Shabbat Va’etchanan by Nicola Feuchtwang
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 19 August 2019
Our reading this morning opened with words spoken by Moses:
VaEtchanan – “I pleaded with God at that time saying, ‘O God who let your servant see the first works of your greatness and your mighty hand, you whose powerful deeds no god in heaven or on earth can equal.
Let me, I pray you, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country, and the Lebanon.
But God was angry with me on your account and would not listen to me. God said to me ‘Enough! Never speak to me of this matter again
Go up to the summit of Pisgah and gaze about, to the west, the north, the south and the east. Look at it well, for you shall not go across this Jordan
Give Joshua his instructions and imbue him with strength and courage, for he shall go across at the head of this people and he shall allot them the land that you may only see
There is a well known Chasidic tale about Rabbi Zusya of Hanipol, a rebbe who lived in the 18th century. There are various versions; the most succinct being the one quoted by Martin Buber in his Tales of the Hasidim, as follows:
“Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?”
This little tale is often quoted in sermons, typically over the High Holydays. The take-home message is usually about each of us needing to ‘be ourself’, to stop worrying about the unattainable, and to make the most of our individual skills, talents and circumstances. Today I would like to think about another aspect of the tale, namely, whether we should ever aspire to be like Moses
But who would want to be Moses? Even if he was Moshe Rabbenu, our great teacher and leader.
Poor Moses. He never even applied for the job, he was only too aware that he didn’t have all the requisite skills, he had quite a difficult relationship with the people he was leading, and on more than one occasion he asked God relieve him of the responsibility . And yet, as Danny and Maureen read for us this morning, when told that his time is up, he begs, pleads with God to be allowed to enter the Promised Land.
The 15th century commentator Abarbanel explores Moses’ possible motives for this, and suggests several:
- Moses wants to be able to fulfil those mitzvot which can only be done in the land of Israel;
- he wants an opportunity to pray at Mount Moriah (the site of the Akedah, and the future site of the Temple)… but the reason which resonates most strongly for me is that
- Moses wants to be allowed to complete his life’s work, to see it through to its conclusion….
This is denied him. And to his credit, his first concern is then for the future leadership of the people, but he also then spends his last days addressing his people at length and reminding them of their own history
And so much of the book of Deuteronomy – and all of our sidrah today – is this old man telling the story as he remembers it – or as he wants the people (the children and grandchildren of those who came out of Egypt) to remember it. It is clearly the same outline story as we have heard in Exodus and Numbers, but the details are significantly different – who said or did what, and why
For example: In Numbers we heard that God instructed Moses to send spies – but here Moses says it was the people’s idea; in that story both Caleb and Joshua were positive about the Israelites’ chances of invading successfully, here only Caleb gets the credit. There are even significant discrepancies between the 10 commandments in Exodus, and Moses’ recollection of them in Deuteronomy, such as whether we are to ‘remember’ or to ‘observe’ Shabbat, and whether the key role of Shabbat is to recall Creation or to recall leaving Egypt.
So what is going on here?
Our commentators are always worried and intrigued by apparent discrepancies in our text. Is the old man remembering incorrectly? Is this just a typical leader, past his time, who cannot let go? (‘I did my bit; the problems were all your fault?’…)
Perhaps any of us who have held positions of responsibility do actually have some insight into how Moses felt. I think I do. Just over a year ago, I retired from the NHS job I had been doing for many years. And this summer I have also stepped down from my ‘lay leadership’ roles in this community as I move on to other adventures.
I am lucky: in both settings the decisions and the timing have been my choice
But:
How do I achieve a balance between my own need to feel that I have left a lasting imprint (a ’zekher’), and my responsibility to the future work of the department?;
say goodbye to patients without jeopardising their future relationships with my colleagues?;
how do I cope with handing over unfinished projects, not knowing whether or how they will be completed
how do I share and pass on what seems to me key knowledge about the history of children’s health services in the district; offer to remain accessible in future – and yet avoid becoming a kind of eminence grise, a ghost whose time has passed and yet who refuses to move on.
And if my version of events isn’t quite the same as that of “management”, how should my protégés and successors respond?
I listened this week to part of a Radio4 programme chaired by Stephen Fry about the links between language and memory. One of the psychologists he interviewed described research showing that:
“the way we talk about the stories of our lives has a profound impact on how those memories stay in our minds”
“even if the original experience was a cloud of sensations… of sounds and smells… as soon as you verbalise a memory, your brain sticks to the words”
And another explained how other people’s responses, their words and questions, can also shape our memories (actually he used the word ‘corrupt’).
(If you tell me about a trivial encounter with a shop assistant, and I smile and ask whether it was that lovely one who is always so helpful – it is likely to put a rosy glow on your memory; conversely when I told people about a burglary at my house, their shocked reactions actually made it feel even more frightening in hindsight than it had been at the time).
To return to Moses and our discrepant stories:
Perhaps “truth” is always much more complex and multifaceted than any one version of a story. After all, any event involving human experience will be perceived differently by each of us involved. What is more, with the passage of time, we may remember it – and tell it–differently, depending on our motives, our audience, our own understanding ….
Or maybe there is something bigger and even more important happening here, too. The former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in one of his ‘Covenant and Conversation’ essays draws detailed parallels between the structure of the book of Deuteronomy and the format of a typical Ancient Near East treaty or covenant between a greater and a lesser power. He argues that Moses’ recapitulation of our history is the standard ‘Historical Prologue’ which is needs to precede general and specific stipulations, sanctions, witnessing; setting the scene for the renewed relationship between God and the people once they are in the land. In other words, according to Sacks
“the entire book of Deuteronomy is a covenant on a monumental scale”
And what Moses is therefore doing is not just retelling the story as he would like it to be remembered, but also reframing it with the deliberate purpose of helping his listeners to go forward when he is no longer with them.
Each of us can only be ourself, a “Zusya” with our own individual skills, talents and circumstances. But perhaps – and especially as we start the countdown to the High Holydays – we can also learn from Moses that it is possible to reframe our stories constructively and purposefully; and we can pray for the strength to prioritise the future needs of our community, even when some of our own desires cannot be fulfilled.