Why are we here? This is not the philosophical, existential question…This is the question of galus. Jews have been asking themselves this question in one form or another throughout this exceedingly long galus. Sometimes we ask this question with the intonation of why have we been made to live in a place of suffering and oppression. Sometimes it’s the question of why we haven’t taken the necessary steps of returning to our promised home. Whichever the question, the answer is never simple, and that fact reflects the fact that being part of the Jewish people has never been simple.
This question, however, is as essential to Jewish identity as our understanding of what it means to be part of Bnei Yisrael. It is alluded to the renaming of Yaakov to Yisrael and the interpretation of that name as “He who wrestles with Gd.” Our destiny was never a straight line.
In this week’s parsha, Parshas Nitzavim-Vayelech, there is the famous declaration of “Lo b’shamayim hee,” the statement that the Torah is not in Heaven, and Bnei Yisrael, who have yet again here accepted the yoke of Torah, cannot make an excuse that the Torah is inaccessible to them. Our forefathers earned the privilege of Torah, earned the essence of the mamleches kohanim (kingdom of priests) that we are to become, and, by this very fact, they, and we, are the keepers of Torah. It is up to us to make Torah alive in this world. Torah is ours to possess here and now.
What is interesting is that the next pasukim, Devarim 30:13-14, continue: “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?’ Rather, [this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.”
For a nation in the desert about to enter the Promised Land, this statement must have seemed odd. What sea were they being warned of looking across? Perhaps if it had been said “Nor is it across the Midbar, the desert” there would be a clear allusion to Har Sinai. After all, they did just travel for years from that place; they know how grueling that journey can be. If one thinks of it as a reference to the Sea of Reeds, then this also does not really make sense. Bnei Yisrael was forced to cross the Yam Suf because they were trapped by the Mitzrim. One does not need to cross the Yam Suf to get from Israel to Egypt.
“Across the Sea”, which some commentators understand as an allusion to the Atlantic Ocean while others think it is the Mediterranean, could, in its own way, be understood as an important vastness to the greatness of the exile to come.
There are, of course, multiple places in the Torah where Hashem warns the people that they will not hold on to the land, just as they will not hold on to their dedication to Hashem’s ways. It must have been difficult for the people on the precipice of entering Eretz Yisrael to understand - after all, with the Shechina dwelling in the Promised Land among the people, why would they even consider the question of worrying about the law being that far away?
Predictions - which is, of course, the wrong word for the utterances of Hashem – can be comforting. Knowing that the behavior is not unexpected is not an excuse, but it can be a comfort. We all watch others make strong resolutions about what they will or won’t do and then predictably miss their targets. The same is true for Bnei Yisrael.
Our history is recorded in our past as that which will inevitably come to be. Indeed, Hashem even tells Moshe, in this week’s parsha, “For I know what plans they are devising even now, before I bring them into the land that I promised on oath” (Devarim 31:21). Bnei Yisrael’s path to the promised land has never been easy – not in the days of the avos or Moshe and not in the days of the shoftim and naviim, when we struggled against Canaanites and Pilishtim and more, and not in the modern era.
Why are we here? Some people will turn this question into an accusation – why are you there? – for those who still dwell in chutz l’aretz. The answer, however, is throughout the parsha. We have not yet stopped chasing after other deities – not, perhaps, you or you or you – but we as a people have not yet learned to settle ourselves, our whole selves, into our role and our mission. Therefore, we are all in galus, and we are all striving for the great teshuva that will return the Shechina to its dwelling place and our nation to its rightful glory.
NMay it come speedily in our days!
