Rabbi Dr Walter Rothschild
July 20th. 2018 – Continuity. This is the secret, the secret to so much. One needs Continuity. But how to achieve it? How can you ensure that each new employee, each new student, each new generation, can learn what has already happened and build upon it, rather than starting all over again each time? Not only that, but how can you ensure they learn the right things – not old fights and conflicts, not poor methods that are now outdated, but what they need to know to function properly in their own lives and – and this is important – pass the knowledge on in their turn to their own successors?
There are people called Teachers who try to do this with children, there are people called Professors who try to do this with students, there are people called Parents who try to do this with their own offspring…. there are people called Historians who write down what they think is worth writing down although – as we have seen in recent controversies – it is not always clear what should be remembered or how it should be remembered and how it should be interpreted and by whom….. and who should decide, whether it be those who were there, those who have researched it or those politicians who have a specific image in mind.
Moses must fulfil all of these roles at the same time. He is the Father of the people in a way, he is their teacher, their prophet, he is their link to the invisible God who has promised so much, who freed their parents out of slavery but has led them since through the wilderness. There have been bad times, fights, conflicts, misunderstandings, people have died, the people have moved, stayed, moved again, stayed again, moved again – but never quite sure, in their hearts, where they are going to or what really awaits them there, what this ”land flowing with milk and honey” will be like.
Moses will have to interpret all this to them, the next generation. He himself is old now, he has acquired a lot of experience and hopefully also some wisdom, he has seen everything that has happened and now he has to prepare himself for his own departure. This is always difficult for any leader (including rabbis!) – to prepare to leave, to hand over to a successor, to accept that one is replaceable, just one episode in a lengthy communal history.
In this book – which, as opposed to the earlier ones, is largely written in the first person and addressed in the second person because it comprises several lengthy speeches – he looks selectively over the past four decades. He speaks from the experience that comes with hindsight. He can distinguish – or at least, he distinguishes – the important events out of a lengthy history. ”Eyleh HaDevarim…” – THESE are the words he chooses.
But of course there is more to it than this – there always is. Why do we need to learn History? So as to prepare for the future, and in so doing place ourselves in a perspective, as one generation among many, we must learn from where we have cone and – as far as possible – where we hope to go. So a significant part of the Book of Devarim will comprise Moses telling the Israelites: ”When you come into the Land into which you are heading, then don’t forget to do this and this and this….” This is not just looking back, but teaching them to look forward too. History is not Nostalgia. The study of History involves a serious and conscientious gathering of the facts of what has happened, an analysis of them, and a learning from them. So Moses will warn the people that certain actions led to certain consequences, that God can be angered by disobedience and ingratitude, and so the people should learn from this and avoid those reactions and responses that will lead to a negative relationship, to a curse and not a blessing – indeed, towards the end of the book, when he has said almost all he wants to say, he puts this very starkly (in Chapter 30) – ”Look, I am putting Blessing and Curse before you – so (for your own sakes!) choose Blessing, choose Life over Death!” They will have the choice, and they will have to choose, and since he, Moses, will no longer be there to guide them, all he can do is teach them as best he can and hope they will learn not just what he is saying but what he is not saying, the messages behind the words and between the lines. He cannot predict all that will happen to them after his own death, he can only prepare them as best he can to cope with whatever will occur. And out of Criticism there should emerge Self-Criticism. There is here no hiding of the mistakes and errors of judgement and rebellions. The National Myth is not white-washed, the Israelites are not always portrayed as innocent victims of circumstances but as often responsible for their own fates – hence, after all, the forty years in the wilderness, which only occurred because they had rejected the positive report of their promised future land. He covers most of this already in the opening chapter! This is the basis for all that follows.
Needless to say, there is a lot we can learn from this for modern times – especially in a country which has such a mixed history as here, a country which ceased to exist for a while and then returned to existence (with outside help as well as through its own efforts and heroism), which has had to cope with occupation and exile and re-establishment and internal quarrels. History is, as so often, selective; Who was the Occupier and who welcomed Occupation, co-operated with the Occupier, Collaborated with the Occupier, Aided and Assisted the Occupier? Who resisted, and how, and how effective was this, and what were the motives? If one dictatorship is replaced with another dictatorship, can this be defined as ‘Progress’? Can a land flowing with milk and honey be created out of a land flowing with blood and tears, can a stable society be built on bones and concrete? If everyone was a victim, then who was the greater victim, and which victims themselves made others into victims? This is a major national debate – and it remains a debate, even if some would rather stifle it, for then the debate will simply be driven underground and, like a hidden spring, will gush forth years or decades later, or in another place. History requires Honesty, it requires the acknowledgement that events are often more complex than they might first appear, that the victors and the survivors are not always blameless and the defeated were not always evil.
”These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Aravah, over against Suf, between Paran and Tophel….on the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year….”…. One wonders what words will be taught in schools all over Europe, and all over the Middle East, in the future? How selective they will be, how biased, how incomplete, and essentially how HELPFUL they will be to each new coming generation that will have to learn to make its own way towards its own future, based upon what they have been taught about their past and how they have been taught to think about it?
I wish to add a couple more thoughts. Firstly, in Chapter 2 Moses gives the people a brief overall view of regional demographic history and it is a very interesting lesson. There are peoples, nations, who already inhabits certain areas – the children of Esau, the children of Moab – and their claim to these areas is to be respected. At the same time, however, it is made clear that these peoples had themselves displaced other peoples – for example, in verse 12, the people of Esau had driven out the Horites from Se’ir. Then in verses 13 to 18 38 years pass, so that the previous adult generation have passed on, and then when the Israelites are to continue their journey, they learn there are Ammonites whose land is to be respected – albeit the Ammonites had themselves driven out Rephaim, and then in verse 23 in Gaza the Kaphtorim had earlier driven out the Avvim…. Quite fascinating how it is described, for he says that some peoples are there only because other peoples were displaced or killed. How does this fit in with, for example, European history after the First and then the Second World Wars, when borders were created anew and entire populations were physically pushed eastwards or westwards – or down into the soil? Are WE in a position to acknowledge these facts as calmly as Moses does?
The second: This is not only Shabbat Devarim but also Shabbat Chason – the Haftarah speaks of the Vision of the prophet Isaiah; it precedes Tisha B’Av, the Ninth day of the month of Av, on which we look back to the destructions and the losses, the humiliations and the expulsions and the exiles that have marked our history. And out of this History the Rabbis urge us to learn – not to indulge in internal hatreds and conflicts, for example; to learn to obey the basic principles of our religion; to remember what it was like to be, ourselves, refugees, escaping a country that had enslaved us or being dragged to work as slaves in a country that had invaded and destroyed our own.
The Bible is always up-to-date, once one has learned to replace some old names with more modern ones. The essential issues are the same. We need Continuity, we need to know the Past, to learn it and to analyse it, clearly and honestly – because this is the ONLY way into a healthy and honest Future. The words Moses spoke there, then, are relevant here, now.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dr. Walter Rothschild
Leave a Reply