Torah of Recovery: Devarim 2024/5784

Torah of Recovery's Mission: To interrogate Torah deeply so as to create space, connection and safety for people with addictive patterns and behaviors that have led them to a crisis of the spirit to tell and shape their stories for the purpose of healing, growth, and a return to their whole selves.

(1) (Deut. 1:1:) “These are the words that Moses spoke….” Israel said, “Yesterday you said (in Exod. 4:10), ‘I am not a man of words.’ And now you are speaking so much?”

Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, p. 2498-2499

The narrative has come a long distance from the cosmic Genesis 1. Now, for the whole of the last book of the Five Books of Moses, it is a picture of a group of people listening to the speech of a man. No seas split; no angels appear; there are in fact no miracles at all in Deuteronomy. There is rather the retelling of the miracles. The acts of God, of Moses, and of the people now themselves become part of the background, and the foreground belongs to Moses’ words...Deuteronomy is a book of Words. That is its name in Hebrew: dèbãrîm, and that is what it is about. Its first thirty chapters are Moses’ farewell address to his people before his death. It would have taken close to three hours to say it all to them. It contains history, law, and great wisdom. In places, especially near its end, it is beautiful—inspired and inspirational. Moses is eloquent. And that is ironic and instructive when we turn back to Moses’ first meeting with God, at the burning bush. There he tries to escape from the assignment to go speak to the Pharaoh by saying, “I’m not a man of words” (Exod 4:10)! Now he has become a man of words. It is interesting, remarkable, ironic, and inspiring to see Moses’ development through all that has happened in forty years into a man of words. More than any other human in the Bible, Moses grows and changes in the course of his life. One can change: change professions, change values, change lifestyle, change character. One can grow and become stronger and better.

Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, p. 2501

In analyzing and interpreting Moses, one is more likely to reveal things about oneself than about Moses. Moses is so much a Rorschach test because he is so much a regular human being, with weaknesses, a temper, fears, and flaws—with key pieces unrevealed—who comes to be the leader of a nation, a spokesman for God, and the founder of a faith that plays a role in the destiny of humankind. That is Moses as portrayed in the text. The reader’s knowledge, moreover, that Moses is to some degree—to whatever degree—historical behind this portrayal fuels this phenomenon. This real, regular, unique, meek, powerful, audacious figure cries out for understanding and interpretation.

George Robinson, Essential Torah, p. 499-500

Importantly, this has been a spiritual journey. Indeed, Moshe's final oration should serve as a powerful reminder of that fact...as the nature of the journey changes, it falls to Moshe - the man who once called himself slow of tongue - to speak for himself, to remind B'nei Yisrael of what they have achieved in spiritual growth.

Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution, p. 149

- First...wherever you live, it is probably Egypt; second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land;

- and third, that the way to the land is through the wilderness. There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.

Eicha Rabbah, Peticha 33, summarized in Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 971 (Kindle edition)

[During the 40 years in the desert] death, moreover, visited the transgressors in such fashion that they were aware it was meant as punishment for their sins. Throughout all the year not one among them died. On the eighth day of the month of Ab, Moses would have a herald proclaim throughout the camp, "Let each prepare his grave." They dug their graves, and spent there the following night, the same night on which, following the counsel of the spies, they had revolted against God and Moses. In the morning a herald would once more appear and cry: "Let the living separate themselves from the dead." Those that were still alive arose, but about fifteen thousand of them remained dead in their graves. After forty years, however, when the herald repeated his customary call the ninth day of Ab, all arose, and there was not a single dead man among them. At first they thought they had made a miscalculation in their observation of the moon, that is was not the ninth day of Ab at all, and that this was the reason why their lives had been spared. Hence they repeated their preparations for death until the fifteenth day of Ab. Then the sight of the full moon convinced them that the ninth day of Ab had gone by, and that their punishment had been done away with. In commemoration of the relief from this punishment, they appointed the fifteenth day of Ab to be a holy day.

Rabbi Dr. Sue Reinhold, 'Devarim in the Kitchen,' 'Drash 8 5 2022

But let’s go back to the 8^th of Av. Today. The Torah works in funny ways. What is this midrash telling us about tonight, about hayom, this day, right now, is also a day in which our legendary ancestors were in the process of digging their own graves. Time in the Torah works in funny ways, one day it is 3,000 years ago and another day it is hayom, right now, today, the 8^th of Av, and there are disasters, and some people are dying, and here we are.

What could we learn if we all dug our graves together once a year, and lay down in them, uncertain as to whether we would live or die that very night? It sounds creepy, and scary, and hard – and, yet, here’s a way to grow. This is the challenge of the desert. The challenge of the wilderness. We all have to face our wilderness, and our graves, of a sort. We all have something. And the question is: what are we going to learn when we are there – and what are we going to do, together, when we get out of this wilderness? The wilderness might be terrible, but it’s also awesome, and, of course, ha-gadol – great. So may first seem like a problem, but really it’s an opportunity for us to change.

Rabbi Shefa Gold, Torah Journeys, p. 174

The beginning of the Book of Deuteronomy places us at the border of The Land of Promise after a lifetime of journeying. We pause now to look back at the path we have traveled thus far in order to understand its meaning, receive its lessons, and embrace the wisdom and love that we have received through grace and diligent practice...The Torah tells us that by linear calculations our journey should have taken but eleven days. How did it take a lifetime - forty years - to arrive here? Our calculations must rely on a different kind of sense. Our journey through the wilderness has not taken the form of a straight line, but rather a series of breath-taking spirals that drop us again and again at the same point in a cycle, each time at a new level, with an added dimension of awareness.

Rabbi Israel Cotlar, Is it Torah if It's Not in Hebrew, at https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1073767/jewish/Is-It-Torah-If-Its-Not-In-Hebrew.htm

But the rabbis understood that it is not Hebrew, but the Torah, that sustains us as a nation. Our language, country of residence, culture, and accent have changed numerous times throughout history. But we are still here today. For the Torah has been studied and its mitzvahs observed in all times, lands, and circumstances. Let the language be compromised, but not the message.

And you say, (Exod. 4:10) ‘I am not a man of words.’” At the end of forty years [from] when Israel left Egypt, [Moses] began to elucidate the Torah in seventy languages, as stated (in Deut. 1:5), “he elucidated this Torah.” The mouth that said (in Exod. 4:10), “I am not a man of words,” [then] said (in Deut. 1:1), “These are the words.” The prophet [thus] cries out and says (in Is. 35:6), “Then the lame shall leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall shout for joy.” Why? (Ibid., cont.:) “Because waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” It is therefore stated (in Deut. 1:1), “These are the words.”

Hizkuni, cited in Michael Carasik, The Commentators' Torah: Deuteronomy, p. 6

6 The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb. Moses only said this in order to start his speech with a joke; God had spoken only to him, not to them all.

RA & USCJ, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 982, 983

There is a danger that the people Israel will grow too comfortable where they are and will be reluctant to move on into the unknown. There are times when our fulfillment as individuals or as a group requires us to leave the familiar and move on towards a goal...The Hebrew for this phrase expresses impatience, indicating that God was eager for Israel to enter the land immediately. The nearly 40-year delay was not God's original intention but the result of Israel's failure to trust and obey God.

Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, p. 2505-2506

1:9. I said to you at that time. Moses says, “I said to you at that time,” even though most of the people he is addressing now were not even born yet at the time he is discussing. And Moses will continue to speak this way in this address. He conveys to the people that they are part of history, that they receive the burden and the legacy of their parents and ancestors. And in the course of his speech he will extend this beyond his immediate audience as well. He mixes past, present, and future generations. So in the end it becomes the message for each generation who reads this text.

RA & USCJ, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 984

12. How can I bear unaided. Hebrew: Eikah essa l'vadi. Traditionally in public reading this verse is changed to the plaintive melody for the Book of Lamentations (Eikah). This parashah is always read on the Shabbat before Tisha b'Av, the fast day on which Lamentations is recited.

RA & USCJ, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 987

27. The Lord hates us. We often attribute to others our own feelings about the. This Israelites may have been ambivalent in their feelings about God, often resenting the demands that God placed on them, and they assumed that God had equally negative feelings toward them.

But they say, (in Deut. 1:27), “It is because the Lord hated us.” They interpreted the verse and said, “You yourself know that He hates us. Take the case of a king of flesh and blood who has two sons. Now he also has two fields, one with irrigation and one watered by rain. Is it not that the field with irrigation will be given to whichever one the king loves, while the one watered by rain will be given to that one whom he hates? The land of Egypt has irrigation, and we were in its midst, while the land of Canaan has rain. So He brought us out from Egypt to give us the land of Canaan.

Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Devarim, p. 24

To sum up: What Moses did in our sidra was to interpret the historical events recounted in Numbers. He showed the descendants of those who had left Egypt, the sons of those who had forfeited the right to enter the promised land through their own misdoing, that, in the last resort, every individual is responsible for he misdeeds of the group. Each one is obliged to resist evil and do good, and not excuse himself on the ground that he was influenced by his colleague or superior or even leader.

Rabbi Shefa Gold, Torah Journeys, p. 175

The spiritual challenge of D'varim is to attain an expansive perspective on our lives in order to investigate the imprint of each defeat and each victory. It is then possible to l earn from those experiences and turn them into wisdom for the journey. In rising to this challenge, we first remember our moments of disappointment, shame, loss or hopelessness that we have accumulated on our journey. How do we wear our defeats? Do they weigh us down? Embitter us? Armor us? Shame us? Immobilize us? Or can we be pruned by them? Learn from them? Be humbled and lifted up? Find compassion for others and ourselves through them? Every defeat can be either a destructive force or a fertilizer for growth and heart-wisdom. The spiritual challenge is to mitigate the destructive force of our defeats through self-compassion and to turn that force instead towards ultimate goodness as we build the strength of our character. In rising to the challenge of D'varim, we next turn to our moments of accomplishment, celebration, and fulfillment. How do we wear our victories? Do they make us arrogant? Do they separate us? Make us complacent? Dull? Judgmental? Forgetful of others' suffering? Or can we learn instead to overflow in gratefulness, channeling that overflow into acts of compassion and justice?

Bekhor Shor, cited in Carasik, The Commentators' Torah: Deuteronomy, p. 13

35 Not one of these men...shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers. Everyone will get what they want. They did not want to see the land, and won't.

Rabbi Shai Held, The Heart of Torah: Volume 2, location 4056, Kindle edition

Parashat Devarim seeks to avoid another potential pitfall of (superficial, self-serving) election theology. Subtly but powerfully the text makes clear that notwithstanding God’s unique love of Israel, God is still very much involved in the lives of other peoples; God’s election of Israel must not be taken to imply that God has simply written off everyone else... In other words, as Bible scholar Patrick Miller astutely observes, “other communities from the seed of Abraham have been kept by [God’s] providence; other communities have been given place to live by [God].” As if to emphasize and bolster the point, “the same language [n-t-n] is used for [God’s] consignment of territory to Edom, Moab, and Ammon as is used for [God’s] consignment of land to Israel.” The point of all this, Miller concludes, is to insist that “the Lord of Israel has other stories than simply the one with Israel.”

RA & USCJ, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 992

14. generation of warriors Literally, 'people of battle.' Ironically, that name is given to those who quarreled constantly with God and with Moses in the wilderness - not to their children, who will actually conquer the Promised Land. Ultimately, Israel's quarrels with God and with each other prove a greater obstacle than any external foe.

And in order to tell of his height and strength, since the Rephaim were a people great, and many, and tall as the Anakim, it states that his bedstead was a bedstead of iron, no bedstead of wood being able to support him as it does other people.

With regard to the rock that Og, King of Bashan, sought to throw upon Israel, there is no biblical reference, but rather a tradition was transmitted. The Gemara relates that Og said: How large is the camp of Israel? It is three parasangs. I will go and uproot a mountain three parasangs long and I will hurl it upon them and kill them. He went, uprooted a mountain three parasangs long, and brought it on his head. And The Holy One, Blessed be He, brought grasshoppers upon it and they pierced the peak of the mountain and it fell on his neck. Og wanted to remove it from his head; his teeth were extended to one side of his head and to the other and he was unable to remove it. And that is what is written: “You break the teeth of the wicked” (Psalms 3:8). And this is in accordance with the homiletic interpretation of Rabbi Shimon Ben Lakish, as Rabbi Shimon Ben Lakish said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “You break the teeth of the wicked”? Do not read it as: You break [shibarta], but rather as: You lengthened [shirbavta]. The story concludes: How tall was Moses? He was ten cubits tall. He took an axe ten cubits long, jumped up ten cubits, and struck Og in the ankle and killed him.

Rabbi David Kasher, ParshaNut, pp. 335-336

Remember ‘Anakim’? That was our third world for ‘giants,’ along with Rephaim and Nephilim. And the spies make this connection explicit: All the people we saw there are men of great size. We saw the Nephilim there – the Anakim come from the Nephilim – and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we were in their eyes. (Num. 13:32-33) So the Anakim come from the Nephilim. These giants come from those mysterious giants back in Genesis, just as Og was descended from those same angelic beings. It seems that all the giants in the Torah are related. But the strangest thing about this verse isn’t how the Anakim looked. It is the last phrase, about how the spies looked. For the spies don’t just say that “we looked like grasshoppers to them.” They say, “we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves … and so we were in their eyes.” The fruit, the cities, the people – everything and everyone looked overwhelmingly big to the Israelites – because in their own self-perception, they were so small. The Anakites may indeed have been people of great stature, but God certainly doesn’t think they are unbeatable. To the spies, however, they are simply giants. More, even – they are the legendary Nephilim, the kind of giants that possess supernatural powers, the kind of giants that take the daughters of men. But then, when you feel like a tiny insect, every person you come across is a giant. The persistence of Og in our collective story, then, is a testament to our persistent feeling of smallness. Giants haunt us because we fundamentally do not believe that we are big enough, or strong enough, to survive. That is why, in the crazy story of Og and the mountain, God sends ants to save the day – as if to say, even the smallest creatures on earth have the power to defeat a giant. And that is why, perhaps, Moses is then suddenly 15 feet tall. At first he was afraid of Og, just as the spies were afraid of their giants. But when one arrives at a place of confidence in one’s own stature in the world, then one walks tall like everyone else.