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.