3,800 years ago, Hashem speaks to Avraham Avinu and says, “I’m going to make a covenant between Me and you. I hereby establish My covenant between Me and you and My seed after you throughout the generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you and a seed after you.” Hashem is establishing between Avraham Avinu and all future generations from Avraham. He is going to be our God. Unbelievable. How beautiful, how wonderful, how privileged we are that Hashem says, “I am your God.” Later on, in Devarim, it says, “No matter what we do, no matter how we behave, Hashem says, ‘I’m going to be your God, and I’m going to take care of you, and I will always be there for you.’”
It seems to me that Hashem should have had a better lawyer. I mean, He made a contract. He made a deal with us, and the terms are all in our favor. For an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing being, I think someone pulled a tallit (prayer shawl) over His eyes. If you look around, what do we see today? We see how many Jewish people have totally left the covenant of Hashem. If there are 15, 16 million Jews in the world, how many of them are totally Orthodox, totally Torah observant? Let’s say it’s 3 million. Ken yirbu. It should be 15 million. 20%. Maybe the same percentage as those Jews who went out of Mitzrayim. 20%. We’ve all left.
And we’re not even talking about the other descendant of Avraham Avinu, who’s Ishmael, who not only has left the covenant of Hashem, worshipping the Jewish God, they worship our God, but not according to our mitzvot (commandments), but they work against us, as we know, everything that we see in the world today. And yet Hashem says, “I’m going to be your God, no matter what you do. I’m going to be there for you. I will not forsake you, no matter what you do.” That’s very one-sided.
Now, basically, I’ve been a businessman for the last 40 years, and I read contracts all the time: “Whereas this” and “whereas that,” and “we’re going to do this,” and “as of this date,” and “in the state of New York, state of New Jersey, we’re going to hold these laws as evident.” We sign, whether it’s a lease, a licensing agreement, a nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement—whatever it is, I read all of them. Never do we have a covenant where, if one side breaks the terms, the other one is still bound to it. I don’t understand. Hashem said, “I don’t care what you do. I’m always going to be your God.” And He has been. He’s been with us for 3,800 years, and we’re still here. Other nations are not.
But wait a second. What does it say in the parasha? Hashem tells us, “If you walk in my ways and you follow my statutes, I’m going to give you rain, and I’ll give you your land, and the etz hasadeh (the tree of the field) will give forth its fruit, and you will have one crop after another crop, and you’ll live in peace, and you’ll live without being afraid, and I will take all your enemies away from you, and no sword will ever cross through your land, and you’ll run after your enemies, and they will fall in front of you.” It’s unbelievable. Those are great conditions, and we don’t have to do anything—well, except to fulfill His commandments. But Hashem is still our God. And if He’s still our God, technically speaking, since we are bound, we are bound by that contract. Even though Avraham Avinu is no longer here, we still have to fulfill those commandments.
I mean, think about it. I bought my house many, many years ago. The people we bought the house from are probably long gone, but I still own my house. We live here in America. Baruch Hashem has a constitution. The founding fathers have been dead for 200 years. We’re still bound by the constitution. You don’t see the French coming and asking for Louisiana back, even though we bought it from them, because once you sign on the dotted lines, you’ve signed on the dotted lines. Avraham Avinu accepted Hashem, and Hashem says, “I’m going to keep the covenant. I’m going to keep the contract, even if you break it.” So why wouldn’t we want to keep it? Think of all the great things that we can get simply by following the mitzvot: to live in peace, no war, our own land, fruit, vegetables, land, money, prosperity, no enemies. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know. No matter what we do, Hashem will still be with us. But if we do what we’re supposed to do, we’ll be beloved, and we’ll get reward. It’s mind-boggling that these promises are guaranteed to us. All we have to do is follow all of the whereas clause. I don’t know. Maybe Hashem had a better lawyer than I thought. Maybe.