Consuming our fill

Toward the opening of this week’s passage, we find the verse that is customarily held to be the basis for reciting birkat hamazon – the traditional blessing after meals:

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you (Deuteronomy 8:7-10, JPS translation).

Usually we pay most attention only to the last line – v’achalta v’savata uveyrachta et Adonai elohekha – “When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God…” If this were only to indicate our obligation to recite thanks for our dietary sustenance, our understanding is insufficient; the paragraph refers to ALL the bounty of the Promised Land – natural resources, nourishing foods, precious metals – that is, the entire range of what we need to flourish and succeed. This in mind, we should read the passage as “when you have *consumed* your fill,” as consumption is much broader than eating alone. Consequently, this also broadens our responsibility to express gratitude for what we have. It is not merely following meals that we give thanks; it is for each and every time we “consume,” make use of, that which is provided for us. Imagine – an even greater prompt to utter praise for the things we have and what we do with them.

Soon after, recounting Moses’ need to create a second set of tablets (the Ten Commandments) following the Israelites’ episode with the golden calf, the text goes on:

And now, O Israel, what does the Lord you God demand of you? Only this: to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in His paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your god with all your heart and soul, keeping the Lord’s commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good (Deut. 10:12-13).

Only this?!?!? Well, at least this easy listing is meant for our good. Modern commentator Jeffrey Tigay suggests that “’And now’” means ‘Now, then.’ In other words, ‘Your history of rebellion shows that you lack the following qualities, to which you must dedicate yourselves in the future’” (JPS Torah Commentary – Deuteronomy, p. 107).

So how do we begin (or continue) to tackle this “mere” listing of virtues that enable us to overcome our past foibles? The answer is already given in the earlier part of the text: by always cultivating an “attitude of gratitude”, in giving thanks for what we have, our ability to use them for good, and our opportunity to share our advantage with those around us.

And now, it remains our turn.