In this week’s Parsha, Haazinu, we read the beautiful, poetic “Song” of Moshe that he teaches at the very end of his life. In it, we see the very vivid and interesting description of what will happen to the Jewish people in times of prosperity: According to the Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch translation: “Then Jeshurin became fat and kicked; whenever you became fat, you became obese and overwhelmed by fat, and he forsook G-d who had made him, and regarded as worthless the Rock of his salvation.”
It appears that Moshe is warning the Jewish people about the real dangers of prosperity. According to Rabbi Hirsch:
In suffering, Israel has generally stood the test well, but only rarely has it been able to stand good fortune. Whenever it has grown fat, it has become corpulent and overgrown with fat literally: covered with fat…The more substantial, the fatter, the food introduced into one’s body, the more one should seek to convert the surplus of nourishment into energy and work. The better nourished his body, the more active should the person be, the greater should be his output of activity and performance. Then he will have control over the abundance, and he will remain healthy in both mind and body; and his greater performance will increase his moral worth. If, however, he does not act in this manner, the surplus will be deposited in his body; he will become corpulent, obese, and instead of remaining in control over the abundance, he—his true spiritual, active self—will be overwhelmed by the fat, and that will be his downfall. Such has been the history of the people of Israel. It failed to utilize its abundance and surplus for increased spiritual and moral performance, for a more complete fulfillment of its task… Instead, it allowed itself to be overwhelmed by wealth and prosperity, and it allowed its better, spiritual and moral self to be drowned in them.
After reading this description from Rav Hirsch I am reminded of a fascinating phenomenon I learned about a few years ago. When I worked on as a Campus Rabbi at SUNY Albany, we had wonderful students who came every Friday night for Shabbos dinner. One frigid winter night, after consuming several dozen chocolate chip cookie ice-cream sandwiches for dessert (as vegetarians our Shabbos desserts consist of real, dairy, milky ice-cream), our students, avid weight lifters, informed us that it was “Bulking Season.” I don’t full grasp the science behind it, but apparently, in the winter, they would try to consume a large amount of calories that enabled them to transform this new fat into muscle mass. Based on Rav Hirsch, it seems like they had a solid approach: Mindfully utilize the sustenance and physical nourishment for real growth. Our problem has been however, that too often in history, we allowed the materialism to take over our lives, to overwhelm us.
I believe it is no coincidence that we read this passage, with its critical message of exercising caution when enjoying prosperity, right before the holiday of Sukkos. On Sukkos we are told to leave the comfort of our material homes, and to live in a temporal structure outside. Everything we usually do in the comfort of our homes, we are now meant to do outside in the Sukkah, where it is not hard to recognize the transient, flimsy nature of the structure in which we sit. Sitting in the Sukkah is a vivid reminder that despite the comfort that we have been blessed with, and the materialism that we enjoy, we live in G-d’s world, and rely on Him for all of the gifts that have been bestowed upon us.
In our generation, we are blessed with unprecedented freedom, wealth and prosperity. Our grandparents would have given anything to enjoy the gifts that we have been given. But with that, comes unique, and exceedingly difficult challenges. We most retain our focus, and understand the Source of our material blessings. We must, as Rav Hirsch says “understand how to remain masters of our riches and prosperity; to use them to achieve our moral duties.” Now, as we find ourselves in the middle of the Jewish bulking season, literally (as we have countless festive meals) and spiritually, it is upon us to remember the Source of all of our gifts, and to utilize them to our moral and spiritual betterment.
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