkheim did in The Elementary Forms
of Religious Life, then the answer is clear. But even without taking this
step, the Torah portion teaches us that the individual incurs obligations to other
people because of the help he has received from God (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). The
person who enjoys the bounty of the Promised Land, Moses teaches, is obliged to
keep God’s “commands” and “statutes” (Deuteronomy 10:13), which include justice and compassion for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:18-19). In short, he is obliged to
create and maintain an ethical community, for the covenant (ברית) forged at Sinai binds the individual not
only to his God but to the community as well; it is the archetype of Warren’s “social
contract.” This notion shouldn’t be so hard for Americans to understand. After
all, as sociologist Robert Bellah and his co-authors showed in Habits of the
Heart, American individualism has historically been counterbalanced by a
biblical tradition—exemplified by John Winthop’s “A Modell of Christian
Charity”—that draws on last week’s portion to remind us of our obligations
to one another.
