Bnei Yisrael have a reciprocal relationship with God. It’s a two-way street that begins with our observance of mitzvot. In Parshat Ki Tavo, Moshe explains the declaration that accompanies bikkurim, the first fruits, and then reiterates an instruction he has given throughout Devarim: observe all these mitzvot “b’chol levavcha u’vchol nafeshecha,” with all your heart and all your soul (Devarim 26:16).
That’s what God is owed from us. Moshe expands and tells Bnei Yisrael that you have affirmed “hayom,” this day, that Hashem is your God. You will walk in God’s ways, observe mitzvot, and “lishmoa b’kolo”—listen to God’s voice. In return we will be God’s “am segula,” His treasured people, and an “am kadosh,” a holy people to God (Devarim 26:18-19). Moshe’s instructions seem simple on the surface, but this is his last speech to Bnei Yisrael, and he chooses his words carefully.
The phrase “lishmoa b’kolo,” listening to God’s voice, is a complex command. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks explains that lishmo’a doesn’t merely mean “to listen” in a passive manner. It also connotes internalizing and understanding what one hears. It’s not blind obedience, but a kind of searching, intellectual faith which calls for the “full exercise of the mind.” Listening to God entails both hearing and doing, which we can accomplish through observing mitzvot (Rabbi Sacks: The Meaning of Shema).
We see this phrase appear elsewhere in Tanakh as well, and it can shed light on what Moshe is asking of Bnei Yisrael. In Sefer Tehillim, Psalms, we see similar language in the chapter with which we open every Kabbalat Shabbat. Psalm 95 begins with joyous praise of God but ends with condemnation of the generation of the desert, who tested God at Massah and Merivah. The psalm switches to first person, with God recalling our ancestors’ stubbornness and His eventual decree that this generation would not see Eretz Yisrael. Note that the psalm shifts from praise in verses 6-7 to rebuke in verses 8-9:
(6) Come, let us bow down and kneel,
bend the knee before the LORD our maker,
(7) for He is our God,
and we are the people He tends, the flock in His care.
O, if you would but heed His charge (im b’kolo tishma’u) this day (hayom):
(8) Do not be stubborn as at Meribah,
as on the day of Massah, in the wilderness,
(9) when your fathers put Me to the test,
tried Me, though they had seen My deeds (Psalm 95:6-9).
In verse seven, we see the juxtaposition of hayom and lishmoa b’kolo. God seems particularly angry, considering this generation experienced firsthand the plagues, the Exodus, the Revelation, and the miracles of the desert, and nevertheless tested God. Actively rebelling against God, like the generation in the desert, is surely the opposite of lishmo’a b’kolo. But the instruction also means more.
Masechet Sanhedrin (98a) may shed more light on the meaning, as it uses this verse from Tehillim in a story about mashiach, the messiah. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi comes across Eliyahu HaNavi one day and asks what many of us might ask, if given the chance: When will mashiach finally come? Eliyahu doesn’t answer the question and instead directs R. Yehoshua ben Levi to ask mashiach himself. Go find him at the gates of Rome among the poor and ill, he suggests. R. Yehoshua ben Levi does so and asks mashiach when he’ll come. He receives the response: Hayom, today. Some time passes and R. Yehoshua ben Levi encounters Eliyahu again and tells him that mashiach lied! He said he would come hayom but failed to appear. Eliyahu explains: Mashiach didn’t literally mean today. He meant the today of our psalm—hayom im b’kolo tishma’u, today if you would listen to God’s voice.
Given the context of this line in Tehillim, it sounds like Eliyahu is telling R. Yehoshua ben Levi that if we refuse to act like our ancestors in the desert who tested God, and instead observe mitzvot with all our heart and soul, acting as God wanted us to when He chose us, then we could merit mashiach. It’s in our hands.
Perhaps this is another element of the reciprocal relationship Moshe describes in our parsha: when we heed God, we merit to be an am segula, a chosen nation—and we can even merit the messianic era.
