Welcome to the Book of Deuteronomy, Torah's fifth book about saying it all again.
Deuter ("second") onomy ("telling") – Devarim in Hebrew – is Moses' take on what happened during the last three books. Parts are inspiringly uplifting, some is a "creative" re-telling of the past, and some is downright harsh. Maybe it resembles our own look-back on this year that, Jewishly speaking, is rounding the corner toward its final push to the reboot and renewal we call Rosh Hashanah.
Deuter ("second") onomy ("telling") – Devarim in Hebrew – is Moses' take on what happened during the last three books. Parts are inspiringly uplifting, some is a "creative" re-telling of the past, and some is downright harsh. Maybe it resembles our own look-back on this year that, Jewishly speaking, is rounding the corner toward its final push to the reboot and renewal we call Rosh Hashanah.
Devarim opens with Moses retelling what happened in the Book of Exodus, when the burden of leadership was too great and he appointed sub-leaders (Deut. 1). Moses delegated authority to sub-leaders in Exodus 18, before the Ten Commandments at Sinai, but now in his Second Telling he reversed the order: first Sinai, then delegation. Over and over again in this Book of Second Telling, Moses will shift the narrative of what happened – sometimes trivially, sometimes deeply. He'll even change the Ten Commandments (tune in next week).
The most emotional of Moses' Second Telling changes confronts us immediately. The Moses of Exodus didn't show much weariness, exhaustion or bitterness, but in his second telling, Moses narrates that he said to the people at that time (Deut. 1:9-12):
The most emotional of Moses' Second Telling changes confronts us immediately. The Moses of Exodus didn't show much weariness, exhaustion or bitterness, but in his second telling, Moses narrates that he said to the people at that time (Deut. 1:9-12):
“I can't bear the burden of you by myself!
YHVH your God multiplied you until
today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky.
May YHVH, the God of your ancestors,
increase your numbers a thousandfold,
and bless you as promised –
but how can I bear alone your trouble,
your burden, and your bickering!"
לֹא־אוּכַ֥ל לְבַדִּ֖י שְׂאֵ֥ת אֶתְכֶֽם׃
יהו''ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֖ם הִרְבָּ֣ה אֶתְכֶ֑ם
וְהִנְּכֶ֣ם הַיּ֔וֹם כְּכוֹכְבֵ֥י הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם לָרֹֽב׃
יהוה אֱלֹהֵ֣י אֲבֽוֹתֵכֶ֗ם
יֹסֵ֧ף עֲלֵיכֶ֛ם כָּכֶ֖ם אֶ֣לֶף פְּעָמִ֑ים
וִיבָרֵ֣ךְ אֶתְכֶ֔ם כַּאֲשֶׁ֖ר דִּבֶּ֥ר לָכֶֽם׃
אֵיכָ֥ה אֶשָּׂ֖א לְבַדִּ֑י טׇרְחֲכֶ֥ם
וּמַֽשַּׂאֲכֶ֖ם וְרִֽיבְכֶֽם׃
I hear in Moses' words the tone of a parent feeling guilty for exhausted burnout. ("Dahling, sweetheart, love of my life – you're wonderful! But oy, you're killing me!") Yet Torah doesn't record Moses to feel that way during Exodus. To the contrary, Torah records that Moses went about his business and it took his father in law to talk sense into him (Ex. 18:13-24). The words that Moses next recounts about delegating are his father in law's advice back then, in Exodus – but it was only much later, in the Book of Numbers, that Moses buckled and lamented.
Even more, Moses hits the people over the head with, in his view, their culpability for his burnout and exhaustion. His lament continues that the people “refused” to follow, and they “defied” God (Deut. 1:26). They “sulked” (Deut. 1:27). They were “faithless” (Deut. 1:32). “Due to [them],” a bitter Moses concluded, he could not enter the Land (Deut. 1:37). In Moses’ Second Telling, it was all their fault – never mind Moses’ own responsibility.
Is the Moses of Second Telling finally speaking the depths of his emotional truth withheld in Exodus, or is Moses retrojecting how he feels now onto what happened then? Is Moses remembering, or is he refracting through a lens he needs to aim on history?
Is the Moses of Second Telling finally speaking the depths of his emotional truth withheld in Exodus, or is Moses retrojecting how he feels now onto what happened then? Is Moses remembering, or is he refracting through a lens he needs to aim on history?
Both can be true. And, Moses' lament drops a powerful hint that something even deeper is going on here. His lament is the first time Torah uses the word "how" (in Hebrew, Eikha / אֵיכָה) – as in, "How could this be?! How could this happen?! Alas! Woe!"
This same word also is the starting word and Hebrew name of the potent Book of Lamentations, the text of dirge and woe traditionally read on Tisha b'Av. And yes, you guessed it, Moses' Eikha always comes the weekend before Tisha b'Av's Eikha.
Torah is doing what Torah often does. She keys to where we are in the Jewish spiritual year, and aims at shared impulses embedded deep in the human psyche.
The Season of Meaning is approaching: it's time for us and Jews worldwide to begin looking back on the year – what it was, who we were, what we did or didn't do, where we erred, what we can repair, who hurt us, what we can forgive, how far we strayed, and how we can return. This teshuvah journey will invite many things, and one of them is attention not just to what we see but also how we see.
Do we look back with guilt? blame? anger? defensiveness? hope? optimism? generosity? joy? Do we look back on the year as how it and we were then, or as it and we are now, or how we want or need the year to be (whether or not it was)? All of these are real experiences, and odds are good that we all do all of them sometimes. The integrity of our teshuvah journey will depend vitally on which one(s) we choose.
Moses' Second Telling shines a light on the deep truth that often we reconstruct the past to fit where we are or want to be now, which can reinforce or gloss over rather than genuinely repair. As the ironically named Canadian band "Barenaked Ladies" sang:
This same word also is the starting word and Hebrew name of the potent Book of Lamentations, the text of dirge and woe traditionally read on Tisha b'Av. And yes, you guessed it, Moses' Eikha always comes the weekend before Tisha b'Av's Eikha.
Torah is doing what Torah often does. She keys to where we are in the Jewish spiritual year, and aims at shared impulses embedded deep in the human psyche.
The Season of Meaning is approaching: it's time for us and Jews worldwide to begin looking back on the year – what it was, who we were, what we did or didn't do, where we erred, what we can repair, who hurt us, what we can forgive, how far we strayed, and how we can return. This teshuvah journey will invite many things, and one of them is attention not just to what we see but also how we see.
Do we look back with guilt? blame? anger? defensiveness? hope? optimism? generosity? joy? Do we look back on the year as how it and we were then, or as it and we are now, or how we want or need the year to be (whether or not it was)? All of these are real experiences, and odds are good that we all do all of them sometimes. The integrity of our teshuvah journey will depend vitally on which one(s) we choose.
Moses' Second Telling shines a light on the deep truth that often we reconstruct the past to fit where we are or want to be now, which can reinforce or gloss over rather than genuinely repair. As the ironically named Canadian band "Barenaked Ladies" sang:
"We recognize the present
as half as pleasant
as our nostalgia for
a past that we resented
recast and reinvented
until it's how we meant it."
And how about the future? Must lamentations of past hurts (individual, community, national, planetary) be prelude to repetition? Must we act in cyclical patterns, year after Second Telling year? Must we ruminate? Do we have agency, or are we mere victims of momentum?
These too are key questions of this moment – and not all of them pleasant. There's timely spiritual wisdom to them, though, and I believe that there can be better ahead. As Judaism's spiritual masters taught, the descent of Tisha b'Av is for the sake of ascent immediately after. We go down for the purpose of readying our ascent to the heights of what true teshuvah can be – not despite our hurts and disappointments, but precisely amidst them.
While this week Moses' lament keys us to start looking back, next week's Torah portion will bring the lofty "Jewish Greatest Hits" of the Ten Commandments (yes, a Second Telling of them), the Shema (unity) and the V'ahavta (love).
There really can be renewed unity and love – just up ahead.
These too are key questions of this moment – and not all of them pleasant. There's timely spiritual wisdom to them, though, and I believe that there can be better ahead. As Judaism's spiritual masters taught, the descent of Tisha b'Av is for the sake of ascent immediately after. We go down for the purpose of readying our ascent to the heights of what true teshuvah can be – not despite our hurts and disappointments, but precisely amidst them.
While this week Moses' lament keys us to start looking back, next week's Torah portion will bring the lofty "Jewish Greatest Hits" of the Ten Commandments (yes, a Second Telling of them), the Shema (unity) and the V'ahavta (love).
There really can be renewed unity and love – just up ahead.
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