A Taste of Shabbos – Parashat Devarim

There is a story of a man who came late to services just as the rabbi was giving his sermon. He whispered to the man beside him, ‘How long has the rabbi been speaking?’ His neighbor answered, ‘Oh, for about twenty years.’ The entire book of Devarim is considered to be Moshe’s farewell address to the Jewish people. It took 37 days!

Is this fifth book of the Torah- Divine or human? It is different than the other books; certain ideas and even words are not used in the other Torah books. From many readings, it seems to be a ‘bridge book’ between what’s called the ‘Written Torah’ and the Oral Torah. In fact, the concept of a bridge, whether physical or spiritual, concrete or metaphorical, permeates lots of Jewish thinking, from our material reality to the most ethereal realms of existence.

We always read this parasha before Tisha B’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, where, besides the destruction of both holy temples, many other tragic events happened in Jewish history, like the beginning of the crusades and the break out of WW1. The defining Torah occurrence on that day was the people’s acceptance of the negative report of ten of the twelve spies who bad mouthed the land of Israel because they were afraid to leave the rarified air of the desert, where, aside from a few complaints here and there, they spent most of their time under the clouds of Glory studying the Torah revealed at Sinai.

In this parasha, Moshe rebukes them for that and other transgressions, but he does so, says Rashi, in a concealed manner so as not to embarrass them too harshly. The Lubavitcher Rebbe added a positive spin to this rebuke. He says that Moshe put the blame on the spies themselves, who started off very nobly rather than on the people as a whole. Similarly, when he rebuked them for complaining about the Manna, he referred to the Manna as ‘the white stuff,’ implying that they lost their temper in spite of the miraculous ability to have many different tastes, but because the ‘presentation’ wasn’t very impressive and colorful. And Moshe’s most striking legal defense? He refers to the Golden calf merely with the words, ‘Di Zahav’, enough gold, pointing the finger at G-d who gave them so much gold, that, like lottery winners, ‘they didn’t know what to do with it.’ And all this 37-day farewell address because he cared so much for his people and tried to connect with them at the end of his life, rather than doing some final personal meditation and introspection! He knew the people needed some kind of transition message, which is actually what the whole book of Devarim is about.

Just as in nature, there is a gradual shift from day to night, and vice versa, there needed to be a conceptual bridge to get from the rarified air of the desert to the demands of life in the holy land. So too we are beginning the shift from the end of the Hebrew year to the next one. Each day of these months, whether it is the sad time of the three weeks, or the introspective time of the seven weeks of consolation, we are reminded that the more we can strengthen these bridges, the smoother and more meaningful the transitions are.

Moshe also refers to the geographical transition about the two tribes who wanted to stay in the ‘bridge area’ of Trans-Jordan, an area that has part of the holiness of the land of Israel itself. It’s interesting that Moshe joined half the tribe of Menashe with this group, which then became known as the 2 and ½ tribes. Thus Menashe became the bridge tribe with its brethren on the other side. It’s so interesting that Menashe in Hebrew comprises the same letters as ‘Mishneh,’ the same name as the sages called this fifth book, ‘Mishneh Torah,’ which means, ‘repetition of the Torah (as in the Greek name Deuteronomy) which, as mentioned, is a bridge between the ‘top down’ revelation of the first four books, revealed TO Moshe, and the more earthy revelation, THROUGH Moshe, connected to the Torah of the land.

Thus we are reminded of the 3 way corresponding parallels from the Sefer Yetzirah- Olam, Shana, Nefesh= space, time, and person, where what happens in one, also happens in the other two. Here the parallels are the idea of creating a bridge between what seems to be mutually exclusive domains. I’m sure you can see how all this relates to the themes of Shabbos that we have been exploring this year. The practices of Shabbos preparations, as well as the escorting of Shabbos into the week, are all part of making these bridges. The mystical rationale for these customs is to remind us that if, as we say in Shema, everything is related to the Oneness of the Divine, then there cannot be an absolute separation in these dimensions. In fact, the two challot we have at meals are called ‘Lechem Mishneh’ double bread, to refer to the bridge aspect of Shabbos itself.

A final example is conveyed in the well-known reason given by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchov as to why this Shabbos is called ‘Shabbat Chazon,’ the Sabbath of the Vision.’ The explicit reason is that the Haftarah begins with the words, ‘Chazon Yeshayahu’, the vision of Isaiah. The Rebbe explains the term ‘vision’ with a story. A father gave his growing young son his first pair of long pants. The boy went to play and tore the pants. Later he gave him a second pair which the boy got very dirty. Finally the father prepared a third pair but didn’t give it directly to the boy. He said, ‘When I feel that you are grown up enough to take good care of the pants, then I will give it to you. In the meantime, I will show it to you once in a while.’ The point? G-d allowed us to have two holy temples but the people were not behaving well enough to deserve them. So on the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, we are shown a VISION of the third Beit Hamikdash which is actually a composite of the first temple that was more miraculous, and the second temple, which was made with more human effort. Hopefully, our souls will be stirred by this vision enough to make up our minds to behave with more dedication to the Torah and to Jewish values, especially the ones that build bridges between conflicting perspectives. May this year be the year where our father in heaven is truly consoled because his children are getting along so famously!