Ki Thavo: Arriving

The annual Torah cycle brings us to Ki Thavo in the fall, as the calendar year fades, as the high holidays approach. In the Northern hemisphere, the natural world shows signs of aging: the leaves have their fall colors, animals prepare for hibernation.  The seasons are a cycle, but fall, as the days become shorter, feels like the beginning of the end. It is the threshold of the final arrival. 

Moses knows that he will die when Israelites enter the promised land. He delivers his strongest prophecy, predictions of destruction and glory, that have palpably come to pass. 

Historical records have become increasingly detailed. When the Torah was written, the parchment and scribal services were so expensive that only sparse details could be preserved. Printing expanded the view. The camera and the movie brought immediacy. The film footage of the holocaust does not capture the scope of the horror; most of the abuses and murders were hidden. The viewer needs to multiply the visualized horror by an unfathomable factor.  Now, with AI's ability to create images, there is a significant danger of deception - and multiplying the deception out of habit. 

The first chastisement is confusion. The detailed description is introduced:

אֶת־הַמְּאֵרָ֤ה אֶת־הַמְּהוּמָה֙ וְאֶת־הַמִּגְעֶ֔רֶת

The curse, the confusion and the ….

הַמִּגְעֶ֔רֶת ( Hamigereth) is a unique word that appears only once in the canon text (a hapax legomenon).

Rashi translates

המארה  (hama’eyrah) means PAUCITY and המהומה   (hamihumah) A TERRIFYING SOUND.

Rashi does not translate הַמִּגְעֶ֔רֶת. (Hamigereth)

Targum translates the word: מְזוֹפִיתָא  (mizofitha): frustration, vexation.  Perhaps this is a reflexive translation. It  reflects the frustration of translating a word that appears only once.

This ambiguity of the word begins to convey the horror. After a curse and confusion, there is something bad, probably worse, coming and what it is... is unclear. Obscurity and uncertainty add to the dread. Trepidation is possibly the worst emotion I have felt. 

This is the season of apprehension. The world is changing around us. It gets colder. The leaves fall.  The weather is more unpredictable. We begin selichoth, the extra prayers begging forgiveness for what we have done  and what we have failed to do.  We use this prayer formula because we are not sure that we remember or recognize all of our errors and failings. We do not understand how Gd  answers our prayers.  Will we suffer for our own good? How will we fit into the Big Plan?

The degradation and destruction and desolation described in the parsha is national, not individual. Personal suffering is subsumed into the collective. Is there an obligation for  the individual to move the nation toward good? It would seem so.  Failure leads to personal pain and the torture of watching others suffer. 

For me, the GOOD is confusing. Torah is a nationalist treatise that favors the Israelite although it affords some rights to most other peoples. I grew up in the USA. I was taught that the tolerance value: respect for all people is the saving grace... and my family was the beneficiary of that grace. As I have learned more, I am skeptical  about the practice of that tolerance value... and in the current era, it seems to be dying. To me, tolerance remains an appealing value...something to fight for. 

The curse is presented as a progression. It starts with natural disasters – drought and disease  - and  progresses to defeat , exile and subjugation. The atrocities described evoke the holocaust. It is distressing that this ancient text, describing the most repulsive scenes Moshe can imagine,  does not quite equal the reality of Poland in 1942.

How did this text prepare the Jews in the Eastern European exile?  When the persecution came, did they see it as the expected fulfillment of the prophecy? Did the passage, heard (by many) innumerable  times since childhood, add a sense of familiarity to the persecution? Was there some comfort in the prediction? Did it make the nation more cooperative and thus help the evil enemy?

Today's daf yomi (Horayoth 12a) relates to the parsha. One of the last kings of Judea, יְהוֹאָחָז, Yeho-ochaz, was anointed, presumably with the anointing oil  that Moses had formulated and has been preserved for such occasions. But the gemarrah argues that the authentic anointing oil had been sequestered: 

But isn’t it taught in a baraita: When the Ark of the Covenant was sequestered, the anointing oil, and the jar of manna (see Exodus 16:33), and Aaron’s staff with its almonds and blossoms (see Numbers 17:23), and the chest that the Philistines sent as a gift to Israel, were all sequestered...

And who sequestered the Ark? Josiah, king of Judea, sequestered it, as he saw that it is written in the Torah in the portion of rebuke: “The Lord will lead you, and your king whom you shall establish over you, unto a nation that you have not known” (Deuteronomy 28:36). He commanded and the people sequestered them,...

The prophetic prediction of the downfall of the Jewish monarchy motivated the removal of the equipment needed for its validated continuation. Was this an act of hope for a better, but distant, future? Was the anointing oil hidden to prevent the recognition of pretenders to the throne? 

I worry that the current crest in the cycle, the glory period, is ending. I always enter this season: selichoth, fall, end of the year - with trepidation.  This year, quite a bit more. 

 Ki Theitze: Justice

To be charitable, you must have enough for yourself.  A person struggling to survive: hungry, dirty, poorly shod ,cannot afford to give. That model soon melts when we consider the social aspects. In a family, members will sacrifice more to support each other. The parsha talks to people who have more than they absolutely need and instructs them to curb their advantages over the less powerful. This is the religious teaching that feels right and good. It is just what we hoped Gd would say. The worker must be paid in a timely manner; the debtor cannot be made destitute by compound interest, the pawn shop client deserves  a measure of dignity.

To get to that part of the parha we must get through the beginning. The parsha opens with the soldier who  risked his life for the vision of victory and has captured a fantasy; a dream of lust (and perhaps love). A month-long disfigurement ritual is prescribed before the kidnapper  is permitted to fulfill the remnant of that passion. He is given a chance to give up the fantasy before embarking on the next set of consequences, including the abhorred child who cannot be disinherited.

The subsequent verse is what brings us to the comfortable Gd:

וְהָיָ֞ה אִם־לֹ֧א חָפַ֣צְתָּ בָּ֗הּ וְשִׁלַּחְתָּהּ֙ לְנַפְשָׁ֔הּ וּמָכֹ֥ר לֹא־תִמְכְּרֶ֖נָּה בַּכָּ֑סֶף לֹא־תִתְעַמֵּ֣ר בָּ֔הּ תַּ֖חַת אֲשֶׁ֥ר עִנִּיתָֽהּ׃ {ס}        

Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money: since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.

There is a limit to the abuse. This captive, in the end, must be respected. She cannot be transformed into a chattel slave. She is granted personhood. It is an expensive journey for the victim. 

 Power over others leads to consequences, and the human lord is not omniscient. Every act has thousands of consequences. Some of them must be considered; and their unfathomable number should be appreciated

This is a parsha of obligations. People perform  acts and situations arise:   and here are instructions for handling them.  Some obligations devolve from previous decisions: marriage, hiring workers, etc. Others devolve from circumstances: lost objects, disease. Many of these duties are consequences of previous decisions.

The exercise of power effects change, sometimes progress.  One person becomes richer, more powerful, than another. The entitlement that results from this difference in wealth is taken as a ( Divine)  reward by the winner. The (cheated?) people who did the actual production are sidelined. This model of justice is not abandoned in this parsha. There is merely an attempt to limit the damage. 

The text goes on to deal with the problem of two wives, each of  whom has an heir. The lesser wife bears the first born, the child with the right to the double portion.  Love for the  other wife cannot eclipse the actual birth order  (cf Abraham and Isaac [Ishmael]). The rules surpass sensibility. This is a justice that devolves from fate ( or Divine intervention?) 

The next section deals with the wayward child, stoned for  intractability. In the Midrashic interpretation, this is the end result of the captive marriage that opened the parsha. It is what emerges from disregarding the warnings.

The Midrash Tanchuma at this point,  relates the story of  Avshalom.  Avshalom was the son of Maacah,  whom David had taken as a wife as a spoil of war. Avshalom named his daughter  after his mother. Perhaps he carried some of his mother's resentment for her captivity and the slaughter  of her people.  Avshalom  attempted a coup; he would replace his father, David, as king.  There is no greater turning away and rebellion. Absalom, fleeing from David's army, is caught by his hair ( an echo of the hair that the captive woman must shave off?). This rebellion of this son may have stemmed from some allegiance to his mother's tribe and defense of her honor. The rebel son is the offspring of his captive mother.

There is a chiastic structure to the parsha.  The end reflects the beginning.  The parsha opens with a victory against an unidentified enemy.  It ends with the obligation to obliterate the memory of  Israel’s eternal enemy, Amalek.

The Amalek of my parent's generation. the Nazis, tried to annul the material progress the Jews had achieved.  As the Jews were emerging from their oppression of disenfranchisement in Europe, now able to achieve their newfound dreams; just as they were seeing the European enlightenment as an alternate path to the Old Torah that taught them to eternally hate Amalek, the force of cancellation rose (again?) to create another eternal enemy, whose memory must be erased and can never be forgotten.

Now Jew-hatred is fueled by reports that the state of Israel is violating what many of the laws in this week’s parsha have evolved into: human rights. It is such a severe accusation that the attempt to find justification feels uncomfortable. There are tradeoffs. Greater concern for civilians means more soldiers are killed and wounded. Does victory bring a better peace than settlement?  I cannot validate a murderously  antisemitic organization Hamas. I just want it to end. I want it never to happen again. Justice is a dream. 

 

Shoftim: Justice

The parsha commands the appointment of  judges and officers: 

שֹׁפְטִ֣ים וְשֹֽׁטְרִ֗ים תִּֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ בְּכׇל־שְׁעָרֶ֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְ

 נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ לִשְׁבָטֶ֑יךָ וְשָׁפְט֥וּ אֶת־הָעָ֖ם מִשְׁפַּט־צֶֽדֶק׃

You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the LORD your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice.

The method of appointment is not specified. Perhaps the book of Judges, the history of Israel after the death of Joshua ( Joshua was the last Divinely appointed leader in the Torah) and before the establishment of the monarchy of Saul and, subsequently David and Solomon, can clarify this issue.  The שֹׁפְטִ֣ים, "Judges" described in that book are the de facto leaders of Israel, people of spirit,  who rise to an occasion ( often a battle)  and bring victory.  The book of Judges ends: 

בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֔ם אֵ֥ין מֶ֖לֶךְ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אִ֛ישׁ הַיָּשָׁ֥ר בְּעֵינָ֖יו יַעֲשֶֽׂה׃ 

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did as they pleased.

This  rugged individualism  was forbidden  in last week's parsha

לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֔וּן כְּ֠כֹ֠ל אֲשֶׁ֨ר אֲנַ֧חְנוּ עֹשִׂ֛ים פֹּ֖ה הַיּ֑וֹם אִ֖ישׁ כׇּל־הַיָּשָׁ֥ר בְּעֵינָֽיו׃ 

You shall not act at all as we now act here, each of us as we please,

This week's parsha gives  instructions on how to behave once Israel has moved on from its nomadic phase, after the destiny has been manifest. There will be a system of centralized justice, administered on a local and regional ( tribal) basis. When travelling, ad hoc decisions, that depend upon rapidly changing circumstances, were needed.  Once the nation settled, a central authority was feasible and  took over.

A centralized system selects the most expert judge as the final authority. It may also include the largest number of opinions.  The  centralized system may also be the most politicized. Who sets the criteria for expertise? Whose opinions are allowed into consideration? In our world ,any opinion  can go viral ( consider the etymology: from the Latin noun virus, meaning "poison"). Large language models and search engines (the source of popular "truth")  will favor the most frequently quoted opinion and are liable to commercial influence. This is how the system evolved. In the parsha we are looking at the seeds. 

The appointment of judges and the establishment of a hierarchy emphasizes the ongoing need for re-interpretation of the laws that were set in stone. The book of Numbers presents examples of the need for resolving confusing aspects. What does one do with a blasphemer?  What if someone gathers sticks on the Sabbath? What are the inheritance rights of women?  In all these cases, Moshe had to reconsult Gd for clarity. Whom can the modern judge consult? Will Gd guide the judge to the right answer in a covert manner?  More likely the answer will advance the Divine plan, and sometimes a judgment is limited to its time.

 Adherence to the decision of the judges is a separate issue, but is (usually) strongly (and physically) encouraged. Such adherence is commanded by the Torah. I am sure this order does not extend to the Nuremberg Laws  or serving in the US Army in Viet Nam.

The end of the parsha, the beheaded heifer of regret over the unsolved  murder, involves an assembly of the judges. It is a declaration of failure of the system. It did not work as intended: 

וְכׇל־הָעָ֖ם יִשְׁמְע֣וּ וְיִרָ֑אוּ וְלֹ֥א יְזִיד֖וּן עֽוֹד׃ {ס}         

all the people will hear and be afraid and will not act presumptuously again.

The elders wash their hands of this unsolved murder. 

וְכֹ֗ל זִקְנֵי֙ הָעִ֣יר הַהִ֔וא הַקְּרֹבִ֖ים אֶל־הֶחָלָ֑ל יִרְחֲצוּ֙ אֶת־יְדֵיהֶ֔ם עַל־הָעֶגְלָ֖ה הָעֲרוּפָ֥ה בַנָּֽחַל׃ 

Then all the elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi. 

וְעָנ֖וּ וְאָמְר֑וּ יָדֵ֗ינוּ לֹ֤א (שפכה) [שָֽׁפְכוּ֙] אֶת־הַדָּ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה וְעֵינֵ֖ינוּ לֹ֥א רָאֽוּ׃ 

And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.

If they are so innocent, why are they washing their hands? They are acknowledging the failure ... and the need to go on.

I live in an age when I feel compelled to have an opinion about how my governments act. They are acting in the name of my people, in my name. I do not have enough information to know the righteous path. I mistrust my sources of information. All I have are feelings.  How should I act?  Will Divine guidance drive me to righteousness... or is that not part of the plan? Striving for  righteousness is all I've got. I will aim for that. 

Re'eh: the invisible hand

The parsha opens with רְאֵה: re'eh: see!  It then proceeds to instruct the reader to see a blessing and a curse that is laid before him.  It bids us to see something that is not visible. These pronouncements would be unintelligible to a machine, the machine would detect an error: one cannot see  blessings or curses ... or the future.

Clearly, this re'eh does not mean the usual eye-retina-optic tract-occipital cortex vision. Perhaps re'eh is better translated: imagine, generate the image. There is no object to be seen, only memories, ideas, dreams that can be synthesized into a vision.

One of my most vivid memories from medical school (a recollection that I can envision) is a lecture by the Nobel prize winning neuroscientist , Eric Kandel.  It was entitled: "Seeing is believing but touching is the real thing."  The lecture dealt with the complexity of the visual pathway in the brain.  The points of sensation of light in the retina are processed into lines and the lines are turned into faces.  Vision is always an amalgamation of what is there and what we think should be there. The nervous systems inputs into the process block most humans from perceiving reality as it “truly” is.  Walter Isaacson in his biography of  Leonardo Da Vinci says that Leonardo was able to represent the true fuzziness of edges, presumably how things really are -  devoid of the neuroprocessing that simplifies the world for most us.  That is why the Mona Lisa follows the viewer with her eyes.

The distortion of physical reality that constitutes vision (as we experience it) serves our daily lives very well, presumably better than a purer picture. The process implies that seeing prepares for the future. What we see opens possibilities and the neuroprocessing chooses, and thus narrows, the options. 

The future aspect of the parsha is emphasized by the phrase הַמָּק֞וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַ֨ר , The place where Gd will establish to rest Gd's name.  It is introduced in this week's parsha.  It appears 12 times in the Torah, all in Deuteronomy,  seven of them in this week's parsha. It is a strange phrase, implying a future decision or revelation by Gd. Although Moses can name Grizim and Avel, mountains on the other side of the Jordan River (a place that Moses would never reach), he cannot designate Jerusalem, the city that we now commonly understand is The Place. Hundreds of years later, David made Jerusalem, in territory that bordered Benjamin and Judah, the great capital.  This was when the Hebrew people united in their great, but transient, ascendancy.

 The identity of the city was hidden from Moses and from us at this point in the story. The phrase is written in the future tense, The Place had not yet been chosen. Is this a challenge to Divine omniscience?  Had Gd not yet decided on the location of The Place, the locus of the  great ritualized feast, the pilgrimage, the Haj? 

I find it comforting that this decision was held in abeyance. Circumstances would be a component of the choice. Although it makes the story more complex, this approach gives human choice a hand in the final determination.  Putting the human - with its mixtures of motivations and political battles- into the mix allows us to question the outcome

I do not think this challenges omniscience severely. In the world that does not invoke the deity, I can understand the accuracy of a prediction depending upon the amount of data and the accuracy of the model. Some predictions are more reliable than others. Predictions for large groups over short times can be close to 100%. Predictions for individuals (prognoses) are almost always wrong for anything but the most determined outcomes (everyone dies). The nature of Divine prediction is mysterious. I do not require that it be measured differently. Gd knows all the important things that will happen. Perhaps Gd assures that they will happen.  The details are subject to alterations, they are fuzzy, they leave room for free will. 

Choices were made that led to the establishment and maintenance of the current State of Israel. The visions that went into its (re)birth were quite varied. What we have is the result of those varied dreams and their evolution.  Is this the hand of Gd?  Could this be the way the system works?  

Eikev: The Ask

 

Eikev:  The Ask

 

Deuteronomy Chapter 10 verse 12 is striking:

וְעַתָּה֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל מָ֚ה יְ

שֹׁאֵ֖ל מֵעִמָּ֑ךְ כִּ֣י אִם־לְ֠יִרְאָ֠ה אֶת־יְ

לָלֶ֤כֶת בְּכׇל־דְּרָכָיו֙ וּלְאַהֲבָ֣ה אֹת֔וֹ וְלַֽעֲבֹד֙ אֶת־יְ

בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ֖ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשֶֽׁךָ׃

 

And now, Yisra᾽el, what does the Lord thy God

require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God

 to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God

with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

The Koren Jerusalem Bible

It is a long sentence that is mysterious on purpose.

Taken as a whole, this verse is problematic because the question: what does the Lord thy God ask of you, implies  a request that is easily fulfilled. The word שֹׁאֵ֖ל, translated as “require” by Koren and “ask“by Shocken, evolves to mean “borrow.” In the Talmud, it means lending an object for free. It is something that is so easy to lend, that withholding it is miserly and mean. It is the word used to borrow a pen. The lender does not profit monetarily, the gain is purely emotional and spiritual.

The answer : to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, seems to be a huge demand.  It involves an action that encompasses the entire being of the donor.

The Talmud (Megilla 25a) recognizes the inconsistency of the question and answer:

מִכְּלָל דְּיִרְאָה מִילְּתָא זוּטַרְתִּי הִיא?! אִין, לְגַבֵּי מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ מִילְּתָא זוּטַרְתִּי הִיא. מָשָׁל לְאָדָם שֶׁמְּבַקְּשִׁין הֵימֶנּוּ כְּלִי גָּדוֹל וְיֵשׁ לוֹ — דּוֹמֶה עָלָיו כִּכְלִי קָטָן. קָטָן וְאֵין לוֹ — דּוֹמֶה עָלָיו כִּכְלִי גָּדוֹל.

This proves by inference that fear of Heaven is a minor matter. Can it in fact be maintained that fear of Heaven is a minor matter? The Gemara responds: Indeed, for Moses our teacher, fear of Heaven is a minor matter. It is comparable to one who is asked for a large vessel and he has one; it seems to him like a small vessel because he owns it. However, one who is asked for just a small vessel and he does not have one, it seems to him like a large vessel.

The problem of the impact of the text is recognized.  Rabbi Chanina’s solution is a recognition of Moshe’s greatness and, by implication, the inadequacy of ordinary mortals.  This solution could make the Torah more aspirational. It tempts me to give up. Nevertheless, I respect the recognition of the problem.

 

Rashi chooses the quote from Rabbi Chanina that precedes this statement as his comment on the verse:

כי אם ליראה וגו'. וְרַבּוֹתֵינוּ דָּרְשׁוּ מִכָּאן הַכֹּל בִּידֵי שָׁמַיִם חוּץ מִיִּרְאַת שָׁמַיִם (ברכות ל"ג):

EXCEPT TO FEAR — Our Rabbis derived from this: that everything is in the hands of God except the fear of God (Berakhot 33b).

This statement of nearly complete fatalism may be a way to put the “request”  ( translated by JPS as “demand”) in context.  Throughout the chapter, we are reminded that all the good in the world, all the unexpected victories, are gifts from a Gd who has chosen to be benevolent.

הֵ֚ן לַ

הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וּשְׁמֵ֣י הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכׇל־אֲשֶׁר־בָּֽהּ׃

Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens belongs to the Lord thy God, the earth also, with all that is on it.

The request Is small relative to the reward . We fear the Lrd and in return, we have everything that we have ( and a shot at everything we want).  The Bechor Shor mentions this approach.  

[This week, a friend who has become prominent in the Seattle Orthodox community, mentioned a Torah website that was unfamiliar: AlHatorah.   He called it a more learned Sefaria.  Its page on this verse prominently quotes the Bechor Shor immediately below Rashi ( the most widely accepted commentator). When I opened the Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk’s novel about the Jacob Frank  heresy ( and indirect excuse for the indifference of the Polish people to the plight of the Jews in their midst)  the third paragraph caught me:

 

Yenta blinks and just barely lifts her eyelids again. She sees the agonized face of Elisha Shorr, who leans in over her. She tried to smile, but that much power over her face she can't quite summon. Elisha Shorr's brow is furrowed.

I knew I was dealing with the descendants of the Bechor Shor. ]

 

My limited exposure to Christianity makes this verse disquieting; it sounds like a source for the disciple Paul. All that is required is an act of faith.  This is not the prevailing Jewish interpretation.  Rather, the request/demand emphasizes the infinite extent  of the motivation to adhere to the commandments. It is a call to action and restraint. Faith is generally not enough ( unless it is all you have).

As I reflected on this verse, I realize that the ask is familiar. It is what a spouse asks of himself and mate. It what a parent asks of herself relative to her child.  It is the request that constitutes a dimension of love.

The first word of the verse : וְעַתָּה֙  and now, presents the problem of which now. Is it the now of the Moses speaking to the Israelites? This generates a powerful spectrum of images, but removes relevance to the current. Is the the now that is the present and the nows that will be the future?  Real events come to challenge the basis for gratitude and the manipulation of viewpoint.

What can you do when someone asks for love?

I put some additional commentaries and my previous writings into Notebook LM, a remarkable(frightening) AI explainer.

Here is a link  to a slide show and much more : https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/9c460702-5a29-4957-9a9f-852c98d49565?artifactId=49e4686d-6b43-4684-af62-8a8e028219b1

 

 

 

Ve’ethchanan: grace and rest

  Ve’ethchanan: grace and rest

When I learned Hebrew in school, it was different from the natural language learning that happens by immersion.  I learned roots, three letter groupings that were attached to modifying letters. That root analysis is still often necessary for me to understand a Hebrew word. I came to feel that these roots are close to the neurologic underpinnings of language: how sounds convey thoughts and feelings.  Since languages evolve, that kind of analysis can often lead to error,  misunderstanding. Still, I find the process interesting, independent of its applicability to accurate translation. 

The first word of this week’s parsha וָאֶתְחַנַּ֖ן begs for this kind of deconstruction. We need to go three letters into the word to get beyond the modifiers. The root: חַנַּ֖ן chanan, is related to חן, hayn. This is a Hebrew word, translated as “favor” or “grace”  that is appropriated into Yiddish ( my instinctive, first language), intact. In Yiddish, hayn comes to mean charming, appealing.  In Yiddish hayn is immortalized by the song Bei Mir Bist du sheyn Bei Mir hast du hayn. 

In the Torah, חן is well translated as "favor." The verb מָ֥צָא, found, is usually associate with hayn.  Typically, the phrase  in the Torah is some variation of מָ֥צָא חֵ֖ן, find favor,  and it commonly precedes the request for, or the granting of, a favor, a special request, an act of love toward an individual. Hayn is the aspect of love that rejoices in pleasing the beloved. , Hayn is a tension, a gentle demand. 

Rashi comments on this first word:

ואתחנן. אֵין חִנּוּן בְּכָל מָקוֹם אֶלָּא לְשׁוֹן מַתְּנַת חִנָּם

All forms of the verb חנן signify a free gift

This Rashi seems sensitive to the similarity between  heyn, favor, and hinam, freely given. It is an insight into the mystery of the allocation of this willingness to please.

 Moshe prays for this favor, hayn,  to be bestowed upon him. He prays for a reprieve from the edict that bars him from entering the promised land. It is a prayer that is subsequently repeated by the exiled descendants of the people that Moses led for thousands of years. Layers of meaning adhere to this plea. It is the prayer that  inspires the kinoth, the elegies, that we recite on Tisha Ba’av, the day of mourning that we observed last week, the mourning for which this Shabbath is supposed to be a comfort. 

This Shabbat is designated נַחֲמ֥וּ, Nachamu, the Shabbat of consolation. It is named for the first words of the Haftarah, but its emotional meaning relates to the Tisha BaAv we recently observed.  Tisha Ba Av was  the fast commemorating:

     the destruction of the Jewish Commonwealth, 

the descent of the Jews into a state of powerless degradation, 

the terrible consequences of that powerlessness. 

This Shabbath, and the parsha and haftarah that are recited on it, is the consolation that is bestowed upon mourners of Zion.

Ve'ethchan Begins with Moshe pleading with Gd, asking for favor. He is rejected with prejudice.

 רַב־לָ֔ךְ אַל־תּ֗וֹסֶף  דַּבֵּ֥ר אֵלַ֛י ע֖וֹד בַּדָּבָ֥ר הַזֶּֽה

“Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again!

This introduces the Torah  reading on this Shabbath of consolation. The bad thing will happen. Even  Moses  cannot  plead out of it. This is the model of how consolation works. It begins with acceptance. Moshe turns his disappointment into a message for the next generation, the generation  that will live in the Promised Land

Perhaps  the Israelites, also, would have preferred  to have Moses  lead them  into the Promised land. That makes Moshes's  speech that follows - with its reminiscence of Gd rescuing the Hebrews from  Egypt and delivering the tablets at Sinai - a part of the consolation.  Such reminiscences are what one hears at a  house  of mourning.

Nachamu also has a two letter root at its core: Nach. Nach means rest, the goal of comfort, nachama. The mourner, confused and agitated by the loss, is brought to a state of serenity by shared recollections of the departed. The Jewish people are comforted by the recollection of Gd’s continued involvement with them. 

  The first mention of hayn in the Torah is connected  with the letters of nach.  It is the last sentence in Bereshith, the first chapter of the Torah: 

וְנֹ֕חַ מָ֥צָא חֵ֖ן בְּעֵינֵ֥י יְ

And Noah found favor in the eyes of Gd. 

This short sentence emphasizes the relatedness of hayn and nach. Noah’s  name was derived from from nechama, comfort:

וַיִּקְרָ֧א אֶת־שְׁמ֛וֹ נֹ֖חַ לֵאמֹ֑ר זֶ֞֠ה יְנַחֲמֵ֤נוּ מִֽמַּעֲשֵׂ֙נוּ֙ וּמֵעִצְּב֣וֹן יָדֵ֔ינוּ

and he called his name Noaĥ, saying, This one shall comfort us for our work and the toil of our hands,

Nach and hayn are anadromes, words related by the reversal of letters. I do not think it is entirely coincidental. The gift that hayn seeks is nach. Entering the land, personally completing the life mission, would have brought Moshe nach, comfort, consolation, for all that he, and the Israelites, had endured. 

May we find favor in the eyes of Gd, and be granted respite from all strife… including the battles within ourselves.

Dvarim: things

We call this week's parsha Devarim, usually translated as "words." This translation fits the context. It precedes a speech delivered by Moses  that makes up (almost) all of the following book.  

Dvarim means more than speech. It means "things" This ambiguity of translation evokes Wittgenstein. Dvarim, as things, are what can be spoken of, matters that have have enough substance,  enough  Higgs boson,  gravitas, to bear  an opinion, an argument. 

Most of the text is about the conquest of the Promised Land.  For thousands of years, this topic was made of the dream substance. Seventy seven years ago, it became a real estate reality with all of the concerns that accompany that change - multiplied by the  evolutions of thinking that occurred over that time: universal rights, indigenous  claims, imperial shifts.  Now we have these things and words in our contemporary  context: a state of Israel constantly at war for years, pounded by a propaganda war that is designed to divide the Jewish people. 

Reading this week's parsha is difficult. The Israelites were instructed to take the land of the Amorites, Prizi, Jebusites, etc. Scouts were sent because the people wanted the intelligence. Moses thought it was a good idea, too. Their report of a land that was well defended catalyzed a refusal to follow Gd's order. Their brief episode of indecision  cost them dearly. They would not enter the land. They would be exiled to the desert for 40 years.  Their children would conquer the land. 

As a 21st century person, I would like to think that the reluctant generation was weighing many considerations. The  risk of being killed or wounded in a battle with a powerful enemy was one factor. But they also wrestled with the ethical issues of displacing and/or killing people. They recognized that these people had lived on that land for generations.  What kind of Gd orders conquest and slaughter? Perhaps these were the dominant thoughts that spurred the reluctance of the generation that had left Egypt. The Israelites had been tolerated in a foreign land for hundreds of years. Aren't other solutions  possible? 

Some of these considerations are recognized in this week's parsha. The lands of the descendants of Esau, Moab and Amon were off limits. They seem to have been promised to the nations that occupied them when the time for the Israelite conquest came. Moses makes a point of describing the powerful aboriginal people: the Rephaim, Chorim, Zumzumim, etc. who were conquered by the nations to which the lands had been (apparently been) promised. One can read these narratives as encouragements, stories that demonstrate Gd's ability to overcome  the human conceptions of overwhelming odds, and place nations on promised lands. I can also read them as justifications for the subsequent conquest. The people on the land had come to be there by virtue of past conquest and were, therefore, subject to the same kind of seizure. 

We live in a different world. Industrialization, airline travel, instant world communication has changed the meaning of territory. The Homeland has become a tax base, a border for tariffs and sometimes - a haven.  These changes translate the idea of conquest  from the military to the corporate.  The taking of turf is usually a subsidiary consideration ( except for the rare religious motivations and the need for a haven). 

Now the cowardice that keeps us in exile, alienated, is the inability to stand up the great controllers, the thought manipulators. Do not think that you understand their motives - their motives do not matter. 

Find your self.