This marks my last weekly d'var Torah essay for the summer—not because I'm abandoning Torah study (God forbid, literally), but because I'm shifting focus to my very Jewish novel and exploring different essay territories. Think of it as a sabbatical from weekly biblical commentary, not a divorce from discussing the particular joys and neuroses of Jewish life.

I'm going out on Parashat Eikev, which feels appropriately anticlimactic. Moshe is still delivering his farewell address to the Israelites—imagine your grandfather at Thanksgiving, except instead of stories about walking uphill both ways to school, it's remember that time you built a golden calf and nearly got us all smited? The man has commitment to his talking points, I'll give him that.

Eikev reads like a greatest hits album of Israelite failures, which immediately brings to mind that brilliant song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: "Remember That We Suffered." Picture Tovah Feldshuh and Patti LuPone in minor key, dancing the hora while cataloguing generations of Jewish trauma. It's peak Jewish entertainment: turning collective memory into musical theater with just the right amount of self-deprecating humor.

But Moshe isn't just being repetitive for dramatic effect. Throughout this portion, he commands the Israelites to "remember" or "do not forget" with the intensity of someone who knows his audience has the attention span of goldfish. This isn't new territory—he's previously warned against the spiritual dangers of selective nostalgia. Memory, in Jewish tradition, isn't passive reminiscence; it's active moral discipline that shapes humility, gratitude, and ethical responsibility.

The Golden Calf incident gets another rehashing, along with various rebellions and general acts of collective stubbornness. Yes, it's uncomfortable. Yes, shame is involved. But that's precisely the point. Remembering history honestly—the failures alongside the triumphs—brings humility. If we curate our memories to include only victories, we risk moral blindness and the kind of arrogance that thinks we're invincible.

(This applies beyond Jewish history, obviously. American exceptionalism has entered the chat.)

But Moshe balances this harsh reckoning with reminders of blessings, which serves as gratitude training. There's a reason Jewish liturgy is heavy on blessings—as I said last week, we have prayers for everything. Birkat HaMazon, the prayer after meals, thanks God for food, land, Jerusalem, and divine goodness. It's ritualized gratitude designed to prevent entitlement and remind us that abundance isn't purely self-made.

The second half of the Sh'ma appears in this portion too, with its instructions to bind these words on our arms and foreheads, teach them to our children, fix them to our doorposts, and speak them daily. This isn't metaphorical—it's about creating tangible reminders because memory fades without physical anchors. We call this zikaron, active remembrance. You see it at Passover seders, in Kiddush, in movements like Zachor B'Salon to preserve Holocaust memory. Memory requires maintenance.

I study these portions weekly and Mishnah daily partly because my memory is Swiss cheese, but mostly because I want to understand the narrative of my ancestors. These stories—historically accurate or not—are gateways to collective memory. And since this parashat is all about remembering, what I want to retain from it is this: forgetting leads to arrogance and identity loss. Memory functions as both individual moral discipline and communal anchor, revealing uncomfortable truths about our failures while affirming the reality of our blessings.

Next month brings Elul, the Hebrew year's final stretch before the High Holy Days. It's prime time for personal inventory—not to wallow, but to extract lessons worth carrying forward. Moshe understood that the point of remembering isn't to stay stuck in the past, but to enter the future with clearer vision.

These weekly essays have been an unexpected joy this summer—an exercise in staying connected to community while learning something new to share, regardless of readership size. Sometimes the best conversations happen when you're not sure anyone's listening.