Memory & menace – Ekev
The sidra warns Israel to remember what God has done for them (Deut. 8:18).
The alternative is that people will begin to think that whatever they have in their hands is the result of their own efforts.
Another verse in the sidra says, one should never boast that kochi v’otzem yadi asah li et hachayil hazeh, “My own strength and power got me all this might” (Deut. 8:17).
This boast is both a defiance of God and a threat to push Him out of the world.
The 20th century should have warned human beings that without God no-one can be controlled or disciplined.
The people who built the Tower of Babel thought they could manage without God and though the tower might not have physically crashed and crushed them, morally it is a grave warning that without God nothing and no-one is safe.
Once you begin to think you’re a self-made person you are a danger to yourself and to everyone around you.
