Vaetchanan
Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11
Isaiah 40:1-26
This week’s Torah portion opens with Moses telling the people that he had implored God to let him come with them to the Promised Land.
What’s fascinating is that the rest of the portion is an entreaty to the people to remember a few salient features required of them in their relationship to God — as they move into that place of greater ease and comfort (at least theoretically so).
And although the Midrash diligently tries to figure out the real reason for Moses’ inability to come with them, there seems to be an underlying need for the people to let go of the dependency they have on Moses as emissary, adviser and intercessor. Note that Moses is told that he must imbue his successor, Joshua, with strength and courage, since obviously his task is a difficult one.
It seems that Deuteronomy is the “checking in” (Did we all bring our sunscreen? Has everyone got a clean towel?) conversation that Moses has with the people. He wants them to be prepared to handle the good and the complex things that are certain to come their way as they leave the arid desert, with its lack of both temptation and ease.
Moses is afraid — afraid that the good land holds comfort (which is less of a goad to appropriate behaviors) and people who worship differently (thus bringing up the possibility of idolatry).
Moses fences them in around the subject of idolatry in several ways, since this is the most important point he has to share in this chapter. First he reminds them that what they have heard is what there is: no additions, embellishments, omissions or changes. (This has certainly been a challenging passage for Jews throughout the ages, especially for the leaders in times after the Temples were destroyed.)
Moses adds a reason — the people have heard the real God, and everyone else will see how prosperous and well-governed their society is, and will say, “Cool, look at them!” This is a small reminder of Abraham and Jacob, who prospered in everything they did, as they connected with the Divine will.
Whilst urging them forward with this encouragement — they will be special and different and more blessed than others — Moses reminds them of how easy it will be to go astray. And if it’s not them who go astray, then their children.
He is reminding all of us of the importance of ritual, of cycles, of passing on our wisdom. In this case, some of the wisdom really is about the actual nature of God — an ineffable Presence, not an entity. There is the lovely connection between the people and God in chapter 4:15: “For your own sake, therefore, be most careful — since you saw no shape when the Lord your God spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire … but you the Lord took and brought out of Egypt, that iron blast furnace, to be God’s very own people, as is now the case … For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, an impassioned God.”
It seems that God is related somehow to fire (see Ezekiel’s chariot for more on this), and as the people were taken out of Egypt, they were forged into something new. The furnace of Egypt led to the melting of the will of the people, and in accepting instead the yoke of Divine fire, the new nation cooled into something different, something that could hear God’s voice on the mountain and say sure, we’ll do it all.
The Maker knows the qualities of the raw material and is concerned about how it may behave under stress. The finest of Japanese swords are heated and cooled, heated and cooled, to align the metal so that it is straight and true.
Moses is concerned that the people have not yet been tempered enough through the fire, and without his ability to mediate, they will stray to the “man-made gods of wood and stone, that cannot see or hear or eat or smell.”
So, we too, can find ourselves wavering in our choices — do we stay long enough to do the good deed, or are we in a rush? Do we worship in hollowness and turn astray from the fire that burns within all of us?
This time of year, as we head into the month of Elul, enjoy the heat — and the fire that brings all of us a chance to renew, to recharge and to rededicate ourselves to lives of joy and sharing, respect and peace.
Rabbi Elisheva Salamo is the spiritual leader of Keddem Congregation in Palo Alto.