Shabbat interrupts the mourning we are told. Over and over again. Yet, we are also told that in every joyous moment we experience some sadness. We break a glass at a wedding to remember the destruction of the Temple. We recite yizkor, the memorial prayers at our most joyous holy days, Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot, and of course at Yom Kippur. We add Kaddish Yitom on Shabbat. And we welcome the mourners in.
Sometimes I say, “this week we may all be mourners,” depending on what is going on in the world. Maybe it is this year. Or the past two years. 665 days since October 7, 2023. The pictures coming out this week of one of the starving hostages forced to dig his own grave are haunting. Beyond description. And yet the roots of October 7th stretch back much further. This year this Shabbat feels so heavy as we move into Tish B’av this evening.
As always on the Shabbat before Tisha B’av, we read the beginning of Deuteronomy, Devarim. These are the words. These are the words that Moses spoke as his swan song, as his ethical will. Looking back over the past and looking forward from his present.
This past Chanukah I gave Simon a gift of Storyworth. Every week he receives a question that he is supposed to answer and then at the end of the year, they will bind it in a book. Some questions are easy. “What was your favorite vacation?” “How did you learn to drive?” Some are much more difficult: “What advice would you give to future generations in your family?”
You have to figure out:.
o Who are you addressing?
o Why should they listen to you?
o How will you present your advice in a compelling way?
o What lessons from your life are important enough to pass down?
Moses spends most of the Book of Deuteronomy answering that question. It iis exactly what Moses is trying to do.
Rabbi Greg Schindler in a D’var Torah he wrote for AJR last year helps us discover that advice just in the first chapter of Deuteronomy, and adds that Moses focused on the timeless in rendering his advice so that it is still relevant for us:
Establish a just society
Choose capable leaders at all levels of society:
“So I took your tribal leaders, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you: chiefs of thousands, chiefs of hundreds, chiefs of fifties, and chiefs of tens, and officials for your tribes.” (1:15)
Administer justice fairly to everyone, even (especially!) to the stranger:
“Hear out your fellow Israelites, and decide justly between one party and the other—be it a fellow Israelite or a stranger. You shall not be partial in judgment: hear out low and high alike.” (1:16-17)
You need to implement your ideals through actions
Moses tells us that ideas alone are insufficient; they must be accompanied by detailed actions: “Thus I instructed you, at that time, about the various things that you should do.” (1:18)
Don’t wait for someone else to do it
As the People are now entering the “real” world, Moses emphasizes that they cannot sit and await miracles:
“See, your G-d has placed the land at your disposal. Go up, take possession” (1:21)
Don’t be deceived by appearances
Moses reminds us of the error of the spies, who wrongly trusted only their eyes:
“We saw there a people stronger and taller than we, large cities with walls sky-high.” (1:28)
Moses assures us that G-d is with us – even as open miracles have given way to seemingly natural occurrences:
“Your G-d, G-d, Who goes before you, will fight for you, just as [G-d] did for you in Egypt before your very eyes, and in the wilderness, where you saw how your G-d G-d carried you (1:30-31)
Have faith
Moses recalls how lack of faith cost the Generation of the Spies entry into the Land:
“Yet for all that, you have no faith in your G-d” … not one of those involved, this evil generation, shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers” (1:32; 1:35).
Despite the struggles of our lives, have faith in the future and in future generations:
“Your little ones who you said would be carried off, your children who do not yet know good from bad, they shall enter it; to them will I give it and they shall possess it.” (1:39)
Unseen, G-d is with us.
“This day I begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under heaven, so that they shall tremble and quake because of you whenever they hear you mentioned.” (2:25)
Keep your promises; Remember your brothers and sisters.
Moses recounts how he held the two and a half tribes accountable to their promise to fight before their brethren:
“At that time, I charged you [tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh], saying, “Your G-d G-d has given you this country to possess. You must go as shock-troops, warriors all, at the head of your Israelite kin.” (3:18)
Most of all: Do Not Fear!
Five times in this single parashah, Moses exhorts us: “Do not fear!”
o “You shall not be partial in judgment: hear out low and high alike. Fear neither party, for judgment is G-d’s.” (Deut. 1:17)
o “Go up, take possession, as G-d, the G-d of your ancestors, promised you. Fear not and be not dismayed.” (Deut. 1:21)
o [You said:] ‘We saw there a people stronger and taller than we, large cities with walls sky-high, and even Anakites.’” I said to you, “Have no dread or fear of them.” (Deut. 1:29)
o “G-d said to me: Do not fear him [King Og of Bashan], for I am delivering him and all his troops and his country into your power.” (Deut. 3:2)
o “Do not fear them [the kings of Canaan], for it is your G-d, G-d, who will battle for you.” (Deut. 3:22)
Yet fear seems to drive many of us. Fear of the other. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of criticism. Fear of social interactions. Fear of dying. The list goes on and on. How, then, do we combat fear? Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav said that “All the world is a narrow bridge, the central thing, the ikar, is to not be afraid.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” In his first inaugural address in 1933. He used it to address the widespread fear and uncertainty during the Great Depression, encouraging Americans to have confidence and take action. That fits with what Moses was teaching.
Today’s today portion mirrors our haftarah and our book for tonight, Eicha, Lamentations in English. Questions show up in what we are reading today. Eicha. How.
“(Because you are so numerous), How can I carry, I alone, your load, your burden, your quarreling?”
Reflecting the first word of the book, it is the Hebrew name of the book we read tonight. Eicha. How.
אֵיכָ֣ה ׀ יָשְׁבָ֣ה בָדָ֗ד הָעִיר֙ רַבָּ֣תִי עָ֔ם הָיְתָ֖ה כְּאַלְמָנָ֑ה רַבָּ֣תִי בַגּוֹיִ֗ם שָׂרָ֙תִי֙ בַּמְּדִינ֔וֹת הָיְתָ֖ה לָמַֽס׃
Alas/How is it? Lonely sits the city once great with people! She that was great among nations is become like a widow; the princess among states is become a thrall. (Eicha 1:1)
How did we get to this point? The very beginning of Genesis asks a question as well. Ayecha? Where? G-d asks Adam and Eve. Where are you? Of course, G-d already knows. It is more existential. It reminds me of the song, “Where are you going my little one, little one.”
How did we get to this point? Where are we going? What do we do now? I don’t have all the answers but this I know:
We never end a haftarah on a down note. We have to remain positive. Some weeks (years?) it is harder to do that. But we must. The Israel National Anthem, Hatikvah, is one of hope. The very name means The Hope.
Where does the hope come from? For me, it comes from these very words of advice from Moses. It is from the words of our tradition. It is from the very values that we hold dear as Jews. Those values command us to build. To rebuild. To regain our moral compass. To do those things that Moses taught us so many years ago.
At Torah Study this week we looked at Isaiah’s vision of Jerusalem destroyed. And then we looked at the haftarah for Yom Kippur. G-d asks in Isaiah’s voice, is this the fast I desire? No, rather it is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and take the unhoused into your homes.
The destruction of the Second Temple marked a sea change in Judaism. No longer could we offer animal sacrifice. Judaism became a religion of prayer and study. I tell this story from the midrash frequently.
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was walking with his disciple Rabbi Joshua near Jerusalem after the destruction of the (Second) Temple. Rabbi Joshua looked at the ruins and said: “Woe is us! The place which atoned for the sins of the people Israel through the ritual of animal sacrifice lies in ruins!” Then Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai spoke these words of comfort: “Be not grieved, my son. There is another way now of gaining atonement even though the Temple is destroyed. We must now gain atonement through gemilut chasadim, acts of lovingkindness, for it is written: “For I desire hesed, lovingkindness, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6)
Avot d’Rabbi Natan 11a
Rabbi Menachem Credit said this week:
But we are not a people who only mourn.
We are a people who build. “Jerusalem was destroyed.
And Jerusalem was rebuilt.
That is our story. That is our task.
So let us see the world clearly. Let us feel the pain fully. And then let us act — with compassion, with urgency, and with vision.
Because this world is redeemable, and we are the ones who must redeem it.
For me, the hope comes from our children.
For the sake of our children, all of our children, come join me tomorrow as we turn the page from mourning and begin to rebuild by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing for the unhoused, shipping books and making friendship bracelets for National Night Out. We will “Love our neighbors as ourselves.” As Rav Kook taught, we will turn baseless hatred into baseless love.