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Sidrah

Ekev

"Beware that you forget the Lord your God… and say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand got me this wealth'" Deutoronomy 8:11-17

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God challenged and tested the Jewish people with the manna in the desert, the food given them without their having to work the land. His unusual food symbolised the people's dependence on God. Every day the people had to trust that the manna would come as it would only last for one day. The challenge was in believing that God would provide for them.

However, for those who were going to settle the fertile land of Israel the challenges were different. The Jewish people would no longer be dependent on water from the rock and manna from the heaven. With material wealth would they still appreciate that the gifts of the land were derived from God? Would the people who were working the land themselves still have faith in God? Once they were in control of their destiny would they still see God in the world around them?

This is the spiritual challenge of wealth - remembering God in times of comfort. In times of adversity it is perhaps easier acknowledging God. In times of ease, the encroaching danger is that one will forget God and our experiences in Egypt and claim wealth as a right.

We are instructed not to forget our God who took us out of Egypt from slavery and who heard our cries of oppression. More than passively remembering, the law obligates us to try to act like God: to hear the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the marginal and unprotected members of society and at the same time not to act like Pharaoh, who ignored the vulnerable.

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