Parshat Devarim: A Leader Who Taught Until the Very End

Parshat Devarim

Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22

 

This Shabbat we begin the final book of the Torah, Devarim/Deuteronomy, in which Moses begins his five-weeks long farewell speech to the children of Israel. Picture it - there they are, preparing to cross the River Jordan and begin their conquest of the Promised Land – and Moses decides to keep them standing and listening for five weeks. Why?

One explanation can be found in the Greek name of this book, Deuteronomy, which means "Second Law".  While in fact this translation is incorrect, in essence there is truth to it. We do not receive the “law”, the Torah, or the 10 Commandments, a second time. What we do receive is a retelling of the experiences that our people have been through since leaving Egypt and receiving the Torah.

 

Once before Moses had stood at the edge of the River Jordan hoping to enter the Land, yet that time the People were not ready. We had the incident with the spies and the subsequent punishment of wandering in the desert for 40 years until that generation died off. Fast forward 40 years and we are standing once again by the River Jordan. Moses might be remembering the last time he stood there, with the current people’s parents and grandparents. He now stands with a group of people who had never been slaves in Egypt and who did not experience receiving the Torah at Sinai.

 

Moses takes this time to bei’air et ha’torah ha’zot (1:5), to expound on or illuminate this Teaching/law. In other words, Moses decided to take his last moments on earth to leave an ethical will of sorts to his adopted children, the Children of Israel. Instead of sitting around and being bitter that he had led his people to the edge of a land that he was not allowed to enter, he chose to end his life with dignity by using his last moments as a gift, as teachable moments.

 

He begins by teaching that the new life that they are about to begin in the land of Israel— which includes obedience to God’s commandments—begins first in accepting responsibility for the Jewish past. That is why his first story is that of the spies – the parents of his listeners, the ones from whom they inherit the responsibility of being the Jewish people. He goes on to review the contents of the 10 Commandments and all the battles that were fought – both militarily and spiritually.

 

Parashat Devarim is always read upon the Shabbat preceding Tisha b’Av – which this year begins Monday night. On Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the month of Av, we mourn a series of sorrowful events that happened to our people throughout history – beginning with the destruction of the holy temple, going on the tragic ending of the Bar Kochba rebellion and in more “modern times” Tisha B’Av is said to be the date of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the beginning of World War I. Tisha B’av is also the date upon which the spies told their lies about the goodness of the land of Israel.

 

I am always a bit sad when I begin the book of Deuteronomy and must begin anew the process of saying good-bye to Moses. But I take heart in the example he sets of how to leave this world with dignity. Moses leaves us with Devarim – the words of Torah that, according to Ibn Ezra, ensure the future of the Jewish people and according to Hosea, can return us to God.

 

 

1.  Are you familiar with the idea of an ethical will? Here is a good article to learn about it: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/writing-and-reading-ethical-wills/

 

This dvar Torah has been printed in the Washington Jewish Week

 

Parshat Pinchas: Hope and Strength

“The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just: you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them.” (Numbers 27:7)

 

In this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Pinchas, the daughters of Zelophehad provide an example of women who found the courage and conviction to stand before God, Moses, and the People of Israel, and petition for the right to inherit their father’s portion in the Holy Land so that their father’s name would be remembered.

 

I would like to highlight what this particular decree of God’s meant to Moses. We pick up the story a few verses later.

 

“God said to Moses, “Ascend these heights of Abarim and view the land that I have given to the Israelite people. When you have seen it, you too shall be gathered to your kin, just as your brother Aaron was.  For, in the wilderness of Zin, when the community was contentious, you disobeyed My command to uphold My sanctity in their sight by means of the water…” (27:12-14)

 

Rashi asks why these particular verses about the end of Moses’ life follow the conclusion to the daughters of Zelophehad saga. He wrote that when Moses heard God state in v7 “…you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them,” Moses said to himself, “It is me that the Omnipresent has commanded to apportion the inheritance. Perhaps then the decree that I must die in the wilderness is annulled and I shall enter the Promised Land!”

 

We feel Moses having a very human reaction to the potential of these words. He recognized that he had disobeyed God in a very public manner and had been told what the consequence was – he would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. Yet, the way that Moses hears God’s words gives him hope. Maybe, just maybe, God has rescinded the decree, and he would in fact be allowed to enter the land. His hopes are raised… and then immediately dashed, “Whereupon God said to him, “My decree remains exactly as it was.” (Midrash Tanchuma)

 

How many times have each of us had our hopes raised only to have them dashed again? How many times have we recognized that we erred and yet still tried to convince ourselves that things would turn out differently than we knew that they would? It is human nature to have hope, even when we know that the hope may not be grounded in reality. In fact, there are times when the only way one can carry on is to have hope, real or imagined.

 

How then do we react to this disappointment/loss of hope? Do we descend into melancholy, or do we pick ourselves up and continue on?

 

What do we learn from this? Instead of wallowing in emotion, Moses immediately thinks of the people he has led for so many years. He asks God to appoint a successor so that the people will have someone to lead them into the land and ensure that things will go as smoothly as possible once he dies. God heeds his request and names Joshua ben Nun as Moses’ successor. Moses lays hands on Joshua and commissions him to his new role.

 

Moses may have erred at Meriba when he struck the rock, but here, toward the end of his life, he shows exactly what type of man and leader that he is. May we all have lives filled with the strength of Moses.

 

Some food for thought:

What roles do hope and disappointment play in your life? Can this story of Moses act as an example for you? If not, is there another story in the Torah that provides you with inspiration?

 

 

Va'era: Four Verbs that Change History

We are living in extraordinary times that impact each and every one of us emotionally, psychologically and even physically. It doesn’t matter where we stand on any of the issues of our day, the result is the same – it’s just too much.

So how do we get through a virulent pandemic that has taken so many lives, a vaccine that brings hope but needs to be properly distributed and a political situation that is unlike anything most of us have ever seen in our lifetimes. How are we not only supposed to cope but also to figure out specifically what each of us is supposed to do? One traditional method for Jews is to look to the Torah and our heritage.

 

This week’s parsha, Va’era, begins as God speaks to Moses and explains what is to come. We learn what God intends to do as well as what is expected of Moses and the rest of the Israelites (those alive then and all of us now).  During God’s speech we encounter two verses that will sound familiar to anyone who has attended a Passover Seder:

 

“Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians (v’hotzeiti) and deliver you from their bondage (v’hitzalti). I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements (v’ga’alti). And I will take you to be My people (v’lakachti), and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, the Lord, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians.” (Exodus 6:6-7)

 

These verses contain four verbs that change the course of history. God has heard our cries and, with an outstretched arm and miraculous events, will free us from our burdens. Why? So that we will receive the Torah at Sinai and cement our partnership with God.  The result of these promises is fairly radical – God will be in an acknowledged relationship with all of us.  We will all witness God’s wonders and we will all know Adonai, the God who freed us from slavery.

 

When I read the Torah each week, I always manage to find something that relates to me in the moment. I never know what it will be, in fact this week I thought the parsha was telling me one thing until I read it for a second time and “heard” something else! The four verbs from the aforementioned verses jumped out at me. I will free you, deliver you, redeem you and take you to be My people. God stepped in and stepped up. We were in a situation that appeared to have no end and God provided our deliverance.

 

What does this tell us? That God will always step in and be our liberator? It is possible that that is what the Israelites of the time thought, after all they had been slaves and were used to having someone or something larger than life determine their destiny.

 

As 21st century humans we see that God does not act in the world as the God of the Torah did. We are expected to step up, to learn from our past experiences and apply that knowledge to our current situation. As humans created in the Divine image, we are not expected to agree with each other all the time or even to get along. We are expected, however, to emulate the divine attributes of love, grace, caring and justice. We can recall our relationship with a God who helped us out in the past in the most astonishing of ways and remember that that relationship still exists, it just has changed form. However, we are no longer the slaves who were brought out of Egypt and had yet to learn how to do for themselves. 

 

In the book of Genesis we learn that the universe was created with words. In our morning prayers we say “Baruch She’amar,” Blessed is the One Who spoke and the world was. We see that words have both creative and destructive power.

 

We as embodied beings do not live only through words but also through action. As such, it is up to each of us to discern how, through our actions and words, to manifest godliness in the world.

 

God, with those remarkable four verbs, took us out of bondage and set us up to live amazing lives in a world full of possibility.

A version of this post was published in the Washington Jewish Week 1/12/21

Is Seeing really believing?

Parshat Bo  Exodus  10:1-13:16  

While there is great truth to the phrase “seeing is believing,” we know that it is not a complete truth. For while it frequently takes witnessing something with one’s own eyes to integrate it into our psyche and believe in its authenticity, the belief doesn’t always kick in immediately. We see things and don’t believe them. 

On the one hand, skepticism is a healthy and necessary tool in life. On the other hand, however, we too often see things that are truth and our brains refuse to accept what our eyes are witnessing.

That’s what is happening in this part of the Torah. Pharaoh witnesses the awesome and terrible plagues and their impact on himself and his people with his own eyes. Yet it takes 10, each worse than the one before it, until he is convinced of the existence and might of the God of the Israelites. 

In his commentary, Noam Elimelech, an 18^th century rabbi and one of the founders of the Hassidic movement, wrote that a Tzaddik, a righteous person, would need to see such wonders of the Creator only once and be impressed, ecstatic and understand. A rasha (a bad guy like Pharaoh) would need to be told over and over, by a Tzadik (in this case Moses), of God’s wonders and of God’s goodness, and even would forget once time passes. 

Such is the story in a nutshell of Moses, Pharaoh, the plagues, the release of the Israelites and the attempt to recapture them. Pharoah believes for a moment and denies reality once again.

This story is familiar not just because we tell it each year as part of the Torah reading cycle and then again at Passover. It is familiar because the moral of the story represents a universal truth. Seeing is not always believing, at least not at first sight, even for good people.  Along with sight we need to be convinced intellectually and experientially so that not only do we believe, but also remember that belief and lesson throughout our lives. 

The parsha ends by introducing us to tefillin (phylacteries) (Exodus 13:9). We wear the leather boxes and straps on our heads and on our arms and hands. They contain words of Torah and serve as a physical reminder of our belief in God, of our beginnings as a people and of the need to remember the important things in life and to teach and act on them in each generation.  

Abstract concepts such as the need for dignity, respect, acceptance and freedom cannot remain abstract if we remember and retell them on a regular basis. It is only when we live the lessons learned, when we become Noam Elimelech’s tzaddik, and not only believe but also actuate these lessons in life, that the negatives of history will not repeat. 

Table Talk:

1.  Tefillin are the ultimate aide de memoire, having physical, intellectual and philosophical aspects to them. Can you think of any other items or activities that function in a similar way? 

2. How does belief work in your life to shape the things that you do and are willing to go out of your way for?  

This Dvar Torah was published in the Washington Jewish Week Vol. 53, No. 5   2/2/17

Chukat: Differing Reactions to Loss

Chukat  Numbers 19:1-22:1

Differing Reactions to Loss

         In Genesis 50:10-11, Joseph observed a seven-day mourning period for his father Jacob, mourning bitterly and loudly.  When the Caaanites witnessed this, they observed that the people were holding “a solemn ceremony of mourning.” From this we derive the practice of shiva where we observe a specific period of mourning for those close to us. After the mourning period was over, Joseph and the mourners returned to Egypt to resume their daily lives.

         In this week’s parsha, Chukkat, Aaron dies and “all the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days.” (20:29) Eleazar, Aaron’s son, becomes the High Priest and the journey continues. Later, when Moses dies “... the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended.” (Deuteronomy 34:8) We are taught that the time for mourning has a definite ending, 30 days.  Joshua, Moses’ successor, then takes on the task of entering and conquering the Promised Land. From these deaths we learn the practice of shloshim,  the thirty day period when we continue our mourning, still with restrictions but less so than during shiva.

         There is one more death to note. We also learn this week that the People arrived in Kadesh and “Miriam died there and was buried there.” (20:1) There is no ceremony, no mourning; and there is no person stepping up to take Miriam’s unofficial function. How do the People react? By doing what they usually do when faced with hardship, they kvetch about something that may or may not be related to Miriam, the lack of clean water.   

         So what do we learn from Miriam’s death? Were the People at this time hard-hearted fools, unable to experience the pain and loss of Miriam? I don’t think so. I believe the message here is that that life goes on. That people will react differently to the same circumstances at different times. Even circumstances as familiar to us as the loss of an important person in our lives.

         For some people, the loss of a loved one causes life to stand still, creating a sort of paralysis that precludes engaging in our normal daily activities for a period of time. For others, a similar loss causes internal feelings and reactions that we don’t understand and are not comfortable with. So we resort to a behavior that we engage in when we are not content, when there is something bothering us that we don’t know how to cope with. In this case, the complaining and whining that characterized B’nei Israel’s years in the desert.

         What lesson do we derive from all this? We are fortunate to belong to a tradition that gives us a framework for coping with loss. It recognizes the different stages people go through after losing someone close and, like a protective cloak, gives us the extra security to gradually reemerge into the reality of living our now changed daily lives. But our religion is also a practical one. It recognizes that we are human and fallible and therefore quirky. We might lose someone important and because of our fallibility we cannot mourn “properly.” Perhaps we are afraid, perhaps the loss is too large to comprehend straight away or ever. So, as in the case of Miriam’s death, we revert to behaviors that are not noble but are certainly human. And then, once the  reaction has subsided, life continues on.

1.    Think back to times when you experienced the loss of a loved one. Did the traditions of mourning work for you or did you find yourself in need of something else?

2.    Given the different reactions to the deaths of characters in the Torah, do you think the Torah is providing commentary on the importance or place of that person in the lives of our people?