Sidrah
Parashah of the week: Ekev
“You shall cut away the thickening of your hearts and stiffen your necks no more” Deuteronomy 10:16
August 15, 2025 09:56
“You shall cut away the thickening of your hearts and stiffen your necks no more” Deuteronomy 10:16
August 15, 2025 09:56Moses is in the middle of his closing address to the children of Israel. It’s not easy listening. While Israel will inherit the good land, they need to be careful. If they forget God, they will be lost.
Remembering God is not just about obedience. It involves a fundamental remake of the self, attending to the heart. Hence the above injunction.
In the ancient world, the heart is not only associated with feeling but seen also as the seat of intellect. We now know that reason and emotion are intimately combined. As the neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio puts it, “emotions bring the body into the loop of reason” .This means that the heart is led astray by poor thinking, as well as passion.
Cutting away, or circumcising, the thickening of the heart is a metaphor for right thinking, as well as right feeling.
Obadiah Sforno (c. 1470-1549), the Italian Bible commentator, describes what it takes to achieve the former: “You should mentally focus on removing all the errors which give rise to false beliefs.” Certainty is the enemy of change. Without challenge, false beliefs take root. Without internal reflection, the misinformation and innate biases under which we operate are never brought to light and corrected.
Again and again, this parashah warns of the trickery of the heart. Don’t say in your heart that these nations are too numerous (Deuteronomy 7:17). Beware lest your heart become arrogant (8:14). Don’t say in your heart that you have achieved might through your own power (8:17).
Again and again, the parashah brings us back to the heart. God looks into your heart ( 8:5). God desires service through the heart (10:12). Impress “these words” upon your heart (11:18).
The opposite of service of the heart is the stiff neck, also found in our verse. The people are described as stiff-necked after they worship the Golden Calf (Exodus 32:9; 33:5), and several times in this parashah (Deuteronomy 9:6 and 13). Being stiff-necked is to be rigid in one’s thinking and behaviour, impervious to rebuke.
It’s striking that this call to interiority occurs right before the Jews are about to enter their land. They are being told that politics starts with the self, a lesson we all need to hear. Civilisation depends not only on good governance, but on individuals capable of critical self-reflection, taking guidance from others, and changing their minds and direction where appropriate.
Image: Heart (Carlos Torres/unsplash.com)
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