One of the fundamental ways in which the Torah conveys meaning is through juxtaposition – the deliberate placement of two pieces of text close to one another so that it becomes natural to read the one in the context of the other. This notion of meaning drawn from proximity was known to the rabbis, and they made it one of the basic principles of midrash, the uniquely rabbinic mode of scriptural interpretation. In our own time, as we become more aware of the historical process of the Hebrew Bible’s composition through the editing together of many pre-existing texts, we are once again struck by the ways in which juxtaposition plays an important role in the literary technique of the Bible’s editors as they stitched together the various legal and literary traditions of to form a greater whole.

In parashat ‘Ekev, two passages in particular strike me as interesting for the way in which they are placed side by side in such a way as to speak together:

The first passage is an injunction to the people of Israel not to forget, once they have been firmly established in their land, not to forget that it was not by their own might and virtue that they came to conquer and settle the land, but by the power of God who delivered them from Egypt, who led them through the wilderness, and who delivered the land’s former inhabitants into their hands.

The second passage is Moses’s retelling of the story of the golden calf. In this story Moses is gone for forty days and nights up on the mountain, fasting and praying in preparation for God to deliver the tablets of the covenant into his hands. In his absence, the people grow impatient and make themselves a golden calf to serve as an object of worship in Moses’s absence. God makes the people’s transgression known to Moses and he storms down the mountain to reprimand them, destroying the tablets in the process.

After both Moses and God have calmed down a bit, God once again gives Moses the tablets of the law – but this time, in a different way. Rather than simply giving Moses the tablets ready-made, God instructs him to carve the tablets himself which God will inscribe, and furthermore to build an ark to contain them.

The message I draw from these two passages is this: that though it is certainly important to remember that it is not by our own power alone that the healing of the world can be accomplished, nevertheless true transformation cannot take place without the involvement and participation of those who are to be the beneficiaries of the change.

In the story of the golden calf, both of the objects of veneration, the original tablets and the golden idol, were doomed to destruction from the start – the calf because it was the work of the people without the participation of God, and the tablets because they were the work of God without the participation of the people. It is only by the coming together of the two, working together toward a common goal of sanctification, that a lasting and truly sacred home for the laws can be built.

In the same way, as we work for social change in the world, we must remember that justice is never simply handed down from on high, nor can it ever be the sole possession of a single individual or group within society. Rather, real change is built by many different hands working together, each contributing what they can to the common goal. And if, as the Torah tells us, it is not by “my own power and the might of my own hand” that justice is forged, neither can it happen without the contribution that we ourselves bring.