Deuteronomy Cycle Six VaEtchanon

VaEtchanon

A Drash for My Friends in the Middlebury Hebrew Immersion program 2013


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VaEtchanon, when it comes down to it, is about acting with love. You see in Judaism, according to great Rabbis like Rabbi Akiva of the 1^st Century  as well as Rabbi  Caro of Sfadt there are four levels of analysis.  We call it Pardes. There’s the p’shat, the direct meaning. There’s remez with allegorical hints. There’s derash with a bit more inquiry. And finally there’s sod, the secret or esoteric.

Historically in Talmud the best way to see these levels at work is to look at Hillel and Shammai. Shammai upholds the literal for it says in Torah that one should not lie. Hillel though believes that truth is always that which connects man and God. Love, to Hillel, not only trumps truth. It is truth.  Shammai’s words can be seen as p’shat. Hillel can be seen as not sod…we can save sod for the kabbalists…but certainly derash. Their arguments are for the sake of God therefore they are holy.

Moving on, while we all know that the denominations in Judaism can sometimes seem highly bifurcated…sadly so… the leaders do agree on one important matter. A myopic p’shat interpretation of Torah is not only hurtful personally, it’s dangerous. A highly respected Conservative rabbi, Rabbi David Wolpe, took this idea to the edge a few years ago when he said that the Exodus  possibly never really happened. Two years after the fall of the World Trade Center respected leaders of several religions certainly agreed at a conference in LosAngeles. A literal interpretation is necessary but only as a jumping off point to get us to a place where we can see Torah like Rabbi Hillel. In other words, maybe God actually talked to Moses or not, maybe the Sh’ma was a lightning bolt of direct transmission or not, maybe Moses yelled at his general for not killing the Midianite children and maybe God rewarded Pinchas for skewering a Cohen and a Moabite princess through the genitals. Maybe the Reed Sea parted. Maybe the desperation after the Babylonian siege was so horrific we acted like the living dead. Whether all of this did or didn’t happen the holy question is how are we to take these….yes…sacred and God-written words and apply them to our behavior…repeat our behavior…today… how we can embrace them so that we can walk in God’s ways.  

I look around here at Middlebury. Honestly, I’m fascinated by the way the various students of language are all starting to somehow reflect the cultures of that same language.  The French are looking so fashionable, for example. And those of us studying Hebrew are being…well…so Israeli. Here in our little microscopic community we find the highly secular and those who see themselves as very religious. But what is religious? What does it mean?  This question in Judaism depends on the mitzvoth.  But it is answered in the Sh’ma. I don’t think God says Sh’ma Reform Jews, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He also doesn’t say Sh’ma Orthodox Jews, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He says Sh’ma Yisrael.

Of course elsewhere in Torah we read that we shall all be holy because God is holy. And the Talmudic rabbis are quite sure that God spoke to each person on Mt Sinai according to his or her ability to listen. God’s voice was one sound that was then broken into shorter sounds and so on into those 613 mitzvoth. 

A short note on the mitzvot: Rabbi Simlai, a 3rd century Amora, taught that David reduced the 613 mitzvot to 11, Isaiah to six, Micah to three (do justly, love mercy and walk humbly before Your God) Isaiah again to two (keep justice and do righteousness) and finally Amos to one (seek Me and live).  Simlai was not saying that we did not need to observe the 613 mitzvot but rather that they are details of a larger philosophy, a greater belief, intended to improve the character of each person.

Heschel has said this: Mitzvot are expressions or interpretations of the will of God. While they are meaningful to man, the source of their meaning is not in the understanding of man but in the love of God.

And here in Vaetchanon how Moses yearns to be in the God-center, in the Promised Land, how we all witness him as he gives us a pure and direct transmission of God’s love through the Sh’ma. In the pain and anger, the blood and guts of Torah, the almost…always the almost of Torah…we are gathered as One at Mt Sinai not to say who is more holy than the other because we are all holy, whether we are kosher of not, whether we are active in social justice or not…but to listen. While our intimacy with God has a hierarchy of vibrations depending on our inner work, we as a group can use our same holiness to hold the vessel to receive the divine transmission. We are each necessary. Repeat. We are each necessary. We can do this here at Middlebury and with faith, we can do this in Israel.  We can respect each other and behave in the way that is ultimately so Jewish it is at the center of all Judaic law: We can behave with respect, compassion and love.