Peering into the Future - Va'etchanan

Va'etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11) is the parsha this week, and a wonderful one. There are many themes in the various commentaries I read, most centered on the repetitions of the Sh'ma that are found here. Also featured is Moses' review of the history of the Jews up to this point. Moses also reviews his pleading with G-d to be permitted into the promised land. G-d was angry and said no; allows him only a peek at the land from the top of the mountain telling him you will not cross the Jordan. And of course we know that he dies with all the others of his generation in exile and only the next generation inherits the land as G-d promised. Tangentially, I may be a slow learner but I never realized that this is where the gospel verses about "going over Jordan, going over home" and "water is wide, can't cross over" and a million other gospel songs come from. Duh; those in exile yearning to be free. I love the book of Deuteronomy, there are so many things in this book that resonate and have become familiar in our cultural history. "Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a might stream" (Martin Luther King) is one such example. But back to the point, as Moses is recounting he says to the people, in essence, G-d gave you the Torah, what are you complaining about. For it is in the commandments, which are repeated in the parsha, that we are bound to G-d. In doing G-d's will we find a connection to G-d. Life is a connection to G-d and when we use our life for good we are connected to G-d and to the gratitude we should have for the life we have been given. I have a friend who is very sick, waiting for a transplant, has cancer and lung disease and yet he is grateful almost all the time for the time and the gifts he has been given. Amazing, and so... as stressed and tired and sick as he is, he is serene, just waiting for the next thing. It is a beautiful thing. In this portion, connected to the commandments is the familiar V'ahavta prayer which centers, in its most fundamental, on the concept of l'dor v'dor, from generation to generation. G-d tells us that it is our most important mitzvah, good deed or commandment, to teach our children and our children's children. Of course reading this, I focused on my teenage son who seems to have no faith at all. He said his prayers as a child with perfect consistency, we lit the candles and attended temple and shared our life cycle events. He completed Hebrew, had a beautiful Bar Mitzvah, was confirmed and still seems to have no connection to G-d. I don't think I am alone in this, I think this happens to teenagers all the time. I wonder will he remember the beauty of those Shabbat candles, the familiar cadence of the prayers and how we were together in those moments when he leaves our home? Will he open his mind to faith as he makes his way; I have no idea. Will he seek out other Jews when he is on his own? I have written before about the comfort of ritual, but young adults spreading their wings don't always need or want it, or find it useful. I have followed the commandment, I have performed the mitsvah, I have taught him as well as I knew how, learning myself all along the way. My parents have no faith, so how I came by mine is hard to say. I know I am near to my bubbe when I practice my faith, and near to those who perished in pogroms whose blood I bear. And so l'dor v'dor, I have done the best I can to make being a Jew an honorable thing. As he stands on his mountain, peering into the promised land of his future, I know he is afraid. He is afraid to be different, to stand out. I hope when he is afraid the Sh'ma will come to him as it did when he was a tiny boy, and comfort him by its familiarity. I hope he will find self-esteem in the doing of mitsvot, good deeds for the sake of helping others and not for recognition. I hope he will find identity in the company of good Jews. Mostly, I hope he will find that connection to G-d so that he will never be alone, no matter which side of the river he finds himself on.

Marking the Way to Now

So... sometimes there is too much life and not enough time. Seems to be my constant refrain. My life gets in the way of my life. But I'm back. This week is Mattot - Ma'sei (Numbers 30:2 - 36:13)and one of the things contained in it is the law of vows and, in the spirit of Ecclesiastes, it is better not to vow than not to fulfill a vow. So I vow to do my best to do this every week but I do not vow to do it every week. There. I loved that in Elyse Friedman's D'var Torah this week on the URJ web site she talks about the Berkshire mountains in Lenox (and environs). This is where my mother has lived for over 35 years and I know precisely where she describing. it is a place very dear to me. She likens it to Shelach L'cha when the people believed the worst and were afraid to go forward; the fear or ugliness obscuring the way forward to beauty. That failure angered G-d and the people were set to wandering for forty years or, until the generation that perpetrated this provocation were gone. Mattot-Ma'sei begins with the tribes and goes on to tell us of the journey. There are many things in this portion, war, laws of annulment of vows including the annoying fact that men could annul the vows of women, the laws of various types of murder (tempting to talk about given my background). But I think what matters most is the journey. This parshah lists the 42 "stations" or places where the people lit in their Exodus from Egypt to their arrival at the promised land. But this journey is not just the physical journey from Egypt to Israel; it is the journey of the generation, the life of them, that had to pass for the people to be permitted to enter the promised land. This is the journey of a people who were cast out into freedom and had to learn what freedom meant for them. One commentary I read says that one of the lines translates to "travelling from the burial place of desires". I love this, the idea of travelling from what we want, to what we get. So in travelling to what G-d intends for us, how do we mark the story, the "stations". There are pivotal points in all our lives, things that mark our story, that help us make sense of the journey. Another commentary talked about the idea that Moses marked the waystations so we would know our story, so they would know their story, be reminded, remember their story, their journey. So in travelling to what we get, we need to know our own stories, to mark our way, to chronicle and revisit our own histories. My mother is writing her history now and she is being pretty brutally honest. She tells me my life is interesting and that I should write it; but that if I do I must include everything, good, bad, ugly or beautiful or it won't be honest and true. Maybe I just need to chronicle the pivotal points, they are likely to be all that I can remember. So that as I travel from the burial place of my desires to the here and now of what G-d has chosen for me, the beautiful moment that is my life, I have guideposts to remember my own story. I do know that memory is malleable, as contrary as the wind and really what I get is each moment. If I stay in the bubble of each moment, there is never too much life; just exactly enough. Shabbat Shalom