Ve'ethchanan: (The Quality of )Mercy

Ve'ethchanan: (The Quality of )Mercy

The parsha opens with Moshe's plea to enter the Promised Land, to obtain the reward the he had hoped for. The plea is rejected. 

"None like Moshe will arise again in Israel."  This is a line in Yigdal, the devotional hymn that opens the daily prayer  service.  Even Moshe-  who talked to Gd, who wrote the Torah, who overcame his dread and led the Israelites out of Egypt - does not obtain the prize he had hoped for. 

Most of the remainder of the parsha  is an exhortation to follow the commandments... so that you will obtain the reward.  If  you scrupulously carry out the mitzvoth, you will prosper in the land.  We, who cannot conceive of  the purity that Moshe attained will receive  as  payment for our puny actions and abstentions, that which was denied our foundational leader!  That is hard to believe!

Actually, the situation is different.  Entry into the land was not promised to Moshe.  For him, participating in the conquest of the Canaanite lands was a codicil, not part of the original contract.  For the audience of the parsha, life in the land of milk and honey is the basis of the agreement.  The parsha  is merely pointing out the conditions for fulfillment of the contract.  The Ten Commandments and the Shema are the way to avoid a breech. 

The plea, tachanun, is a request to go beyond the prior agreement.  What is the message of Gd's refusal to do so for Moshe?   How poignant  is the plea of  Portia in the Merchant of Venice?  What does our Tachanun mean, when Moshe's is rejected?

Do not expect anything that is not stated in writing.  But you can still ask. 

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.