The Heel

The Torah Portion found in Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25 is named Eikev, translated as ‘because’ or ‘if’, but is also a word for ‘heel’. The heel is a part of our body that often receives little attention. Yet, it plays a crucial role in walking, which, in my last blog, I explained as halakah —the way we walk out our lives. Jacob’s name stems from the Hebrew root word for heel because he held onto the heel of his brother Esau when he was born. It is almost as if his struggles in life were caused by holding onto the heel, the earthly nature, so strongly before letting go to pursue the heavenly. This is likely the root of all our struggles.

The heel is the lowest part of our body, connecting us to the earth, unlike our head, which symbolically connects us to the heavenly realm. This is our dual nature, our mind of the Spirit striving upwards towards the divine and the heel, seeking to fulfill our earthly desires. Our heels represent our most human vulnerabilities, our selfish nature that would like to guide our feet onto a path of self-indulgence, greed, violence, hatred, envy, and unsatiated lusts. When people talk about spiritual warfare, this is what I imagine: our spiritual nature at war with our earthly nature internally, and our spiritual nature at war with others’ earthly nature externally. They oppose each other, drawing our hearts either downward, connecting us to the animals, or upward, connecting us to the Holy One.

Romans 6:5-7: For those who live according to the flesh (earthly nature) set their minds on the things of the flesh (earth), but those who live according to the Ruach (Divine Breath or Holy Spirit) set their minds on the things of the Ruach. For the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Ruach is life and shalom. For the mindset of the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not submit itself to the law of God, for it cannot.

In Judaism, the sages describe humans as using their heel to trample on the commandments that they do not naturally understand or agree with, rendering them void or invalid, so that they may not feel the sting of falling short. Listen, the commandment is to hear the instructions, and even though there is an element of doing within the Hebrew word ‘shema’, the very first step is to be open to hearing them or learning about them. There is such a divine mercy available to us when our hearts are pure and humble. We do not have to understand everything to be open to learning. Yeshua tells some of the Jewish elite of His time that they honor some of the commandments but essentially trample on other commandments with their heels.

Matthew 23:23: Woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! You tithe mint and dill and cumin, yet you have neglected the weightier matters of Torah—justice and mercy and faithfulness (Dt 12:6, 14:22-23 & Mal 3:8-10). It is necessary to do these things without neglecting the others.

Romans 3:31: Do we them nullify (trample on) the Torah through faithfulness? May it never be! On the contrary, we uphold the Torah.

In Christianity, we refer to this trampling of the commandments as Cafeteria Christianity, where one picks and chooses which instructions to follow—using grace as a means of covering over anything that does not align with one’s life goals or understanding.

Deuteronomy 7:12: Then it shall come to pass, because (eikev) you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers.

Can these two understandings of the ‘heel’, being our earthly nature and what we use to trample on God’s instructions, be connected? I think so. When we are immersed in the things of this world, wealth, popularity, accumulation of things, basically the pride of life, we have a strong heel so connected to the earth that it will inevitably trample on the instructions the Holy One gave us for our benefit. Our goal should be to strengthen our heel, using our earthly nature with its passions, drives, and survivalistic instincts to walk on paths of right choices, sanctifying our earthly nature by making it obedient to the head, which symbolizes our spiritual nature. Let’s let go of the heel and reach for the heavens instead.

Romans 6:16: Do you not know that to whatever you yield yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to what you obey–whether to sin resulting in death, or to obedience resulting in righteousness.