Deuteronomy - Cycle Two - 1:1 ‐ 3:22 ‐ Devarim

What is truth? Is it memory? Often, that’s all that’s left. Forty years pass and we can only remember. Of course, we can try to do more. Images can find words We can say, speak and write them. But there are a million experiences in each word (each letter) and a million layers of consciousness.

This is what we uncover within ourselves as we read Devarim. We witness our many possible experiences and therefore face the ephemeral nature of both past and present. We move on to questioning the very nature of our physicality.

And finally, with that questioning, we begin to get beyond ourselves.

We realize that the consolidation of events, the words, the layers, all start to wrap around each other coming closer and closer to a central point. Think of a ball of yarn. It has been unrolled and exposed by God. Now, the strongest persona within has taken it upon himself to re‐wrap it…maybe even tighter than before. Here’s more. What if it’s a bionic ball of yarn being wrapped at a trillion miles a second. We need to hold on tight. Just one of us flying out of the hemisphere can cause the whole thing to become nothing but a tangled mess.

But let’s start with our personal experience. In Devarim Moses is saying to the Israelites…in case you didn’t get it the first time, this is what happened. This is what you did, what I tried to do and what God said. Sometimes, given the monologue of Moses, you feel like you’re in a court of law…or reading the prologue of a fast paced novel. He’s clearly trying to get us all on the same page. He’s trying to give us one memory to validate it, strengthen it and make it ours, make it one story for one people. He’s trying to take the million of filaments within our minds and connect them. And at the same time, you get the feeling he’s doing it for a reason…that there will be a greater truth. For now, let’s look at how hard Moses is trying. Let’s see how we are all struggling to pierce through the abstraction of memory to grasp a solid and unified story.

First, Devarim rings with the sound “chem.” Moses is speaking to a plural form of you. One story. Many people. The conflict is clear. He then reaches out with direct address in the singular form. See! Listen! Reah! Sh’ma! By creating a single audience it is easier to validate a single story. This direct address demonstrates the immediacy and urgency. Still it also fires up conflict because we are now thrown back and forth from you singular to you plural. Next, the past tense here is never pure past. It’s always the imperfect with the reversing vuv. The memory of the past and the habitual future are being forced to collide with every action. There’s a wholeness here…one action goes beyond the limitation of time. But there is also a blending, a rubbing, a twisting of two different tenses to make one. Next, the use of the word rav is interesting. In the rush of events it has to be made clear if something takes a long time.

Simply the word is in conflict with the immediacy. Finally, the events themselves are about conflict and struggle.

There’s a lot of struggle. And because of the essence of the goal, there’s a nowness to the repetition that can’t be disregarded. What can we glean from this? We can almost see the millions of filaments, the many textures of being, of seeing, of loving, of knowing, of opening one’s soul. We can glean that there is an all‐knowing seed within us and that because we are each at different levels of bringing that seed to germination there is not just one word of absolute connection. There are many and we are all a piece and part of it… elah devarim. These are the words. Now for more…If even the memory of shared experiences can reveal itself in so many layers then don’t our bodies have millions of layers themselves? And what about evolution? Isn’t our evolution dependant on a memory of growth and change? Without memory is there evolution? Is that why it’s important to record change to reach for God?

What I find interesting is that we are certainly being rebuked but our deeds are never recorded…simply the places of each happening (Rashi). Imagine a photo of a mountain. You remember the mountain…you may even remember the angle of the visual. But while the place can hint at it… it does not re‐create the experience, the jump in the creek, the glance at the waterfall, the hands held, the smiles, the laughter, the kiss you shared with your lover at the peak. It also doesn’t record the words you wish you hadn’t said. And wait…were those your words? Was that smile really a smile? Or was it a smirk? The photo of the mountain is all we
have to record our march. The rest we fill in with our minds.

Then, it’s the prophet who can bring all of these memories into one moment, one absolute place. And it is up to us to fill in the center. What do we want in there? What do we see? Are we people of Torah? Are we peace makers? And then, how can we make that visual compact and solid? Through those same seeds, of course, the filaments, the words. Devarim. Through the words we choose. It’s not easy in the spin of things to choose right. That’s why we watch each other, guard and heal and have compassion. It’s a treacherous journey…not the path of least resistance…perhaps the path of consciousness does not take resistance in mind. Memory is fast. Very fast. And to move with it we want to be very focused and joyous…to dance and watch carefully. And we also want to be the center of the rotating energy where all is still. Only then we have circled this mountain long enough…and we can get moving to that truth beyond.

So, may we know when we have circled the mountain long enough (2:3). May we breathe and stay balanced as our world expands and then consolidates….as we inhale and exhale. May we value the memories in minds all around us as if they are our memories, one memory, one mind. May we see listen love and forgive at the center. May we be Torah, be at one in the spinning of creation. May we fill our memory and bless others with the beauty of God.