We are now, in case your GPS fails to tell you, soundly inside the Book of Deuteronomy. We crossed the border last week and here we are.
Deuteronomy is a late book of Torah, we think, full of political agenda, full of revision. But on its surface it is the story of the the Children of Israel at the end of their 40 years of wandering. They are a new generation poised to step into the Promised Land; a generation that did not know slavery.
And so Moshe, our prophet and teacher, stands at the front of the assembly of the people and he tells them their story. He tells them about the exodus from Egypt and about their wanderings and their squabbles and their battles and all the laws they agreed to at Sinai.
Moshe will be doing this retelling for the next couple of months-worth of Torah readings until, at last, he dies, right there on the border, and we weep and we roll the scroll back to the beginning, to look again at the darkness and the deep water and to hear God speak light into existence.
In this week’s portion, Moshe takes a pause from telling the people their story, and instead tells them a piece of his story. A personal piece.
V’etchanan, he begins. “I pleaded.”
“I pleaded with YHWH, saying, ‘O Lord YHWH, You who let me, Your servant, see the first works of Your greatness and Your mighty hand, You whose powerful deeds no god in heaven or on earth can equal! Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country, and Lebanon too.’’
Moshe shares God’s response. He says, “YHWH was wrathful with me on your account and would not listen to me. YHWH said to me, ‘Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again!’”
It is a moment of shocking bitterness. Moshe, having given over 40 years of his life in the thankless task of leading the people. Being denied the reward that the younger people will reap. And casting blame on us, the people, for his not getting what he thought he deserved.
Moshe is a mess here. Desolate, angry, resentful. He will not live to see his mission fulfilled, despite his giving that mission everything he had.
But Moshe is not the only person to feel desolation. Yesterday was Tisha B’Av, our day of collective grief and mourning. Many of us gathered on Zoom Wednesday night and spoke of the grief that we carry every day. Some of it personal and intimate – the loss of loved ones. But much of it was global and shared. The destructions of war. The discrediting of kindness. The dismantling of democracy. The disregard for suffering. The desecration of our planet and our fellow beings. A multi-dimensional, pressing, desolation.
This was the first year that I really noticed the fact that this Torah portion – Moshe’s uncontainable grief – sits in such close proximity to Tisha B’Av. I realized that even though we go through Tisha B’Av and we mourn and we envision, even though we begin to foresee and speak of a future that can grow out of the broken shards of the present, we all suffer Moshe’s fate. None of us will live to reach the Promised Land. Whatever world of safety and kindness and beauty we dream up; whatever world of suffering relieved; whatever renewal and restoration of this Eden, full of plants and animals beyond count; whatever better moment we dream up, even if we set it in motion with our own hands and our own tears, we will not see it completed. We will not live to see that Promised Land, no matter how long our lives, and may they be long and happy. And no matter how quick the healing, and may it come dizzyingly fast.
This is the nature of our mission here on this Earth. To give ourselves over to what is needed; to give ourselves over to the cause of life, even knowing that the arc of its fulfillment is longer than the days allotted us.
But Tisha B’Av ends on a note of comfort. It is followed – tonight – by Shabbat Nachamu, the sabbath of comfort. We read the famous words of Isaiah – nachamu, nachamu ami – “take comfort, take comfort my people.”
But what comfort is there when the brokenness is so deep and will so clearly outlive us?
Maybe this Shabbat’s Torah portion gives us a hint. Because after God says to Moshe, in response to Moshe’s plea, “do not speak to Me of this again,” God does not cease speaking. Instead the Divine offers an instruction to Moshe, telling him to do something, something that is not strictly required for the advancement of the plot of the Book of Deuteronomy. God says,
עֲלֵ֣ה רֹ֣אשׁ הַפִּסְגָּ֗ה וְשָׂ֥א עֵינֶ֛יךָ יָ֧מָּה וְצָפֹ֛נָה וְתֵימָ֥נָה וּמִזְרָ֖חָה
וּרְאֵ֣ה בְעֵינֶ֑יךָ כִּי־לֹ֥א תַעֲבֹ֖ר אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּ֥ן הַזֶּֽה׃
“Climb up to the summit of the mountain; cast your eyes west and north and south and east and see with your own eyes––”
And here the Hebrew is ambiguous. On its surface it says, “See with your own eyes that you will not cross this Jordan River.” Which might be God trying to help Moshe reconcile with his fate. But you could read the Hebrew phrase instead as “See with your own eyes this Jordan River which you will not cross.” And with that, the instruction stops being a slapdown and becomes an invitation. He can’t reach it, but he can see it. Moshe can climb up, and get a sweeping view, not only of the Jordan River but to the horizon in every direction. Moshe can see the long view that the Children of Israel, at the foot of the mountain, never get.
Maybe that is the offering and invitation for all of us, sitting in the brokenness. We may not live to see a truly healed world. But in this story, cleverly paired with Tisha B’Av, we are invited to ascend the mountain and look all around us. We may not live to enter many or any of the Promised Lands that we are calling into being. But we are invited to see them from afar; to look at where we’ve come from and where we’re going, and to know that it’s not that far ahead, and the people will get there, even if we don’t.
So nachamu nachamu ami – take comfort, take comfort my people. The power of giving yourselves over to the quest for something better is not nullified by your not personally arriving there. Let go of that. Instead, climb higher than that resentment, climb higher than that disappointment, climb higher than your worry, and look ahead and all around, and take comfort in knowing that the people will arrive there, and that you had a hand in making it possible.