Parashat D'varim Shabbat Hazon July 21, 2007 / 6 Av 5767

This week's commentary was written by Arnold M. EisenChancellor, JTS.
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Maybe it's because I write this column on a JTS mission to Israel, but my attention, when reading the opening parashah of the Book of Deuteronomy this year, has been riveted by a single little word in the first line of the first chapter. Describing the site of Moses' final oration to the Israelites—the book in its entirety comprises that address—the Torah recounts that it took place be-ever ha-yarden, across the Jordan, (Deuteronomy 1:1). The narrator's point of view is not that of the events described. We are instead placed inside the Promised Land, looking outward, across, to the place where the Israelites heard Moses' speech. Only after hearing it did they take the final steps toward the land promised to their ancestors—and inherited by us. What to them was faith, hope, expectation, is to us, the Torah's readers, fact, history, achievement. They did get to walk the land. So, too, in 2007, can we. The little word be-ever, across, is crucial to all that Deuteronomy comes to teach us.

I know, of course, that for some scholars of Bible there is a much simpler explanation of the word. It proves, in their view, that Moses did not write the Torah, and God did not dictate it. The point of view adopted by the text is quite naturally not that of the Israelites in the wilderness, for whom "across the Jordan" would have meant inside the Land of Israel. It expresses the standpoint of much later authors, who simply "told it as they saw it."

Maybe so. I am not here to contest matters of authorship. My point is rather the spiritual power stored up in one little word in the first line of this book that has a lot to teach us about the power of words. The book's name after all is Devarim (Words). Moses must use words to unique effect in this address because it is the final speech he will give. Israel must listen to special effect ("shema Yisra'el," he urges more than once; "Hear, Israel!") because Moses cannot accompany them across the river. He cannot refine his words to suit the circumstances they will encounter. He cannot raise his voice or modulate it, speak to the rock or hit it with his staff, summon signs of divine confirmation or offer proof of divine displeasure. All the Israelites can take with them from now on are his words.

His message has to be more than good. When Moses finishes this speech he will die, and they will cross the river. Depending on how well they hear him, they either will or will not inherit the land in its full promise. Their days upon it will be numbered accordingly. Never have words mattered more. It cannot be coincidence that the name of the book means not only words, but things: realities, facts on the ground. The words Moses speaks have to be adequate to the realities that Israelites/Jews will face in every generation, beginning with the one he addresses directly. Their actions, the facts they build on the ground, literally and figuratively, in turn have to be worthy of the words that Moses transmitted to them. The davar in each case, on each side of the river, must be true to the davar on the other.

This remains the case in every generation and in every radically new situation; the need to hear well is acute each time that we set out, or send out others, to cross whatever river currently separates us or them from new possibilities. It could be graduation, a job, marriage, or retirement; it could be a task one has long avoided or long sought; it could be the start of another month, another year, which beckons with the chance to do a better job at hearing God's voice or the Torah's or our own. In each case one needs to turn one's back on wilderness wandering, while not forgetting—as Moses, in this parashah, tries to make sure the Israelites will not forget—the errors and misfortunes that made that place wilderness and kept us captive there.

We know, if we are adults, that we will likely never reach the Promised Land. Our children will, or theirs after them. But we know, too, that they have no chance of attaining it, and we won't get anywhere worth being either, unless we set out for that Promised Land and do all we can to make it there.

Moses takes pains to fix the current location of the Israelites with precision. It is as if he is saying to them,
Here we are, you and I. Eleven days from Sinai, after traveling thirty-eight long years. Near Suph. Between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab. After Sinai and the golden calf, devotion and provocation, bickering and nobility of spirit—here is where we are. Now let's get moving. It's time to take God's devarim and make them into yours, to shape realities worthy of the potential stored up in you by God. Hear well for a change, O Israel. Enter the land that is your inheritance. Taste the life of fulfillment that no human being before you has been privileged to know. It starts here, right here, where you are.

The opportunity is positively terrifying. One feels it even now, especially now, nearly sixty years into renewed Jewish possession of the land and responsibility for what is accomplished there. No more whining about what others do to us in exile (or so one hopes). No more critique from outside the halls of power—across the river, as it were, from agency and action. The "subjects of history" are now us, where this state is concerned. Never in 2,000 years has the opportunity to transform devarim into devarim been greater—and, as a consequence, never has the disparity between the two been more glaring.

The responsibility is terrifying. That is why, I think, this first parashah in the Book of Devarim concludes with Moses' reminder to the Israelites of the wonders that they "have seen with their own eyes," and the injunction not to fear. "For it is the Lord your God who will battle for you." Let me avoid for now the vexing matter of God's role as warrior—one aspect of the larger theological issue we call providence—and read the verse this way. Now as ever we want our lives aligned to whatever plan God has for us and the world. We hope to use our time well. We want to make God's words real in the world. As Deuteronomy will remind us before Moses concludes his address, these things and words are not beyond reach across the sea or up in heaven, but "Very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do them" (Deuteronomy 30:12).

It helps a great deal, as we undertake that task, inside or outside the land of Israel, by imagining ourselves on the far side of achievement, looking back. These are the words that Moses addressed; now ours is to speak and do.

Shabbat shalom,
Arnold M. Eisen