Parshas Vayelech – Bound to Fail, and That’s Ok

Three times in Parshas Vayelech the verse Chazak Vayamatz, be strong and courageous, is uttered, and three times in Parshas Vayelech the text goes into detail about the future downfall of the nation. Be strong, lead them well, expect them to fail, and Hashem will still remember His covenant… this is the message that Moshe receives from Hashem and that Bnei Yisrael receives from Moshe.

 

It is, of course, not by chance that Parshas Vayelech is read at the auspicious time of the Yomim Norayim, the “High Holidays.” And during a leap year (such as this year), we are granted the opportunity to look at Parshas Vayelech on its own and to focus on its unique message… a message that is particularly important to remember as we contemplate the impending celebration of Yom Kippur.  

 

It could, perhaps, be said, that Yom Kippur is a celebration of humanity. This may seem like a shocking statement, but only until we realize that if there is one unified character trait of all of humanity, it is that, try as we might, we make many mistakes. We are not creatures of instinct, like the animals, nor beings of obedience, like the angels. There has never been a perfect human nor a perfect society.

 

Moshe tells the people not to worry that he will not be entering the Promised Land with them. He tells them that Yehoshua will lead them by Divine command. And he tells them, “Be strong and courageous! Neither fear, nor be dismayed of them [the Cananites], for the Lord, your God He is the One Who goes with you. He will neither fail you, nor forsake you" (31:6).  Then Moshe gives Yehoshua a similar message: Be strong and courageous, you will succeed, and Hashem “will neither fail you, nor forsake you. Do not fear, and do not be dismayed" (6:8). On this note of positive messaging, his duty of leadership transfer is seemingly done.

 

But Moshe isn’t done, and Yehoshua isn’t ready. It isn’t all a neat little package, and this is the most important connection to the Yomim Norayim. Now is when Hashem states, not once but twice, that Bnei Yisrael will not only stray but will bring down Hashem’s fury upon them. Indeed, Hashem even declares that He will hide His face from them.

In between declarations of the future failings of Bnei Yisrael. Hashem commands Moshe to write a song to bear witness to the future Children of Israel. Only after he has done so does Hashem speak to Yehoshua, repeating, it seems, Moshe’s earlier words: “Be strong and courageous! For you shall bring the children of Israel to the land that I have sworn to them, and I will be with you."

 

As Moshe hands what he has written to the Leviim to be placed in the Ark, he concludes his speech of earlier by stating forthrightly to them that they will, in time, become corrupt – that they will do evil and will be punished. And so he teaches them the song he has just written at Hashem’s command.

 

There are many discussions what this song is. Was it Haazinu, the next parsha? Was it something not included in the Torah? Was it a reference to the Torah itself? All are possible.

 

Why, one might ask, was it so necessary for Hashem to repeat the future failings of Bnei Yisrael here? After all, Moshe had spoken of it to the people in his final proclamations recorded in the other chapters of Devarim. But Moshe needed to acknowledge it here as he transferred the leadership of the people.

 

Perhaps the reason that the Torah tells us one more time, woven with the words Chazak Vayamatz, Be strong and courageous, is to remind us of the important fact that Hashem is very aware that we are human. Moshe, perhaps, did not want to end his time dwelling upon the fact that Bnei Yisrael would struggle, but Hashem knew that acknowledging our struggle would be the source of our strength, of our ability to move forward.

 

There are many shiurim available that speak of the annual self-doubt about teshuva. We all have the thoughts of: “I wanted to improve, and yet here I stand with the same mistakes, with the same transgressions.” “I wanted to achieve more than I did, and I feel that I have failed.”

 

Be strong and be courageous! That is to each and every one of us. Hashem knows and acknowledges our humanity, our limitations, and the probability of our imperfections… and He loves us anyway.

 

Hashem repeats to Moshe that the people will be corrupted until Moshe accepts it and says it out loud because it needs to be understood that Hashem already knows our regret. He knows our hopes and our dreams, our successes and our failures. We will fail, each of us in our own way, but this knowledge cannot stop us from moving forward, from trying harder, or from taking a slightly different path.

 

On Yom Kippur we will each stand before the King of Kings and beg atonement. It must be done. But we do so not in terror. We do so in celebration. Yom Kippur is a holiday because we know that Hashem will accept our repentance, because in foretelling our failings He has already granted their eventual forgiveness.

 

May each of you have a Gmar Chasima Tova.

Elul Group - RH 5783

First let me thank Ruthie and Caryn for continuing to organize this amazing project. I have been with the Elul group from the beginning, and it seems shocking when I realize the stability it provides me through all of the many life stages I have been through in that time.

 

There is so much about this time of year that gives us hope and inspiration, fear and anxiety, and, perhaps, more than anything else, a yearning for clarity. If I might dare to hypothesize, I think that what most of us really want is to understand why and what’s next. We want to understand why we have our troubles, and we want to know that there is a plan for things to be better. And that great desire… that internal need… is exactly why we need Rosh Hashana, the day on which we specifically affirm Hashem as the King of kings.

 

Those of us who have been raised in modern, Western society have no true concept of kingship. Our leaders are all too human. The more fallible and selfish they have shown themselves - and with our insidious media and full access coverage we see a great deal of it – the less people can relate to the possibility of a true Melech. And without a Melech, we build up our own autonomy, our own power, our own right to have everything in the world as we want it…or to believe it is our right.

 

On Rosh Hashana, however, we have the prime opportunity to remind ourselves, powerfully, that Hashem runs the world.  Hashem has a plan. Hashem knows what is good for His entire kingdom, and we, His individual subjects, do not have access to His knowledge of the “why”s and the “what will be”s.  

 

“Hashem has a plan” is the mantra that has gotten me through a very difficult time in my life… that continues to move me through that situation.  It is a steadying thought. It is a mantra that provides strength. But, in truth, it isn’t a thought that brings great warmth to one in pain. After all, it means my suffering and the turmoil I see in my children is part of Hashem’s plan.

 

Rabbi Uri Deutsch (of Lakewood, formerly of Montreal, speaking on the Coach Menachem Sunday night program) cited an explanation of the Book of Yona’s connection to the Yomim Noaraim from the Chofetz Chaim. (Transcribed from him speaking and abbreviated…)

 

“Yona is a paradigm for what we sometimes do. Hashem has a mission for us. He brought us to this world. Our neshama was brought down from the Kisei Hakavod to experience all the travails and the challenges, the joys and the sorrows, and the profound journey of what it means to be a Jew in an alien world because HKBH declared that the world’s purpose can only be brought about when our neshama comes here. Being able to grapple with that task, to embrace it, and to orientate and guide one’s life along the path of being able to accomplish that unique task, which is ours, is something we so often find ourselves wanting to reject.….

 

The Chofetz Chaim says, Yona was engaged in the struggle to escape the Divine voice which would compel him to fulfill his mission. But says the CC, HKBH doesn’t allow the person to escape his destiny. And HKBH in his omnipresent, in his hashgacha, will encircle the person, guide him, and will eventually create the circumstances that will force him to face the growth, the journey, the struggle, the challenge, and the joy that the Ribbono Shel Olam wants their life to be. So once Yona is out on the sea, the Ribbono Shel Olam creates an unnatural storm. He then goes as far as to bring a fish, in bizarre circumstance, to again bring Yona back to where he should be, and eventually Yona realizes that this is the purpose of him being the navi of Hashem and accepts all the challenge, all the agony, all the pain, and all the confusion of carrying out a mission which to him sees pointless…”

 

When I heard Rabbi Deutsch’s shiur, I felt greatly moved to think of this situation as my “whale” (ok, big fish) and to hope that I can find my way out of it, to find the teshuva that I need to do, before He determines (Chas v’shalom) that I need to find an even less comfortable situation.

 

But teshuva is hard, especially when you are feeling punished. It is especially difficult when you feel like part of you has been broken and you know that Hashem already knows your pain. And so the perpetual cycle of doubt and wonder presses harder as I come into Elul. How will I really daven? How will I get through these days when my pain causes me to be so incredibly focused on myself.

 

I have spent years focused on the definition of teshuva as repentance. I know the Rambam’s four steps. I understand changing myself, becoming a better person, and fixing the errors I have made.  First, however, I need to look at teshuva for its most literal definition: returning.  And for this I turn to Avinu Malkeinu. Right now, in my life, I find that I often wake up with a desperate need for a hug. I’ve learned to ask my kids if they will just hug me to get that physical need fulfilled… But the truth is that the need is deeply existential. I am longing for a “hug from Hashem.” I yearn to feel as if I am safe – safe from pain, safe from sadness, safe from being hurt any further. My teshuva right now is to understand that the hug Hashem is giving me may be in the form of the belly of the whale, so to speak.  

 

In this year’s Rosh Hashana Mishpacha, in an article by Rabbi Reuven Leuchter (“Look into the Mirror,” page 77).  Writes about not spending Rosh Hashana focused on worrying if we are davening properly, if our teshuva is acceptable, if our prayers have enough kavanah. But rather, he explains, we should focus on the words and thus discover “the world of Malchus Shamayim. If we look a little more deeply into that world, we’ll see not only Hashem’s grandeur, but, surprisingly, also ourselves….The Musaf tefillah of Rosh Hashanah shows us that Malchus Shamayim has a role - an individual avodah, our own personal contribution to making Hashem’s malchus manifest in the world.” He explains about the section on Zichronos:  “We think we’re insignificant, and Hashem must have written us off. Say the pesukim: Hashem calls out into the ears of Yerushalayim, ‘I remember how you followed Me into the dessert! I remember that!’ No matter what we’ve done, we haven’t lost our importance to Hashem and His malchus.”

 

It all comes together. Hashem, Avinu, has a plan. Hashem, Malkeinu, has a plan. No matter how lost I feel, or how trapped, or how alone, those are just feelings. The reality that often seems so hidden to us is most accessible on Rosh Hashana. A true king, a Melech in the Divine sense of the word, brings tests and challenges, as well and joys and simcha, into our life, to move us forward in our true purpose. Our task, which sounds far simpler than it is, is to recognize that unity of purpose given to us by Avinu Maleinu.

 

To this wonderful group of women as we travel this path together, may you all be blessed to find clarity and success, and to learn to appreciate the path on which you yourself traverse, in the year to come.

 

My tzedakah this year went to a fund being collected: Keren Grushos v’Almanos.

Parshas Shoftim: More Than Property Lines

Parshas Shoftim covers a range of topics, most of them at least at some length. There is however, one topic that seems to be a verse that stands alone: “You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary, that the earlier ones set as borders in your inheritance, in the land that Hashem your God will give to you for an inheritance” (Devarim 19:14).

This is a good law, of course. It is not just good because it is a Torah law; it is a good law because it seems to be a base-line of normal civilized behavior. Moving the boundary line of a neighbor’s property implies theft of the most despicable kind. It is subterfuge. An inch and an inch and an inch…and suddenly there is a foot of difference between the original property allotments. Thus, Hashem declaring a prohibition of just such an act seems appropriate

What makes this pasuk interesting, and not just appropriate, is its placement. The verse comes just before the Torah discusses the requirement of two witnesses in any case needing judgement. The requirement for two witnesses is followed by a discussion of what will happen in the case of a false witness. A man who would bear false witness is as despicable as a person who would move a boundary line. They are both malicious acts performed in devious ways.

Additionally, the first thirteen verses of Devarim 19, just before the prohibition of moving the boundary line, discuss the cities of refuge. These verses go into detail about what constitutes manslaughter and what is, in fact, premeditated murder.  The section concludes with a ruling of what to do when a murderer flees to a city of refuge, and that is to show no pity.

“You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary, that the earlier ones set as borders in your inheritance, in the land that Hashem your God will give to you for an inheritance” (Devarim 19:14). In this seemingly disconnected pasuk, one might see the kernel of rot. Envy and jealousy are at the heart of the one with criminal intent, and revenge drives the victim who has already been harmed. Envy and jealousy that lead to such devious plotting also leads to enough hatred to strike down another Jew or to attempt to bear false witness against him.

We are not in the Promised Land, as even in Eretz Yisrael we are not living under Torah law, but the laws of the Torah are for all times and all places. Do not move the boundary line of your brother can impact so many areas of our lives, from the obvious - not stealing property - to the far less obvious transgression of claiming credit for someone else’s ideas or even of playing mind games that affect another person’s emotions.

May we all find satisfaction with the plot that Hashem has granted us and may we constantly look out for one another.