D'var Torah

This week’s Torah portion, d’varim, launches us into the book of Deuteronomy, the last book of the Torah. Deuteronomy (which means “second telling” — “d’varim,” the Hebrew name, means “words”) is largely a retelling of the Israelites’ wilderness journey, as understood by Moses, their soon-to-be-former leader: “these are the words that Moses said to Israel on the other side of the Jordan [i.e., before they crossed into the Promised Land] …” (Deuteronomy 1:1). 

Why retell the story just before it ends? And when Moses’ version of events in Deuteronomy differs from the way those same events were described earlier in the Torah (a not-infrequent occurrence), what are we to make of it? 

Re-reading d’varim this year, what stuck out to me most was the part of the story Moses chooses to start from. He begins his retelling not in Egypt (as the Book of Exodus does), or at the beginning of the world (as the Torah itself does), but at the mountain where the Israelites received the Ten Commandments (a moment that takes place about halfway through Exodus), right after they have received them. 

The story he tells them from this beginning takes them through decades of their own past, with an emphasis on the moments they (or their ancestors) had decisions to make about where and how to travel as a community. Remember the time we almost entered the Promised Land, but decided not to? he says. And, remember all of the places we visited, and the people we met, in our subsequent years of wandering? Remember all of the battles we fought?

The Israelites to whom Moses is speaking — largely the children and grandchildren of the generation of who left Egypt forty years before — probably actually don’t remember all of these moments. And given this, Moses’ message, in the opening lines of his (long) speech, seems to be something like: we as a people have had what we needed (the commandments, our connection with God and with each other) for a long time. We have faced many challenges, and sometimes we rose to them, and sometimes we did not. You are the children of people who felt fear, and sometimes bowed to it — but also people who felt hope, and acted with bravery. 

This opening sets up a message from Moses that will be implicit (and sometimes explicit) throughout the rest of Deuteronomy: As you step into the next part of your journey — as you cross into the Promised Land without me — tap into your courage, your sense of possibility, the knowledge that with Torah, with God, and with each other, you have everything you need.

What might our lives be like if we could consistently tap into this sense of possibility and courage, too? We live in an era of a lot of polarization (or to put it differently: mistrust in one another and our ability to come together as a collective to try to meet all of our needs), and also a lot of fear. Much of this fear is based in real challenges that we have faced or watched others face, and real challenges we anticipate in the future – just as it was for the Ancient Israelites, gathered across the river from the Promised Land. They were survivors of a number of incredibly challenging experiences, and they knew a lot about the many things that can go wrong for a person and a community. Moses' words in this week’s Torah portion were, perhaps, intended as a bit of a counterbalance: we know a lot about what can go wrong, he seemed to be saying, but we also know a lot about what can go right. And we always, always have choices. 

What are the stories we carry within us, of our own lives and of the people who came before us? What would our retelling of these stories look like? And, the Moses of this week’s Torah portion might ask: are there places in our stories where we can notice, and lift up, moments of courage, possibility, connection, and growth?