The second (middle) paragraph of the Shema is based on a deep and surprising theology. Here’s a thought exercise: imagine if G-d gave you all you ever wanted. What would your reaction be? One might think that the natural response would be unending gratitude. But the Torah has other ideas.

In this second paragraph, the Torah first offers a promise. If we listen to G-d’s commandments, G-d will provide us with all we need, rain at its appropriate time, and bountiful harvest. But then it shifts quite suddenly to saying, “Be careful that your heart doesn’t go astray and you start worshipping pagan gods, and make G-d angry.”

The question immediately presents itself: why would one respond to G-d’s gifts by scorning G-d and turning to idols instead? A few chapters earlier in the book of Deuteronomy, the source of this prayer (chapter 11), the question is answered:

Deut 8:12 When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 8:13 and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 8:14 then do not exalt yourself, forgetting YHWH your God …8:17 Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” 8:18 But remember YHWH your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, so that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your ancestors, as He is doing today.

The danger, in other words, is not that one would immediately turn away from G-d and start worshipping idols. The danger is that we would forget that it was G-d who made everything possible, and instead delude ourselves into thinking that we were solely responsible for our success.

And once you believe that, you’ll believe anything.

Not too long ago, there was a Senator named Phil Gramm. He made a point of being the most conservative senator out there, insisting that “we have gone too far in creating an entitlement society” and that was going to distance us from what being an American is really all about. There was only one problem: there was almost no time in Gramm’s life when he wasn’t dependent on one or another entitlement program. Gramm was born in the base hospital at Fort Benning, Ga., where his father was living on a veterans’ disability pension; his college tuition and expenses were paid by the War Orphans Act. His graduate work was paid for a National Defense Education Act fellowship. With his PhD, Gramm taught at a state-supported school. And then he came to Congress and started getting paid directly by taxpayers. So when he became a champion of fiscal responsibility and free enterprise, and wanted to kick everybody off welfare, it was just a little cheeky.

The point is not that Gramm didn’t work hard, or didn’t earn his credentials (he was a full professor at age 30). Nor, certainly, am I trying to say that the government is G-d, G-d forbid. The point is that Gramm quickly forgot how he got to his high station. And, the Torah says, so do we. And this cannot but lead us into idolatry. Why? Because only G-d is One. We are many, dependent on a complex web of individual and social forces, all under the watchful eye of the Lord.

Once we delude ourselves into thinking we are “self-made men,” we’re already on the slippery slope to the kind of perverse beliefs that lead to personal and collective exile, both spiritual and physical.

Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff