Overcoming Fear
D’var Torah for
Parashat Va’et’chanan
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
When I was young and growing up in Israel, I joined the
Scouts. It was a great organization to
belong to, and I was proud to put on the khaki uniform and the striped
neckerchief. Some of the best events
were the kumzits (campfires) we had
on the beach, where we boiled dark Turkish coffee and roasted potatoes after
dark. One scoutmaster was a terrific
storyteller and told some ghost stories that had us shivering even though the
night was quite warm.
One day the troop I belonged to started a fundraiser. I forget what it was we were peddling, but we
went in pairs door-to-door to make our pitch.
I came home quite late in the evening, way past suppertime.
My father was furious.
I had never seen him quite so angry, either before or since that day.
At the time, all I knew was that by coming home so late I
broke a hard and fast rule. Later in
life, I understood my father’s anger better.
When my father arrived in Israel in the fall of 1939, he
couldn’t know that he would never see his home or family again. It was six years later that he learned how
the Nazis had murdered his parents, his two brothers and beloved younger
sister. For the rest of his life, my
father struggled with survivor’s guilt.
He could never get past the thought that he had abandoned them to their
fate, that if only he were there, with them, he would have been able to help
them and they would still be alive.
When I didn’t come home at the expected time, my father
immediately feared the worst for me. From
my perspective, his fear was unreasonable.
I knew little as yet of the very real dangers of the world after
dark—but what could I know then about the working of a parent’s mind? Fear isn’t always rational.
Perhaps that was the kind of anger Moses felt at the moment
that this week’s Torah portion, Va’et’chanan
(“I pleaded,” Deuteronomy 3:23—7:11) begins.
Told by God that he would not enter the Promised Land, Moses pleads with
God for a second chance. “Let me go in
as an animal,” the Midrash has him beseeching God, “or even as a bird which can
fly the length and breadth of the land.”
But God summarily refutes Moses’s pleas.
Angrily, Moses blames the people. “It’s on your account that God has turned
against me!”
But, as was the case with my father, the source of Moses’s
anger at that moment was not bitterness or—God forbid! —hatred for his
people. Moses’s anger came from fear. He knew the dangers of the land the
Israelites were set to enter, and his fear was that, without his guidance, the
Israelites would soon lose their way and disappear.
The hazards that lay ahead weren’t only physical. Moses reminds the people what happened to
those who gave in to the temptations of Baal, the pagan deity who demanded
human—particularly child—sacrifice.
God’s rage then knew no bounds.
“However,” Moses reminds the people, “you who cleave to Adonai your God
are alive, all of you, today” (Deut. 4:4).
Their strength lies not in their size or numbers, but rather is inherent
in the very rules and regulations that make them a singular people. The fate of the Israelites, Moses teaches his
people, indeed, their very survival, is entwined with their faith.
But it would be an unwise parent who only teaches his
children to follow rules. The ability to
adapt rules to situations that might come up in the unforeseeable future is the
essence of wisdom and key to survival.
It isn’t only chukim u-mishpatim—statutes
and judgments” (Deut. 4:5)—that God has given His people; it is also chochmat’chem u-vinat’chem—“wisdom and
understanding” (Deut. 4:6). A delicate
balance must exist between the two. One,
rooted in tradition and the past, gives your children guidance; the other sets
them free to grow and become independent individuals, capable of transforming
the future.
As Moses repeats the Ten Commandments, the Sh’ma and the paragraph we know as the V’Ahavta, he also gives the Israelites
the further instruction that they must teach these basic rules of their faith
to their children and to the generations that follow them.
It is so, Moses teaches, that “you may prolong your days in
the land you will possess” (Deut. 5:30).
These words serve to fortify not only the Israelites; they
also transform Moses. Realizing that
Israel’s connection with God, maintained throughout the generations, will
sustain the people through all kinds of danger, Moses’s fear turns to
faith.
Moses can now face his people’s—and his own—future with a
more peaceful heart. He understands that
he isn’t relinquishing his people to an unknown fate, but rather freeing them,
letting them go forth to grow into the people that—with God’s help, of course—they
must now become: a holy nation, a light to the world.
It is a culminating moment in Moses’s life and the start of
a new phase in the evolution of the Jewish People.
© 2013 by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
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