Parashas Ekev: The Midbar, Emunah, and the Meaning of Parnassah

Topics

• The Midbar: A Place Where Survival Was Impossible
• The Race to the Water
• Why Rabbi Chanina Could Rely on a Miracle
• When Miracle Becomes Nature
• The Path of Shevet Levi
• Living Beyond the Ordinary Decree
• Parnassah Is Not Luxury
• The Midbar as a School of Emunah
• Parnassah and the Yoke of Parnassah
• Hashem Opens the Eyes
• Who Really Makes the Parnassah?

Transcript

## The Midbar: A Place Where Survival Was Impossible

In Parashas Ekev, Moshe Rabbeinu reviews Klal Yisrael’s past, addresses their present, and prepares them for the future. He warns them not to forget Hashem, “Who led you through the great and awesome wilderness—with snake, fiery serpent, and scorpion—and with thirst where there was no water; Who brought water for you from the flinty rock” (Devarim 8:15).

The wording requires explanation. Why does the Torah join two apparently separate dangers: snakes and scorpions on the one hand, and the absence of water on the other? The Midbar lacked food, clothing, money, and every ordinary means of support. Yet the pasuk singles out dangerous creatures together with *“tzimayon asher ein mayim.”* What connects them?

The Pane’ach Raza explains this through the account of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. A dangerous *arvad* was harming people. Rabbi Chanina placed his heel over its hole; the creature bit him and died. He carried it to the beis midrash and declared: “It is not the arvad that kills, but sin that kills” (Berachos 33a).

The point is not simply that Hashem protected Klal Yisrael from several dangers. The absence of water made the danger of the snakes absolute. Naturally, there was no path to survival. Hashem led them into precisely such a place—and sustained them there.

## The Race to the Water

The Yerushalmi is cited as explaining that when an *arvad* bites a person, there is a race to the water: if the creature reaches the water first, the person dies; if the person reaches it first, the creature dies. In Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa’s case, water miraculously emerged beneath his heel. He reached the water first, and the arvad died.

This illuminates the pasuk. Klal Yisrael traveled through a wilderness filled with snakes and scorpions, “and thirst where there was no water.” By every natural calculation, they could not survive. Yet Hashem “brought water for you from the flinty rock” (Devarim 8:15). The water was not an unrelated kindness. It directly overturned the mortal danger of the Midbar.

But another question remains. If the message is only that Hashem saved them from snakes and supplied water, why does the Torah repeatedly emphasize that He led them through the Midbar? Why is the setting itself central?

The answer must be that the Midbar was not merely the location of the miracle. The Midbar itself was part of Hashem’s purpose. It was a spiritual environment designed to produce a particular kind of person.

## Why Rabbi Chanina Could Rely on a Miracle

How was Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa permitted to place himself in danger? Chazal teach that one may not rely upon a miracle. Even a great tzaddik should not enter a dangerous situation that can be escaped only through supernatural intervention.

The Maharsha explains why Rabbi Chanina placed specifically his heel over the *arvad’s* hole. The Torah describes the struggle between man and the serpent: “He will strike you on the head, and you will strike him on the heel” (Bereishis 3:15). By placing his heel there, Rabbi Chanina demonstrated that the serpent does not possess independent power; it harms only where sin has granted it power.

A similar connection appears in Yosef’s pit: “The pit was empty; there was no water in it” (Bereishis 37:24). Chazal explain: there was no water, but there were snakes and scorpions (Shabbos 22a). Why does the Torah reveal the snakes indirectly through the absence of water? Because “there was no water” defines the danger. Had water been present, the snakes would not have represented the same unavoidable threat.

The Midbar and Yosef’s pit therefore share one image: snakes in a place where no natural rescue exists. That is precisely where Hashem reveals that danger itself has no independent authority.

## When Miracle Becomes Nature

Perhaps the answer is that a tzaddik does not experience miracle and nature as we do. To us, nature is ordinary and a miracle is an interruption. A tzaddik who lives entirely with Hashem inhabits a different order: what we call a miracle can be his normal reality. Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was not relying upon a miracle in the conventional sense, because the serpent’s curse did not govern him in the same way.

This leads to a broader principle. After the sin of Adam HaRishon, man was told, “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread” (Bereishis 3:19), while Chavah was told of pain in childbirth (Bereishis 3:16). The latter applies universally. The former, however, is not experienced equally by every person. A king may be supported without ordinary labor, and a person born into wealth may not personally toil for bread.

Most importantly, the Mishnah teaches: “Whoever accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah, they remove from him the yoke of government and the yoke of worldly occupation” (Avos 3:5). The ben Torah can be released from the ordinary burden of *derech eretz*.

Why? Because the curse belongs to the world created after the chet. A person who genuinely elevates himself through Torah begins, to some degree, to return to the world of Adam HaRishon before the chet.

## The Path of Shevet Levi

This is the meaning of the Rambam’s celebrated conclusion to *Hilchos Shemitah V’Yovel*. Shevet Levi did not receive a territorial inheritance because its members were separated to serve Hashem, teach His upright ways, and stand before Him. Their inheritance was Hashem Himself (Rambam, *Hilchos Shemitah V’Yovel* 13:12).

The Rambam then expands the principle beyond Levi: any person whose spirit moves him to separate himself, stand before Hashem, serve Him, know Him, and “walk uprightly, as Hashem made him,” may become sanctified as *kodesh kodashim*. Hashem will then provide for him what is sufficient, just as He provided for the kohanim and Levi’im (ibid. 13:13).

The Rambam’s phrase “as Hashem made him” is crucial. The Torah states, “Hashem made man upright” (Koheles 7:29). This person returns, as far as possible, to the original *yashrus* of Adam HaRishon—before worldly calculations, desires, and distortions entered him.

A ben Torah who lives within the world of Torah is not merely choosing a different profession. He is choosing a different existence. He lives in a form of Gan Eden. Therefore, the ordinary curse of toil need not govern him in the same manner.

## Living Beyond the Ordinary Decree

The Rambam’s phrase “as Hashem made him” evokes Adam HaRishon before the chet. Chazal describe exceptionally righteous people whose lives reflected freedom from the ordinary spiritual consequences of personal wrongdoing. This demonstrates that a person can rise, in some measure, above the post-chet order.

Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa lived in that world. Yet a difficulty remains. What does it mean that a ben Torah is freed from the yoke of *parnassah*? In yeshivos and kollelim, money may be scarce and payments may be delayed. If he works less and also possesses less, what has he gained?

The answer is that we misunderstand *parnassah*. It does not mean wealth; it means sustenance. Chazal say that the entire world was sustained in Rabbi Chanina’s merit, while he was satisfied with a kav of carobs from one Erev Shabbos to the next (Taanis 24b).

Rabbi Chanina possessed little, but he possessed enough. That is parnassah. The question is not how much money one controls, but whether Hashem provides what one truly needs.

## Parnassah Is Not Luxury

Rabbi Chanina’s portion was a kav of carobs, yet it was enough. The shiur defines parnassah as what sustains a person, not every comfort that society treats as necessary.

Parnassah means lefarneis—to support and sustain. Earlier generations sometimes lived with very little and still built strong Jewish homes. Today, many things once viewed as luxuries are treated as minimum requirements.

The Rambam describes Hashem providing the person devoted to His service with what is sufficient for him (Hilchos Shemitah V’Yovel 13:13). The emphasis is sufficiency, not extravagance.

The more luxuries a person considers essential, the heavier his yoke becomes. The Midbar taught the opposite: freedom begins when a person knows what is truly enough.

## The Midbar as a School of Emunah

The Midbar was a training ground in *emunah*. Klal Yisrael lived there as *ochlei haman*, receiving each day’s sustenance from Hashem. This prepared them to receive the Torah and to enter Eretz Yisrael.

The Midbar taught two truths: everything comes from the Ribbono Shel Olam, and what He gives is enough. A person cannot live as an *ochel haman* while remaining controlled by endless worldly desires.

This explains the Torah’s emphasis: “Who led you through the great and awesome wilderness” (Devarim 8:15). Hashem did not merely rescue them in the Midbar. He led them through it to refine them. The danger, thirst, manna, and water were all parts of one education.

Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa embodied that education. His life demonstrated that a person who lives with complete emunah and accepts Hashem’s portion is not governed by ordinary fear in the same manner.

The pasuk teaches that one who absorbs the Midbar’s lesson can become free from the anxieties that control ordinary life.

## Parnassah and the Yoke of Parnassah

There is a difference between *parnassah* and the yoke of parnassah. Parnassah is the sustenance a person receives. The yoke is the anxiety, pressure, and sense that everything depends upon his own calculations.

The Torah does not list making parnassah as an independent mitzvah in the ordinary sense. It is part of the basic structure of life. The spiritual question is whether a person accepts *ol Malchus Shamayim* and recognizes Who truly sustains him.

Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa lived at such a level that what appeared to others as a miracle belonged to his normal relationship with Hashem. The Midbar was intended to bring Klal Yisrael toward that same recognition. “Thirst where there was no water” does not merely describe discomfort. It describes the absence of any visible solution. Nevertheless, Hashem brought water from the rock (Devarim 8:15).

So too, a ben Torah may look at his circumstances and see no clear path. The lesson is not to ignore responsibility, but to understand that the visible path is not the source of the result. Hashem can place the needed opening where a person sees only stone.

## Hashem Opens the Eyes

The Torah records that Hagar believed there was no water and that her child could not survive. Then “Hashem opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water” (Bereishis 21:19). The well had already been there. What changed was her ability to see it.

The same can occur with *parnassah*. A person may see only a closed situation, while the opening already exists in a form he has not considered. Rabbi Walkin illustrated this with a personal experience: he went to someone seeking help with one costly problem, and that person unexpectedly gave him money for an entirely different obligation he had not realized was owed to him.

This is “Who brought water for you from the flinty rock” (Devarim 8:15). Rock appears to contain no water. Yet Hashem can reveal the source precisely where human calculation sees none.

This does not mean that every person should avoid work, education, or necessary *hishtadlus*. Each situation must be judged properly. The lesson is that even while acting responsibly, one must remember that the action is not the ultimate source. A person should do what is required without imagining that his calculations control the result.

The Midbar teaches that Hashem can open a person’s eyes to possibilities he could never have designed by himself.

## Who Really Makes the Parnassah?

A man and woman have a child. The mother endured the pregnancy, the labor, and the sleepless nights. Then the father announces, “I had a boy.” It sounds absurd.

Rabbi Walkin said that this is how a person sounds when he declares, “I made my parnassah.” A person worked, planned, traveled, and negotiated—but who gave him the health, opportunity, customers, timing, and success? In one moment, any part of the arrangement could have failed. The outcome came from the Ribbono Shel Olam.

*Hishtadlus* may be required, but it must be accompanied by clarity: “I did” is not the truth. Hashem sustained me through the instrument of my effort.

The kindnesses Hashem performs cannot truly be repaid. Even the good deeds a person may perform in the future are possible only because Hashem continues to support him. Human beings resemble tiny ants discussing a business partnership while forgetting that their entire ability to move and carry comes from a power beyond them.

The lesson of the Midbar is therefore not passivity. It is humility and emunah. Work when necessary, plan responsibly, and act—but open your eyes and recognize Who is producing the parnassah.