The View From the Mountain

The View From the Mountain
D’var Torah for Parashat Ha’azinu: Deuteronomy Chapter 32
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Though two chapters are still left in the book of Deuteronomy, this week’s portion (Ha’azinu, meaning “listen,” or “pay heed”), is the last parashah to be read at a Shabbat morning service before the whole cycle begins again. Chapters 34 and 35 (comprising the very last parashah) are read on the holiday of Simchat Torah, immediately followed by the first few verses of the book of Genesis.

With Ha’azinu, Moses nears the end of his own life’s journey. He is commanded by God to ascend the heights of Mount Nebo, from where he will be granted one final vision—the Land of Israel.

Moses is old and tired, but his vision is as clear as ever. Yet, at this moment, one that should be filled with breathtaking exultation, what he can see from the top of the mountain is not as rosy and positive as one would hope. Yes, he can see that God has indeed led the Israelites in the right direction. Moses is also confident that Joshua, his follower, will lead them on into the Land and continue guiding them by God’s light and direction. Yet, farther down the route, Moses can see also more distant days, when the Israelites will abandon God’s paths and veer toward idolatry.

Moses’s frustration at not being allowed to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land is coupled with sadness and disappointment as he realizes that history is bound to repeat itself. The previous forty years were not easy. In retrospect it seems that the Israelites rebelled against God’s commandments at every opportunity. It was lack of faith, in fact, that kept them from reaching the goal of their journey for these 40 years. The future, too, will contain rebellions and lapses in faith.

Ha’azinu, containing some of the Bible’s most powerful poetry, is filled with intense imagery. Moses calls upon the heaven and the earth to bear witness to God’s word and constancy. All Creation is God’s doing; it is God’s law that makes the rain fall and the dew appear. Just so, too, is Israel God’s creation. Set aside from other nations, watched over and protected as an eagle protects its young, Israel is nourished from the yield of the earth, given honey from the rock, fed with “The cream of cattle and the milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams…” (32:13-14).

Yet—Moses sees further—Israel is bound to forget the true source of its bounty and security. At such times, Moses warns, God’s anger will flare, and Israel will be punished. But the Covenant between Israel and God cannot be broken. At the very moment that the Israelites repent, God will take them back, roll back their enemies and restore the People to their Land.

As Moses concludes his prophetic message, he warns the people to “Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you this day. Enjoin them upon your children, that they may observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching. For this is not a trifling thing for you: It is your very life; through it you shall long endure on the land that you are to possess…” (Deut. 32:47-48).

This message, read every year on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (called Shabbat Shuva, the Sabbath of Repentance) contains the entire message of these Days of Awe. With this glorious and awesome prophecy, Moses reminds us that existence is meaningless if it is not filled with God’s purpose. The heaven and the earth are God’s creation, but their purpose is limited to two functions: to provide light and to set the seasons. They can do nothing other than follow their charted course through the universe. Yet what we human beings can do is so much greater: We can actually carry on God’s sacred work of creation. Created of the earth, humanity can transcend its lowly beginnings and achieve nearly divine heights.

It is an awesome responsibility, yet one we often fail to carry out—to disastrous results.

Each New Year, standing on the bridge between the past and the future, we gage how far we have come and what yet remains to be done. Still hanging on the wall of our kitchen is last year’s calendar. It’s all filled out now. The new calendar, set to replace the old one, is yet fresh and clean. How will its days be filled? Yes, there will be regular appointments, reminders of holidays and birthdays, perhaps even some vacation days to pencil in. But there’s something more important than any of these. Each day of the new year has to be filled with purpose and meaning. That’s how we infuse holiness into our lives. The choices we make will determine the quality of our life, for better or for worse.

It is an awesome view from the mountain. It fills us with hope, but also with trepidation. It makes our hearts soar with eagles, yet gravity pulls our gaze downwards. While longing for the green pastures ahead, we also see that the path there will not be smooth or easy. But in each generation we have a Joshua, a Samuel or a David to lead us onwards. Holding the Torah in our hearts and minds, we are filled with courage and faith. It truly is our life, filling our days and nights with light, direction and purpose.

One parashah or page at a time, one letter at a time, we are truly carried onwards as though on the wings of eagles.


©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman

Now Let Us Sing: Nitzavim-Vayelech

Now Let Us Sing
D’var Torah for Parashat Nitzavim-Vayelech - Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman


As the book of Deuteronomy begins to draw to its close, so—we are well aware—does the year. Nitzavim-Vayelech (Deut. 29:9-31:30) is the last double portion that we will have this year, and it pretty much sums up not only Deuteronomy, but in fact, the whole Torah.

The power to choose is first given to us back in Genesis. Having eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad, as long as we had become aware of the difference between the two, God figures we might as well learn what the one is and what the other, and what the consequences of each will be. The power to choose may be ours, but the end result is not. Each and every choice we make leads us in one direction or another. Ultimately, how far we get depends on how we got there, on the choices we made along the way.

The Torah is so much more than a collection of stories. It is even more than the 613 commandments that it contains. It really is a training manual. Following its regimen—not blindly, but rather through close examination and interpretation—makes us stronger as individuals and as a people. The Torah teaches us to stand firm with our beliefs and principles, but not without bending at times, if the winds call for flexibility. Each and every moral exercise we go through braces us for the next test life will throw in our way. We learn that choosing life sometimes means we have to offer up our own lives. We learn that hiding or running away from the calling we hear along the way serves no purpose at all. Inaction is not a choice.

Nitzavim, the near-to-last portion of Deuteronomy, written almost 3000 years ago, contains a glorious vision of Eternity: It is an image of the entire Jewish people, present past and future. The entire population—both leaders and followers, rich and poor, men women and children, born to the Jewish faith or having freely embraced it—finds itself standing together, attentive, purposeful, focused, at a moment that is both particular and universal. It is both the beginning of our history and at our goal. At that infinite and eternal moment, we face God, none of us shirking our duty, all nitzavim—standing at the ready. We had found our way through deserts and unfamiliar lands. We had crossed rivers and oceans, traversed time and place. We even explored the sacred space that exists between humanity and God. We are unafraid. Filled with the strongest force of all, the force of life, we are prepared to go forward at a moment’s notice, confident that no enemy, oppressor or aggressor, will ever stand in our way.

It is the moment Moses had been waiting for. He knew it would arrive; throughout the trials and tribulations of the last forty years, he had been arguing, defending, accusing, teaching—always teaching!—the rules of sacred living to this stubborn nation. At times he was frustrated, at times elated. He had given his all to this important mission. Now he saw it accomplished. His work was nearly done. It was nearly his duty at this point to transfer his power to the next generation.

But there was one commandment left to give. All 612 others had already been given (some twice or even more—for example not to shed innocent blood; not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk; to be just but also compassionate). Now the time came for the giving of the final mitzvah.

The people stand attentively. What could it possibly be? What was left out of forty years of training, teaching and interpreting?

This final commandment is as eternal as the moment in which it is given. It is a deed that we can start but that, having begun it, we cannot stop.

It is to teach the Torah and to perpetuate it. Assembling the people—men, women and children—to listen and understand its words; writing these words down so they do not disappear in the vagaries of time; and, most importantly, to make them real through our own lives and deeds. This is the final commandment of the Torah.

Chapter 31, verse 19 calls the Torah a song that we must learn and teach, one infinite act of joining ourselves with eternity: “And now, write for yourselves this song, and teach it to the Children of Israel. Place it into their mouths, in order that this song will be for Me as a witness for the children of Israel.”

This song isn’t only for us to hear. Its strains reach as far as the highest heavens, stirring even God’s heartstrings.

The learning, teaching and practicing of Torah are thus rolled into one action, one mitzvah. It may be the final mitzvah, the last of the 613 commandments in the Torah, but it is also the very first. We engage in it the moment we tell a child about Noah and the rainbow; each time we talk about the Parting of the Red Sea; every time we think of the Ten Commandments and their role in our lives.

We end as we begin—with a blessing, with a prayer, with a song. Blessed are you, Adonai our God, eternal ruler of the universe, for giving us the many opportunities to sense holiness—your mitzvot—and for this particular mitzvah: The commandment to sing your praise.
Now let us sing.

©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman

When You Arrive—Remember Where You Came From!

When You Arrive—Remember Where You Came From!
D’var Torah on Parashat Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 26:1—29:8
by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

For my brother, Ariel, on the anniversary of his bar mitzvah 51 years ago

The climax of every Jewish wedding is the smashing of the glass. The months of preparation and organization, the thousands of details, the tension that rises alarmingly in direct relation to the number of days and hours before the wedding, all become transformed at that instant. All eyes turn to the ground, to the glass covered in thin white cloth and the shoe that is about to come down on it. The rejoicing begins immediately, as everybody cries out “Mazal tov,” the musicians break into a joyful tune, and the newlyweds exchange their first kiss as a married couple.

In some communities, it isn’t a glass that’s broken, but rather an expensive dish. The idea, however, is the same. The custom is there to remind us of several things, but above all else, of the many tragedies in our past, both long ago and more recent: Of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem… of the many other destructions that followed… of the people and communities left behind in the smoke and ashes of the Holocaust… of the miracle of our survival despite all that.

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, contains one of the earliest and oldest rituals of Judaism. Set at the time of the first harvest, the portion instructs us to bring the first fruits “of the ground, which you will bring from your land which the Lord your God is giving you” (Deut. 26:2). Like all our celebrations, however, this joyful moment too, while filled with joy and gratitude for the gifts of food, land and security, is already mixed with sadness. For at the very moment in which they handed the gift baskets over to the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem, the people were instructed to repeat a familiar history: “My father was a fugitive Aramean…”

If these words sound familiar, it is because they also form the basis for the narrative we recite at the joyful celebration of the Passover Seder, the Haggadah, a recitation that reminds us of exile, slavery and genocide before we were redeemed by God’s hand.

Jacob, later renamed Israel, is the refugee the passage refers to. First fleeing from his murderous twin brother, Esau, then from his Aramean father-in-law, Laban, and his sons—some of the first anti-Semites ever recorded—Jacob’s story epitomizes Jewish history. At a young age he has to leave home and become a wanderer. Starting a family and building a fortune in his adopted homeland does not assure him of safety and security, and he has to flee again. Returning home, he loses his beloved wife; then a son. The family will only be reunited years later—in yet another foreign land. Though his remains will be buried in Israel, Jacob will never see the Land of his ancestors again.

Cut to 1946.

I can only imagine the pride, the joy, the disbelief and the amazement with which my brother, Ariel, was greeted when he was born. Barely a year after the end of the Holocaust, my mother—a Holocaust refugee herself—and my father, who had by then received a letter describing in detail the murder of his entire family at the hands of the Nazis—began a new life together in the Land of Israel. The world still called it “Palestine,” but my parents and their whole generation of survivors knew better. For them it was always Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. My parents named their first born son Ariel, a Biblical name which the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel associated with Jerusalem and the Temple. I am sure that my father, who was very well versed in Bible, knew by heart Isaiah chapter 29 and its predictions of the sadness and destruction that would befall Jerusalem—but also of the ultimate glorious and joyful triumph of survival that were sure to follow.

It must have been planned, or at least fore-ordained, that thirteen years later, my brother’s bar mitzvah haftarah, also from the book of Isaiah, chapter 60, would speak of the magnificent and splendid light that would bathe Jerusalem and all Israel in those triumphant future days.

My brother, Ariel, is one of the miraculous generation that represents the amazing survival and rebirth of our people following the Destruction, the Shoah.

This Shabbat marks the 51st anniversary of my brother’s bar mitzvah. More than half a century later, I can still remember the words and melody with which he chanted the verses of his haftarah: Kumi, ‘ori, ki vah ‘orech—“Arise, shine for thy light has come.” It is these very words that begin this week’s haftarah, the Scriptural reading that always follows parashat Ki Tavo. To me, this haftarah symbolizes our return to our homeland, the pride, the joy, the amazement—but also the sorrow associated with the great tragedy we had just emerged from.

Living in Israel, today my brother is the coordinator of youth and public events for the city of Ramat Gan. The many certificates and plaques of recognition he has received—from the city, its mayor, and from the many groups and individuals he has taught and encouraged throughout his lifetime of work—could well represent the opening words of Ki Tavo: “And it will be, when you come to the land which the Lord, your God, gives you for an inheritance, and you possess it and settle in it, that you shall take of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you will bring from your land, which the Lord, your God, is giving you…”.

Through his life and work, my brother fulfills the purpose of this commandment. As the parashah continues, we learn that this offering of first fruit isn’t only for us to enjoy; nor is its purpose merely to fill the government’s treasury. Rather, it is for the entire people to enjoy, with a good part of it set aside especially for the weak, the hungry, for the many survivors and their children.

That is the source of Israel’s strength. That is what Ki Tavo and its accompanying haftarah, Isaiah 60:1-22, are all about.

Mazal Tov, Ariel! May the fruit of your labor continue to enrich our Land and our People for many years to come.

©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman

Learning To Rise Above the Hatred

Learning To Rise Above the Hatred

D'var Torah on Parashat Ki Teitzei--Deuteronomy 21:10--25:19

by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

A “limited war” is defined as the opposite of an all-out, total war. With less manpower and equipment resources going in and with goals defined as less than total destruction of the enemy, limited wars have been the norm during the second half of the 20^th century. Korea, Vietnam, the Arab-Israeli conflicts and the Iraq War are examples of “limited wars.”

Perhaps this style of warfare emerged as a result of the two world wars and the unimaginable destruction they brought about. The Cold War, in which the world’s superpowers squared off with neither side yielding to the other, preferring instead to duke it out in local, regional confrontations, led to at least some of these outbreaks of limited war.

But the term is misleading. First of all, it implies some sort of limit or conclusion. Yet, with the possible exception of the Vietnam War, none of the other limited wars of the 20^th century has come to any sort of conclusion. These regional conflicts still continue on an almost daily basis.

Secondly, even if “limited” refers to hoped-for boundaries or scope of the conflict, the term certainly doesn’t hold true when it comes to the unspeakable brutality and the immeasurable pain that are the result of even the most limited war.

Of all creatures of the earth, sky and water, not one other has begun to plumb the depths of depravity and cruelty we human beings have. Yes, we are capable of exalted achievements. We can create magnificent edifices of engineering, culture and art, of literature, architecture and science; but we also have invented an unbounded number of ways to torture, destroy and turn progress back to chaos.

I have been spared the direct effects of war. I was born after World War Two, after the Holocaust. Though I served in Zahal, the Israel Defense Force, I did so during a time of relative peace. I personally saw no “action.” However, even though I was a young child then, I do remember the Sinai Campaign of 1956, of having to shutter our windows, taping and covering them at night so no light shone out; I remember being awakened one night by an air-raid siren warning of an Egyptian aircraft that had reached Netanya, the city we lived in. I was almost seven, but the memory is still there. I also remember June, 1967, even though I was in the US by then. It was the first war my brother fought in, and I remember the sleepless nights my parents sat at the kitchen table in our Los Angeles apartment, waiting for a word from him. I was in Israel again for the War of ’73, the so–called Yom Kippur War, and the second war my brother fought in. There were the Intifadahs; the #37 bus in Haifa that my parents nearly took on the day that a terrorist detonated a bomb on it, killing seventeen people (most of them school children) and injuring 53 others. I remember the Gulf War, and the Second Lebanon War with its rain of Hizbollah-launched missiles falling all over Northern Israel—including Haifa, where I was that summer. And I remember “Red color,” the alert signal that sent the citizens of Sderot in the Negev scurrying for cover during the 7 years of incessant missile bombardment by Hamas terrorists.

The terrors and horrors of being witness to the brutalities of war are etched deeply in my soul.

I remember the hatred and intense desire for revenge I felt when a suicide bomber killed three little girls in a Tel Aviv shopping center during the holiday of Purim, 1996. I was at services at Hebrew Union College that morning when the news was announced. The rage I felt made my whole body tremble for a few moments—and then I understood. To the core of my being I began to comprehend a lesson I had learned earlier that day—how the Torah and the rabbis tried to control rage, forbidding blood-vengeance, placing limits and boundaries on the evil cravings that war and bloodshed bring out in us. It was a process that began with this week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei (“When you go out to wage war”), Deuteronomy 21:10—25:19.

Still, this parashah isn’t only about war. It’s also about how to be a human being—a mensch—invested and ennobled by God’s image of justice and compassion. It’s only the outer parts of the portion—the first few verses and the last—that actually deal with forbidden behavior during war. The rest of the portion gives scores of other examples, other times and occasions when we’re tempted by our basic instinct to take the easy—but wrong—path. Such as when we see a lost animal and think we can claim ownership; when we see a bird and its eggs in a nest on the ground—and think we can take both; or when the poor come to us in need and we think we can prey on them because, after all, they are weak and defenseless.

Yet, after all these commandments of noble—even holy—deeds, the parashah does return to the opening theme of war. Only this time, it’s a type of war that truly is limitless, without bounds. This is the war against Amalek, the tribe that attacked the Israelites during our wanderings in the Sinai Wilderness, concentrating their attacks on the rear of the camp, where the weak, the sick and the helpless were. “Remember that which Amalek did to you,” the Torah admonishes us. For the opposite of holy is evil, and the war on true evil, whether it comes from within ourselves or from some outside source, can never be “limited.” Evil knows no bounds; there is no finite limit to its depth or depravity. Our war against evil must know no bounds either.

Ki Teitzei is like an exercise regimen. It teaches us to hold back our rage. At the same time, this portion makes us practice acts of kindness repeatedly, in one case after another, until we realize that menschlichkeit, the ability to remain human despite all the evil we see around us, comes only when we learn to be in charge of our emotions.

This is no easy task for us human beings, so easily manipulated by charismatic leaders, so simply swayed by our passions. It isn’t enough to merely control our hatred. We have to counter the hate with love. We have to balance—and even overcome—the injustice with compassion. And that takes constant training.

© 2010 by Boaz Heilman

Have Torah, Will Travel

Have Torah, Will Travel

D’var Torah for Parashat Shoftim: Deuteronomy 16:18--21:9

by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

No passage in the whole Torah can be any clearer than the words of this portion. The laws are clear, unambiguous, even incisive. The language can hardly be misunderstood. Tzedek, tzedek tirdof, “justice, justice shall you pursue,” (Deut. 16:20) is an obvious example. The precision of the phrasing and the driving rhythm in which it is spoken leave us in no doubt. Many of the other commandments of this parashah are as clearly phrased. This portion was no doubt intended as a constitution, a set of basic laws which stand at the foundation of a much larger system. Meant to maximize the stability of the structure, these laws must be profound and unshakable.

That they are all that comes as no surprise. Yet, wiggle room—the freedom to interpret and adapt—is somehow still built into this complex codex or body of laws.

One of the phrases by which this book of the Torah is identified (Deuteronomy) is based on an ancient Greek translation of the phrase mishne ha-Torah (appearing in this parashah in chapter 17, verse 18). The Hebrew phrase could be interpreted either as a second Torah, or as a copy of the Torah; the difference is subtle but important, having to do with literal accuracy. Rashi, the great commentator of the 11th century, explains mishne ha-Torah through a metaphor, saying that every king has to have two copies of the Torah; one which stays treasured at home, the other which he takes with him on his journeys. The one serves as the unchanging proof text, while the other holds the infinite ways in which the original can be interpreted.

Thus even the phrase Tzedek, tzedek tirdof, “justice, justice shall you pursue,” as unambiguous and imperative as it seems, lends itself to several teachings. The bottom line is that justice is one of the most basic values in all Judaism, indeed in all humanity. Moses was not the first to institute laws. He was only the first to make Justice a divine attribute. In pre-existing codes of law (such as Hammurabi’s), the king was the source of the law. As such, he was actually above the law. But in Moses’s concept, even a king was subject to God’s law, to God’s system of justice. Indeed, Abraham even holds God to account, as he calls out in Genesis 18:25: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?!” Justice, justice indeed! Justice below, justice above.

Yet, the human element carries doubt with it. It’s all fine and good as far as ideals go, but true justice isn’t always so obvious to us humans. As the opening passage from this week’s parashah continues, we are therefore warned to follow a due process of vigorous investigation and to steer away from bribery and perversion of justice. The reliability of witnesses, too, is brought into question, as we are told, at least in capital cases, to follow the testimony of two or three witnesses, not only one. Viewed from different angles, we might get a better perspective of what really happened.

Justice is elusive, hence the need to pursue it. Yet, unlike Inspector Javert of Les Miserables or Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive, we must not get lost in the act of pursuit. Justice is a goal that needs to be tempered with understanding, with compassion—with the understanding that to be human means we can fail, but also that we can rise again; that we can be guilty, but that all the same we can also be forgiven.

Rashi, in his commentary on the doubling of the word tzedek, “justice,” quotes early sources and says, “Seek out a good [or fair] court.” In other words, as we pursue justice, we must also do it with justice. There are fair practices and procedures that need to be followed. The very course of investigation that we follow can lead us astray, if we give in to the easy temptations along the way: A few minor indiscretions here, a couple of unimportant ordinances sidestepped, details and trivial infractions that can be swept under the rug, covered up, never to leave a trace.

One thing leads to another, and before we know it we have Watergate on our hands.

Tzedek, tzedek, “justice, justice.” There’s the ideal, and then there’s reality. How we apply each of these to our lives is key to the kind of person we are and the kind of society we create.

Tirdof, “you shall pursue.” How we follow this huge ideal—so important that we demand that even God be held accountable—is fundamental to our civilization. How we apply it is crucial to our humanity. It is true at home and along the path. It is a goal and the means. From end to end, all must be just—and our goal is not only to seek justice, but to live it. It takes practice and vigilance, mind and heart.

To be just is to be Divine.

To be just is to be Human.

©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman

Re’eh: When Seeing Is Believing

Re’eh: When Seeing Is Believing

D'var Torah for Parashat Re'eh, Deuteronomy 11:26--16:17

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Recently a Facebook friend sent me a link to a site of photographs taken during the Great Depression. These amazing photos show the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The color photographs are really an amazing portrait of how stark and difficult life was for so many people in those difficult days. What struck me most, however, was the look on the faces of those people. Their gaze is honest, steady and unwavering. They don’t smile. Many of the faces are carved with hardship. Their bodies gleam with the dirt and sweat of their labors. The African Americans among them show that though times and styles may have changed, not much else in American attitudes towards them had progressed since pre-Civil-War days.

Amazingly, as the people in the pictures gaze at the camera, they seem to look right through the years, towards the future. Times may have been difficult, they seem to say, but they weren’t about to give up. No matter what the future would hold, that much was clear.

This week’s Torah portion, Re’eh (“see” or “behold”) seems to deliver a similarly clear message. Times were indeed difficult: The Assyrians had overrun the northern kingdom of Israel and were now threatening the southern kingdom of Judah. The surrounding cultures and their immoral, superstition-filled beliefs were slowly eating away at the fabric of Judaism. Cruelty seemed the order of the day—as is evidenced from the many commandments directing us to live justly, mercifully and compassionately. The road ahead was clear: “See [Re’eh], I set before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing, that you will heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today; and the curse, if you will not heed the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn away from the way I command you this day, to follow other gods, which you did not know” (Deut. 11:26-28).

The parashah is filled with crystal-clear laws. They are down-to-earth and tangible, associating and anchoring the People of Israel with each other and with their Land. In order to deserve continued life and security in our Land, we must follow the path God sets out for us. It’s a clear and logical path, one of behavior and consequence. We must show compassion to the orphan, the widow and the stranger among us; we must give generously to the poor and set free the enslaved, sending them forth with sufficient hope and means to start off their new life. Even what we eat is regulated according to laws of morality—no bottom feeders or carrion scavengers, no animals that hunt and kill for their food. This portion contains one of the three pronouncements of the mitzvah (commandment) that we must not “boil a kid in its mother’s milk,” but rather show compassion and understanding for the grief of the bereaved parent, animal though it might be.

Our demeanor and religious behavior cannot be violent (to ourselves or to others), as was the custom of the neighboring people, who often gouged and gashed themselves or sacrificed their own children to their blood-thirsty gods.

It was clear to see that the “blessing” or the “curse” was not only a result of our actions, but inherent in our very behavior. How we lived WAS the blessing or the curse. Nothing could be more obvious or clear (no mean feat in those days of ignorance and superstition). All we had to do was open our eyes and see life around us. The promise of a secure future was also clear. If we followed God’s path of righteousness and mercy, we would survive. Like the people in the photographs, the Deuteronomist looks ahead unflinchingly.

Yet, with all that clarity and certainty, one element in this Torah portion remains elusive, unseen, not named.

Jerusalem.

Though by the time this book of the Torah appeared (around 621 BCE), the Temple had already stood at the center of Jewish life for 350 years, the portion still refers to this core of our life and culture as “The place which the Lord your God shall choose from all your tribes to set His name there.” This phrase recurs thirteen times in Re’eh! Not once is it named.

Is it merely that Jerusalem is so obviously the intended site that its name is left out? Is the omission no more than a stylistic anachronism? After all, these chapters are set in a time and place just before the Israelites enter the Promised Land—a good two centuries before King David would turn Jerusalem into his capital, his son Solomon to build the Temple there! Yet for a document that could peer into the future and see it without a doubt, and for an author (Moses) who, we are told by our ancient rabbis, would be sitting in and observing a Torah class taught by Rabbi Akiva in the second century CE—would such uncertainty be reasonable?

Why would a Torah portion called “See” or “Behold” conceal such an exalted goal?

Again, for the answer I look at the people inhabiting the photographs. They are gazing at no more than a camera and a photographer standing before them. Yet their piercing look meets our eyes and enters our souls, our very presence today. Likewise does Re’eh looks ahead to an eternal, infinite future.

Life is a blessing or a curse, depending on the road we choose to follow. Jerusalem is the goal of all roads that follow the path of blessing. There is a physical city, ancient, modern, exhausted, invigorating, beautiful and majestic, that sits atop a mountain in the region of Judah. But there is also a metaphysical Jerusalem, just as ancient, just as new, that we are all gazing at through our soul’s eye with hope, longing, courage and determination. It has no name just as it has all names. It is our future. To see it built all we have to do is follow the clear path God maps out for us in Re’eh. To get there, we have to behave in a moral, just and compassionate manner.

And one more thing:

To see it, we have to believe.

©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman

Activating Dormant Powers

Activating Dormant Powers

D’var Torah on Parashat Eikev (Deuteronomy 7:12--11:25)

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The harsh climate of summer in Israel often obscures the fruitfulness with which the land is blessed. By mid-morning the extreme heat and blaring, blazing sunlight make your head spin and your bones feel like dried, brittle twigs. Fields are parched and the hillsides are covered with thistles and thorns. Yet deep within the earth, the potential of renewed life is merely asleep. All it will take is the first few drops of autumnal rain for nature to wake up again.

Yet summer is also the season of ripening fruit. Open air markets teem with any number of varieties of grapes, apples, peaches, mangoes, plums and dates. Beautiful just-off-the-vine tomatoes and cucumbers vie for attention with barrels of green and black olives cured in brine and spices.

It is an unusually fertile land, yet it does not yield its fruit freely. It requires hard work and dedication, much love—and definitely the sweat of your brow.

This week’s Torah portion, Eikev (“whereupon,” or “since”), makes it clear that there is yet one more condition that needs to be fulfilled if the land is to give its blessed yield: Keeping faith with God.

One of the purposes of religion and ritual is--hopefully--to wield some influence on the unseen powers that seem to control our lives. The local deities of the ancient world were finicky and wily. They often found humanity distracting if not a downright bother to deal with. But the gods were as given to bribery and flattery as any of us human beings. A nice slab of meat went a long way, and a few gold coins often secured safe passage through some difficult life ordeal, especially if deposited in some powerful priest’s or king’s safe.

The Torah, however, sets forth a different equation. Desired consequences are not a question of random, blind luck, and certainly not the result of bribery. The genius of the Torah is in the brilliant understanding that righteousness—moral, ethical behavior—is the fertile ground in which success flourishes.

It would be observing the commandments given and accepted at Sinai that would guarantee the Israelites safe passage into the Promised Land, a “good land, a land with brooks of water, fountains and depths that emerge in valleys and mountains, a land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil producing olives and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, you will lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose mountains you will hew copper” (Deuteronomy 7:7-9).

And what are those commandments? Simply, “to walk in all His ways” (Deut. 10:12). Just as God “defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing” (Deut. 10:18), so must we. The persecution we felt on our own skin as strangers in Egypt and the many deprivations we suffered while wandering in the wilderness were teaching opportunities meant to sensitize us to the needs of the weakest members of our own society.

What this week’s parashah accomplishes surpasses the simple law that every action has an equal reaction. Its lesson is even greater than the easy recognition that morality bears good consequences, that a smile generates a smile, that one good deed deserves another. The teaching of Eikev has much broader consequences. Ethical behavior achieves more than merely internal security. Thousands of years ago the Torah already recognized that acting locally has global implications, that acts of righteousness impact not only society but also history and ecology. It is through the observance of God’s commandments of justice and compassion that the Israelites will become so strong as to overcome “nations larger and stronger than you” (Deut. 11:23). It was for that purpose that God had redeemed us from Egypt and devastated “the Egyptian army… its horses and chariots… [and] overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea” (Deut. 11:4).

Eikev teaches that observing God’s commandments will have the consequences not only of strengthening the People of Israel and ensuring its survival through historical events, but also of activating the powers embedded within the very Land of Israel. The land is described as getting its rain from heaven, a land that God Himself cares for. Thus, as a consequence of our moral behavior God “will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil” (Deut. 11:14).

It’s not hard to realize that actions and deeds have consequences. However, it’s a much farther reach to conceive of a broader outcome that reaches as far as heaven itself. Mystics claim that it is through subtle and mysterious incantations that our thoughts can reach the stars above. But it took the Torah to help us understand that simple acts of kindness and compassion can result in strength, peace and security; that respect shown to life all around us will lead to nature respecting us in return; that refraining from moral and physical pollution will result in the earth yielding its fruit and grain seemingly without effort. Moral strength equals physical strength.

The very simplicity of this concept makes it difficult to comprehend and even harder to believe. Yet evidence is all around us. The People of Israel is still here, a marvel of history some three and a half thousand years after our emergence from Egyptian tyranny and genocide. That and the renewed fruitfulness of the Land of Israel offer irrefutable proof of the accuracy of the axiom proposed by the Deuteronomist. It’s a promise the whole world might want to try. In this age of cultural upheaval and ecological disasters, what have we got to lose?

©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman