In the Torah reading of Eikev, the Torah suggests that a time will come when we will circumcise the foreskin of our hearts and come to love Hashem. This concept, as much as any other, describes love in Torah. It is a desire for an unimpeded connection and it represents the greatest heights we can achieve in our relationship with Hashem.
In this portion, the formula is flipped. Here, Hashem circumcises our hearts – we do not do it ourselves. The results seem the same, we will love Hashem and we will be drawn and connected to Him.
The two circumcisions seem to be describing the same destination – our ultimate redemption as a people.
In fact, they are very different.
One path is the path of Life and the other is the path of Death.
On the first day of Rosh Hashana, we read two stories of rescue and redemption. They are mirror images of the two paths to redemption in these Torah readings.
In the first, Hashem ‘pakad’s Sarah and she is granted a child. The word ‘pakad’, throughout Chumash, implies a reckoning. Before the princes of Israel are ‘pakad’ed before Hashem, the people bring their half shekels to atone for their sins and the community is cleansed in a variety of ways. The community must prepare for their reckoning. In the case of Sarah, that reckoning is a positive one. She does not face plague or disaster. Instead, she is blessed – in her old age – with a son.
I heard a story once, delivered by a woman named Cynthia Riggs – who was in her 80s at the time. She was telling how her mother had died and she had lost her direction in life. She had been a ship’s captain and geologist and a manager of a bed and breakfast. Friends suggested she write books – and she did. She published 10 of her books and became a nationally recognized mystery author (the Martha’s Vineyard Murder Mysteries). When she revealed that the first book had been published when she was 70, the audience laughed.
And she responded “There’s hope for all of you.”
This is the ‘pakad’ of Sarah. People heard of her child and they laughed, because her redemption showed that they still had hope.
But this story is followed by another. The story of Yishmael. When Yishmael is near death, he is rescued by G-d. But a different word is used. The word is ‘zachar’. Yishmael is not reckoned, he is rescued because of a contract Hashem had with Avraham. Every time Hashem ‘zachar’s a person, or even animals, it is because of a covenant. Hashem promised Noah the animals would survive. When they ran out of other food (and would thus be required to eat one another), Hashem ‘zachar’ed Noah and the animals. Likewise, Hashem promised the Jewish people would be brought out from Egypt. When they faced annihilation because they had stopped reproducing, he zachared them. They needed to be rescued in order for the covenant to be honored. The most recent zichron was the creation of the State of Israel after the destruction of the Shoah.
We needed Israel or our nation might have ceased to exist.
It is this distinction that separates the two redemptions of the Jewish people.
In one case, we circumcise our own hearts.
We can be ‘pakad’ed.
In the other, Hashem is forced to circumcise our hearts for us. We lose something of our independence and humanity in order to prevent us from certain death.
We are ‘zachar’ed.
One of the path of life – of human potential realized. The other is the path of death – of human potential left to rot. In one, we imitate G-d and in the other we are reject this opportunity.