Parashat Devarim begins with “These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan”… it is an eleven-day journey from Mount Sinai …in the 40th year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses addressed the Israelites according to the words that YHVH had given him for them.” This was a subtle reminder to the second generation that what should have taken their parents eleven days, from Mt. Sinai to the Promised Land, took 40 years. How often do you and I turn an eleven-day journey into a 40-year struggle? They had received the Ten Commandments and they vowed: we will do and we will obey” without knowing how hard that would be and the secret to making it easier lay in the process of learning to trust their Creator.
I wondered why Moses mentioned that they were in the eleventh month. Our rabbis have their understanding and they make sense but what occurred to me was that the eleventh month at the time of Moses would not have been the same as today. GOD had told Moses that Nisan was our first month; so the eleventh month would have been Shevat. But our sages changed the first month to be Tishrei[1], when we celebrate Rosh Hashanah (which they also changed from Yom Teruah), making Av the 11th month. Most people don’t know why and they don’t care. They simply accept it. But in next week’s parashah, GOD warns us: “You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take anything away from it, but keep the Commandments of the LORD your GOD, which I command you.” Which Commandments? The Ten! When we change GOD’s words, we are taking His Name in vain; we are replacing His words with ours as if we know more than Him. That is a dangerous road to travel and I believe that we have been suffering the consequences throughout our long history.
The Haftarah portion this week in Isaiah tells us in chapter 1:14 and 15, “My soul hates your new moons and your appointed seasons; they are a burden to Me; I cannot endure them. When you lift your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you pray at length, I will not hear you; your hands are stained with blood.” Notice that Isaiah didn’t say GOD’s New Moons and Moedim but ours, how we changed them. Imagine if He cannot endure them, how much less can we? God is not impressed with all the regulations that we have added to His Moedim, His Holy Days and imposed upon others. That’s why Yeshua fought the Orthodoxy of his day. He wanted us to return to the Written Torah of Moses. We may think that we are pleasing GOD with our many strict traditions, but are we?
Moses is still addressing us today. His message hasn’t changed; only the customs have changed. The stories in the Torah teach us that there is an Ultimate Truth by a Creator Who can be relied upon and verified by history and science. It’s up to each individual to accept it or not. It is vital for us to keep an open mind, to remain forever the student, to be humble, not proud of what we think we know, as we glean GOD’s principles for us today. For example, we read in Dev.1:16, “Hear out your fellow Israelites and decide justly between one and the other, be it a fellow Israelite or a stranger.” This principle of justice has been ingrained in our people from the time of Moses as the Torah teaches, “Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof, Justice, Justice, you must pursue”. We fight for justice even when we are buried beneath the low moral standards of the day. This week’s Haftarah portion reiterates this in Isaiah 1:17: “Learn to do good. Devote yourself to justice, relieve the oppressed, uphold the rights of the orphan and defend the cause of the widow.” This is the religion God wants from His people.
Moses reminded them of the scouts who brought back a discouraging report about the land even after he had told them, “Do not fear and do not be discouraged…” because God had promised that it was theirs for the taking. He said (in Dev. 1:30): “None other than your God יהוה, who goes before you, will fight for you, just as HE did for you in Egypt before your very eyes and in the wilderness where you saw how your God יהוה carried you, as a father carries his son….” Moses was encouraging them, letting them know that it was “in the bag”; all they had to do was to go take possession of the land. Instead of being encouraged, they grumbled in their tents against Moses, accusing him of wanting them to die in the desert. The consequences were grave: that generation all died in the desert – except for Joshua, a native-born Israelite and Caleb, a Kenezzite, a ger, the stranger among us. What a beautiful picture of Israel’s future! It’s a universal message from a universal GOD.
Nothing worthwhile comes easy or is free; life is a gift but we need to work hard to make things work. Moses tells us in Devarim 2: “Indeed, your God יהוה has blessed you in all your undertakings… throughout your wanderings through this great wilderness… these past forty years: you have lacked nothing. Yet for all that, you have no faith in your God יהוה, who goes before you on your journeys—to scout the place where you are to encamp—in fire by night and in cloud by day, to guide you on the route you are to follow.” Today we may not see that physical cloud by day and fire by night, but I know that when look back at my life, I can see that GOD was guiding me through thick and thin. Let’s learn from our ancestors and not grumble in our tents but be grateful for all that He provides us every step of the way.
One of our main struggles is with pride. Once the Israelites were told that they were going to die in the desert without entering the Promised Land, they acknowledged that they were wrong, but then, they insisted on going out to fight the Amorites even though Moses told them that GOD would not be with them. This was sheer empty bravado. When we admit that we may have done something wrong, do we insist that we were right, then force the issue and continue to do things our own way? Sometimes, like the Israelites, we have to go around that mountain again and again until we stop being so stubborn and search within to see what we are doing instead of blaming others. We can cry, “Why is this happening to me? Where is God, He doesn’t care! If there is a God, where is He?” Or we can stop, humble ourselves, apologize, face the situation and make things right, knowing that GOD has our back.
As we watch the war that Israel is being forced to wage after October 7th, we can once again turn to the Torah for answers. No matter how bad our situation is, GOD is telling us, “Do not fear, I am with you”. We hear the expression – Chevlei Mashiach birth pains of the Messiah and a woman knows that the closer she is to giving birth, the harder and the closer together the pains are. Today we are experiencing the pains of an evil greater than anything we’ve seen before. To me, this enemy is worse than Hitler or the Inquisitors, as horrendous as they were. This enemy resembles the orcs in The Lord of the Rings – mindless killing machines with absolutely no conscience or love of life, of the arts, music and goodness. I see this religious fanaticism as a direct spiritual response to the level of immorality to which humanity has fallen. We, the people of Israel are being warned that we must once again listen to these words of Moses, turn our lives over to the GOD of our fathers and fulfill our calling. We are not called to be religious fanatics, but rather to remember what we promised Him at Mount Sinai – na’aseh v’nishma, to be an example of righteous behaviour to the rest of the world. Are we doing that?
In Devarim 2:25, GOD tells 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.” The parashah ends with “I also charged Joshua at that time, saying, “You have seen with your own eyes all that your God יהוה has done to these two kings; יהוה shall do the same to all the kingdoms into which you shall cross over. Do not fear them, for it is your God יהוה who will battle for you.” What more do we need to know? Although the land of Israel is much smaller than the land promised to Moses and Joshua, the fullness of it has yet to be conquered by us. It is taking a lot longer than 11 days, even 11 centuries, but one day, that land will belong to a people who are faithful to the GOD of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is GOD’s Land and He will keep His promises to them; we are GOD’s people and He will keep His promises to us.
The portion began with Moses telling us, “…do not fear or be discouraged” yet our nature is to begin each day afraid and discouraged. Our mind naturally goes there so what can we do to combat it? Some turn to addictions to various substances or become workaholics. But the best way is to start our day by reading or even remembering the wise words of Moses who wrote what God said and promised. When we read the words of David in the Psalms and the stories in the Scriptures of all those who struggled with the same things, it helps us to know that we will get through it. That when we overcome an inner fear one at a time, we get stronger. It took us 40 years to make an eleven-day journey because God was showing us that everything worthwhile takes time.
How should we live now?
When the angels or messengers told Abraham that they were going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he negotiated with GOD about saving them… if he could find at least ten righteous people. There were none. We may not think that our behaviour affects the world situation in any way, but it does. We are all connected and we can affect world change by becoming righteous in GOD’s eyes… not trying to “look or appear” righteous to others but sincerely seeking GOD and doing what is right. How do we know what that is? That’s why we regularly look into the Torah. The answers are here. And yes, we will fail as King David did, but he acknowledged what he did, fell on his face, asked for forgiveness, and made restitution for his actions. He turned his failures over to GOD, accepted the consequences and was then called “beloved of GOD”. As our rabbi used to say, “Our GOD is the GOD of beginning again”.
Shabbat Shalom
Peggy Pardo
[1] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-rosh-hashanah-became-new-years-day/