ספר דברים

This latter experience at different times in our lives, is ‎described by Moses in our opening verse as ‎והיה עקב תשמעון‎, or ‎what Rashi has described as the manner in which we relate ‎to certain commandments that we appear to trample underfoot ‎as we do not understand their importance.‎From all this it becomes clear that the superior method of ‎serving the Lord is to do so from a profound feeling of faith, as we ‎could not possibly observe all the commandments by ‎rationalizing them, seeing some commandments’ rationale is ‎beyond our intellect to comprehend.‎Our author sees in the very letters of the words ‎והיה (עקב)‏‎ two ‎parts of the tetragram, i.e. the letters ‎י-ה‎ alluding to the aspect of ‎serving G’d with one’s intellect seeing that our brain compelled us ‎to conclude that He must exist, whereas the letters ‎ו-ה‎ symbolize ‎the other side of the coin, the need for faith in our relationship ‎with and service of the Creator. The fact that the letters ‎וה‎ ‎precede the letters ‎י-ה‎ in the word ‎והיה‎ is considered as a hint that ‎serving the Lord by calling on our faith in Him is the preferred ‎method of serving Him. The word ‎עקב‎ as already mentioned is an ‎allusion to faith.‎[Perhaps the fact that the numerical value of the word ‎עקב‎=172, is the same as that of the words ‎א-ל נאמן‎ the “G’d Who is ‎faithful,” is an additional allusion to what our author has said. ‎Ed.]