D'varim

This week’s parsha, d’varim, is the beginning of the end. It’s the final book of the Torah, and beyond that is a series of farewell speeches from the founder of a nation to his people… maybe it’s over sentimentality, but when I envision Moshe Rabeinu this week, he looks more like Shimon Peres than before..

Anyhow, into the parsha.

We open up with a beautiful, almost poetic speech by Moshe. Our place is first set… sitting on the other side of the Jordan river, looking over to the pomelo (a large citrus fruit found all over Israel) fields of Eretz Yisrael) deep in the desert of the aravah. The wandering is coming to an end… we are 11 months into the 40^th year.

Moshe’s first line is beautiful: The Eternal our God spoke, saying “You have stayed long enough at this mountain” (1:6). I love the romanticism of this. Forty years we have been wandering, and it is finally time to go into the land. However, we enter in with a call that echos back to Avraham Avinu—“go. Go to this land that I will show you.” It’s beautiful imagery.

At this point, Moshe Rabeinu recounts the journey to them. Not as much afraid that we have forgotten our way, but instead pausing just one more moment to savor what we have been through.

We were promised to become a great nation. We fled from slavery. But even the smaller details are recounted, savoring the moment that is soon to occur. It is easy to imagine a Moses who is relieved at his tenure almost concluding. A man who has done so much, who has bourn such a heavy load, finally able exhale; it has always struck me that perhaps at that moment, for him, (and we are skipping ahead a few weeks here…), simply looking into the land that Avraham Avinu was promised so long ago, this was enough.

ושפטתם צדק-- this is a beautiful line. Oo-shavt’tem tzedek. It comes from 1:16. The line itsels means something like “judge justly”… it’s part of a greater section of Moshe’s speech imploring us (and I’ll get to the us in a moment) to act in a righteous manner.

However a different reading of it is instead “judge righteousness”… or, that it is our job not just to act in a righteous manner, but also to constantly be questioning what it is that we view as righteous itself.

The other line that stuck out for me here was 1:12. It begins with the Hebrew word “איכה” (eicha)– or, “How?”.

We are right now only a few days removed from Tisha B’Av, the great day of Jewish mourning for the calamities of our history. The destruction of both the first and seconds Temples all the way through to the Holocaust. However, the book that is ready on Tisha B’Av is Lamentations, or in Hebrew, “eicha”. Here Moshe, “How can I bear unaided the trouble of you, and the burden, and the bickering?” (1:12). It is a good message, particularly on Tisha B’Av, when the destruction of the 2^nd Temple is said to have been caused by the deceit, distrust and deceptions of the Jews towards each other 2000 years ago (for more information on this, it’s worth reading the story from the Mishna, “Kamsa and Bar Kamsa”—google it). Anyhow, as the tensions rise in Israel and America today between the various streams of Judaism, it is always good to keep this in mind, and the resonance of this line of Moshe’s, especially read at this time of the year, so close to Tisha B’Av, can not be ignored.

That is about it for me for now… however, this parsha is a short and beautiful one, and I strongly encourage everyone to go read it for a few minutes… The calls to justice and to peace are hard to miss.

On a final note, it is worth noting the rather large section of this d’varim that deals with treating others and their lands equally. A beautiful line: “and charge the people as follows: you will be passing through the territory of your kin, the descendants of Esau… though they will be afraid of you, be careful not to provoke them. For I will not give you their land, not even a foot of it. I have given the hll country… to Esau” 2:4.

Though the people being referred to are a generation late… the brother of Jacob instead of Ishmael, the brother of Isaac (and traditionally the “father of the Arab peoples”), the message is impossible to ignore as it connects to Israel today… Though I am not sure I always see the pragmatic ability to accomplish it, it is an apt warning from the Kodesh Barech Hu to the perils and pitfalls of taking control of outside territory, as is so apparent today when we look towards Gaza.

Shabbat is only two days away, so…

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

Daniel