Our reading this week begins with an unusual word in its opening verse: “And it will be that as a consequence [Eikev] of listening to these judgments, guarding and doing them, that HaShem your G-d will guard for you the Covenant and the kindness which He swore to your fathers” [7:12].

Literally, the word Eikev is best translated as the “heel.” This is how our forefather Yaakov received his name because he emerged from the womb with “his hand holding onto the heel [Eikev] of Esav” [Gen. 25:26 — The name “Yaakov” prepends a Yud to the three-letter root Eikev]. The blessings of the Covenant follow on the heels of listening. As soon as we listen, the blessings are there.

But this also means that the blessings are not guaranteed to be granted, regardless of our actions. As we see so frequently in the Torah when we turn away from the path we are Commanded to follow, we are pushed back towards it, and often with painful events — such as the destruction of our Holy Temples — as tragic consequences of our misbehavior.

So we must listen… and to what must we listen? “To these judgments” — the voice of a Higher Power, the Supreme Being, a voice greater than our own. We don’t make the rules, we follow the rules. We guard and do these judgments because we want the blessings of the Covenant. The blessings come on the “heels” of our following the Divine Command. We must “heel” — using our intelligence and capabilities, but following the Torah as surely as a dog follows its Master.

I had reason to think about this when reading a book called “To Heal the World?” It is an elaborate critique of a popular school of thought which the author digests down to a single phrase: Tikkun Olam, healing the world. His point, regarding Judaism, is that this idea is very distant from the authentic Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam found in our tradition. The latter concept involves certain rules that our Sages set out to help other people perform the Commandments. [Whenever the Sages instituted a Takanah, it was to help us fulfill the Commandments (or to commemorate events such as Purim, Chanukah and Fast Days). When it helped other people fulfill the Commandments, rather than the person directly affected by the Takanah, it was Tikkun Olam — for the benefit of the world.]

The “Tikkun Olam” of today, by contrast, claims that any number of causes (universally with a particular bent, as he emphasizes) are not merely worthwhile, but actually mandated under the Jewish concept of “healing the world.” It is not merely that this is not true Tikkun Olam… it’s not even Judaism.

Judaism is not about determining for ourselves what is right, but submitting to a greater judgment then our own. We are not promised blessings for finding a new ideal and associating it with repair of the world. We are promised blessings if we listen.

Our Torah is about listening to judgments from a Higher Power. Our mission is not to “heal” as much as it is to “heel.” That is what brings the blessings of the Covenant, towards which we must strive.