Before the First Step

How God Reveals Human Worth Through Partnership and Purpose

Parshat Ekev

Dedicated in loving memory ofEphraim ben Liat v'Shmuel • Yosef Malachi ben Dina v'David • Eliyahu Moshe Shlomo ben Sarah v'Shimon • Yosef Chaim ben Rachel v'Eliyahu • Netanel ben Revital v'Elad • Yakir ben Chaya v'Yehoshua • Ron ben Sara v'Kenny

May their memories forever be a blessing, and may their sacrifice continue to inspire us to build lives of faith, purpose, and courage.

A Pasuk That Wouldn't Let Me Go

There are times when a pasuk speaks to me way before I understand what it is saying. I find myself drawn back to it again and again, sensing that it contains something I need to hear, but not yet knowing why. That was my experience this year with one sentence in Parashat Eikev.

Moshe has just warned the Jewish people against believing that their future success in the Land of Israel will be the result of their own strength and ingenuity. Then he says:

וְזָכַרְתָּ אֶת ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ, כִּי הוּא הַנֹּתֵן לְךָ כֹּחַ לַעֲשׂוֹת חָיִל, לְמַעַן הָקִים אֶת בְּרִיתוֹ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֶיךָ, כַּיּוֹם הַזֶּה.

"Remember Hashem your God, for it is He who gives you the capacity to create achievement, in order to establish His covenant that He swore to your forefathers, as it is this day." (Devarim 8:18)

As I read those words, I felt an unexpected sense of comfort. Almost relief. Yet I couldn't explain it.

Why does Moshe speak about koach instead of success? What exactly is koach? Is it strength? Is it potential? If God gives it to us, where is it? Can it become inaccessible? If it is already there, why do so many of us live as though we have none of it?

The more I sat with the pasuk, the more questions it raised. Strangely, the questions never diminished the peace I felt. They only deepened it.

One question, in particular, lingered.

Of all the gifts God could have spoken about, why does He choose koach? Why is this the gift through which His brit is established?

The Capacity Before the Harvest

A clue came from the Maharal.

The Maharal compares the human being to the earth. Before a field produces grain or a tree bears fruit, the earth already possesses the capacity to give life. Fertility is woven into its very nature because God placed it there from the beginning.

The earth still needs rain. It still needs a seed. It still needs cultivation. None of these creates fertility. They awaken it and partner with what is already there.

Koach is the same.

Koach is the God-given capacity that exists before accomplishment and makes accomplishment possible. Chayil is that hidden koach made visible. Achievement is the unfolding of what God had already planted.

The pasuk suddenly sounded different.

Before God asks anything of us, He first gives us the capacity from which achievement can grow.

Why Give Koach?

That realization opened the second half of the verse.

God gives us koach (capacity) לעשות חיל. Our hidden capacity gradually becomes visible through what we build, create, repair, and contribute.

Then the verse continues:

למען הקים את בריתו.

The sequence suddenly became clear.

God gives koach, capacity.

Koach unfolds into chayil, achievement.

Chayil fulfills the brit, partnership.

Koach is God's invitation into partnership.

Every covenant begins with two partners, each bringing something only they can bring. God gives what only He can give. We respond with what only we can bring into the world. Before He asks us to contribute, He entrusts us with something worth contributing. Before He asks us to build, He plants within us the capacity to build.

The brit begins with God's gift.

Before the First Step

The name of the parsha became part of the same conversation.

Eikev means heel.

The heel represents movement. Every journey begins with a single step.

The first person who teaches us that lesson is Yaakov.

His story begins with a heel. Long before he becomes Yisrael, before he wrestles with the angel, before he returns to the Land, before he fathers the tribes of Israel, he is simply Yaakov, grasping the heel.

Yet Yisrael already exists within him.

His life is the unfolding of the identity God planted within him from the very beginning.

Again and again, Yaakov simply takes the next step. He leaves home. He builds a family. He confronts Lavan. He wrestles through the night. At every stage, God reassures him, "I am with you." God does not ask Yaakov to invent himself. He accompanies him as the hidden koach slowly becomes visible chayil.

The rhythm of the parsha begins to emerge.

God gives the koach.

We take the next step.

The next step reveals more of the koach.

Eventually, koach becomes chayil.

Through that process, the brit is fulfilled.

When the Journey Stops

As these ideas came together, I began to recognize something deeply human.

Many of us know what it feels like to live in survival rather than in life.

Beneath anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or despair often lies a quiet belief that shapes everything else:

"I don't matter."

Children discover their koach through partnership.

Parents become God's first partners in this sacred work. By entering a child's inner world with curiosity, delight, emotional presence, protection, and genuine interest, they help the child discover what God has already planted within them. They notice strengths before the child can name them. They celebrate effort. They make room for emotion. They reflect back the goodness, beauty, and uniqueness they see.

In countless quiet moments, they communicate one profound message:

"There is something precious within you worth discovering."

This is how a child learns to trust their own inner light, their own koach.

When that partnership is lacking or unavailable, the koach itself does not disappear. What is absent is the experience of being seen, mirrored, and emotionally held by another person who can recognize and reflect back the child’s inner world. In homes marked by trauma, emotional neglect, or abuse, a child may grow up without anyone consistently attuning to their feelings, naming their strengths, or affirming their reality, and so the koach remains intact but becomes unrecognized, untrusted, and therefore inaccessible to the child’s own sense of self.

The child simply never learns that it is there.

Without someone to help reveal it, the hidden capacity remains hidden. The next step feels impossible because there is no confidence that anything meaningful waits inside. Chayil never has the opportunity to emerge, and its absence slowly becomes interpreted as evidence.

"I don't matter."

The breakdown was never the loss of koach, but the loss of partnership, and healing begins when that partnership is restored.

Sometimes that happens through a parent.

Sometimes through a spouse, a teacher, a trusted friend, or a therapist.

We are always called to become that companion to ourselves, in partnership with God.

Every relationship has the potential to become a covenantal partnership—a relationship that helps another person rediscover the koach God has already planted within them.

We do not create another person's light.

We help reveal it.

The Peace of This Pasuk

Only then did I understand why this pasuk had brought me peace before understanding.

The peace came from realizing that before God asks me to take the first step, He has already given me the koach for the journey.

Then one final realization emerged.

Koach itself is God's declaration that every human being matters.

God plants koach only in those He intends to invite into His brit. Every human being carries a unique capacity because every human being has a unique place within that covenant.

That clarifies the entire verse.

Moshe is not simply reminding us where our strength comes from.

He is reminding us how God relates to us—and, in doing so, how we are called to relate to one another.

Before we ask anything of another person, we can help them discover the koach already within them.

Before we correct, we can become curious.

Before we evaluate, we can delight.

Before we expect growth, we can create partnership.

Every act of genuine partnership becomes an act of faith in the koach God has already planted within another human being.

Perhaps that is one of the deepest expressions of brit: helping another person discover the gift God entrusted to them before they ever took their first step.