Parshat Vaetchanan: Actions Over Evidence

Chapter 4:6: “Keep the Mitzvot and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” Let us dissect the meaning of this Pasuk. We see that the way for others to notice our wisdom and understanding is by us keeping away from the prohibitions and by doing the commandments asked of us. Another big thing to point out is that when we do them, they are all rooted in deep belief in Hashem. It is our belief that we can get closer to Him by following His direction and by doing so we will prove our wisdom to the nations.

Anything that is attached to belief requires belief. In order to believe in Hashem we must believe that He helps and provides, otherwise we would ask for proof first. Many people go through life, and at some point realize that the only way out of their predicament is with the help of God, they have tried so many ways to get out of their problems, they have gone to every doctor, shaman and guru, but after all they come to an understanding that only “if” there is a higher power would they be able to climb out. They slowly start seeing proof of His existence through trying not to see Him, they live their lives and get themselves into situations and then try to get themselves out of them, but once the hole is too deep they raise their hands and leave their burdens on Him.

Believing is a tricky subject, because when we believed in humans and placed our trust in them we usually ended up being burned by their promises when they didn’t follow through. We also find ourselves becoming too clingy and feeling abandoned when they need space. Sometimes we can feel as if those people we placed trust in don’t have the capability; this time, to be there for us as we need. Our beliefs are usually built upon experiences of the past and if the last time we chose to hope, dream, wish and believe it didn’t work out, why would we put ourselves into another such situation where we rely completely on somebody else? Honestly, this is a very true argument, unless the new relationship we are trying to build is one with the One.

But how can we prove such a relationship if it is not based on physical fact? If someone came through in the past, we can allow ourselves to rely on them in the future. We have physical evidence of their work and we can go back in time and review their intentions and come to a conclusion that this person really cares. But what about God? We are in a physical realm while He presides in the spiritual and higher realms, how can we prove His love and affection toward us? If our sole basis in our belief in Him is through believing that He exists, our entire practice would be refuted by any fact based human being.

That’s where our Pasuk comes into play. Let’s say for a moment that we still don’t believe in Him and that we require concrete and factual evidence of His existence, it will be through the enactment of His commands that we will see proof. The world will open their eyes and they will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” The proof comes after we keep and do His commandments, and through His direction will we realize that He is the God and Creator of the universe. The brilliance of every word in the Torah and their adoption in our lives ultimately bring about our belief in Him, even if we never believed in the first place.

But we do believe, we know that He exists. We have heard stories of our fathers and their from theirs all the way back to our forefathers, Jacob, Isaac and Abraham the founder of our sweet nation. Our belief in Him is rooted in the facts of history and most of all in the way our forefathers and fathers kept and did all that He asked of them. Their lives were beautiful and content, they found happiness when they had nothing and held onto the belief even when the rest of the world humiliated and degraded us for being the believers that we were and are.

The actions we take and the belief we represent were like thorns in the eyes of many nations for so many years throughout history. In the times of Haman in the Book of Esther 3:8, we see him saying, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them.” It was the acts that we did that was his reason to offend. And now that we have civilized societies around the globe based on our holy Judaic values and that reason is no longer valid, the haters still hate and try to undermine our belief and change the facts of the world.

We come to learn that although we may learn to believe in Hashem through the actions we take, as the rest of the world looks at us and proclaims our wisdom on their lips, we still need to learn to believe in Him without our personal actions. We must learn to trust in Him and live with Him in our midst, meaning that even when it is hard to do what He asks of us we should still go about doing them because the hate will come either way. We should get ourselves in the habit of following His commands because we believe in Him and aren’t looking for that superficial reward or even the reward of the world to come. As the Mishnah states in Avot 1:3, “Don’t be like the slave who serves his master for the sake of reward…” 

Keeping oneself occupied is important for a prosperous society, but being occupied with good things is even more crucial. We live with the need to see the results of our actions, we don’t want to do things that don’t bring us money and we don’t want to get involved with anything that doesn’t promise profits. Our society has been washed down to a very low level of existence, a level of self indulgence and instant gratification and if we don’t experience any of it we just lie back with no meaning and get lost in our oblivious comfort zones. We have to train ourselves not to sit empty even if what we are doing doesn’t bring us instant success.

When we keep and do the Mitzvot we don’t always get to see the benefits right away. But when someone decides to keep themselves occupied with good things instead of being stuck on their phones and TVs all day, they eventually become experts in this field. If someone is out of a job, don’t just sulk on the couch, go out for a hike each day and see the transformation over a few short months. Start doing something, anything, and you will see the reward sprout from these seeds. Throughout history we have kept and have done His commands and as we get closer to the end of days we can clearly see the rest of the world acknowledging His greatness.

David Lemmer is a Orthodox Jewish Author and Hypnotherapist. You can watch his videos on YouTube and reach him at LemmerHypno@gmail.com