Parashat Devarim, Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22

Third Haftarah of Rebuke Isaiah 1:1-27

Dear TBE Community,

The Women’s Torah Commentary (the green Torah commentaries of which we have some in the back of the sanctuary and in the Beit Midrash/Library), offers a section of poetry at the end of each parasha. This one, an excerpt from Lea Goldberg’s Poem of the Journey’s End, appears in the lyrical appendix for last week’s portion, Masei, which also marks the end of the book of Numbers:

1.

The path is so lovely – said the boy.

The path is so hard – said the lad.

The path is so long – said the man.

The grandfather sat on the side of the path to

to rest.

Sunset paints his grey head gold and red,

The grass glows at his feet in the evening dew,

Above him the day’s last bird sings:

—Will you remember how lovely, how hard,

           how long was the path?

2.

You said: Day chases day and night – night.

In your heart you said: Now the time has come.

You see evenings and mornings visit your

           window,

and you say: There is nothing new under

           the sun.

Now, with the days, you have whitened and

           aged

your days numbered and tenfold dearer,

and you know: Every day is the last under

           the sun,

and you know: Every day is new under the sun.

This poem fit last week’s theme of reviewing the journeys of the Israelites – and it fits this week’s opening parasha as well; in fact, the entire book of Deuteronomy: The last of the five books of Moses is largely a repetition, a review, a recounting of the paths the Israelites walked from Egypt to the cusp of the promised land, as told by Moses, who finally speaks – uninhibited, fluent – his own personal truth.

So much in Judaism is about transitioning and repeating, of the places in-between, between evening and morning, between joy and sorrow, between holding two perspectives. The Hasidic rabbi Simcha Bunim teaches us that we should have two slips of paper in our pockets. One on which is written: “For my sake, the world was created,” and another one on which is written: “I am but dust and ashes.”

Every day is the last under the sun. Every day is new under the sun.

Two days ago began the month of Av, and with that the last stretch of the three weeks leading up to the “saddest day on the Jewish calendar”, as it is often dubbed, Tisha b’Av. I am very appreciative of Cantor Ilan that he agreed to mark this day for and with the Temple Beth El in my absence, and I encourage everyone who is free and interested to join his Zoom session on Modern Kinot, elegies, next week, on July 22 at 7pm.

Some might ask why one would want to observe a sad moment in the happy days of summer, and Judaism’s answer is: Because there is sadness in summer, too. Because it behooves us to consider sadness when we’re reveling in the bounty of life. Judaism is too pragmatic and life-affirming than to lose itself in a Christian Baroque’s memento mori stance, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t acutely aware of the turning wheels of the universe that can take us from dancing to lamenting to dancing again – and that will take us from life to death.

But Tisha b’Av is not about death per se. It is about loss, and how to deal with it. Most Jewish summer camps across the denominational spectrum mark the day in one way or the other, be it by singing Israeli songs and dirges around a bonfire or by learning how to chant Eicha trope, by encouraging those interested in fasting or by learning lessons about hubris, destruction, and hope. In all cases, these more somber observances embedded in a succession of otherwise happy summer weeks do their part to instill a sense of Jewish resilience and identity in the children and teenagers by calling to mind what was lost, what can be lost – and what was regained, is still alive, going strong and here to stay. Judaism as a culture and religion could have disappeared after the destruction of the 2nd Temple – but the rabbis turned the mourning into new potential, the loss into gain, dust and ash into fertile soil, by rewriting, reassessing, reviewing the narrative that would lead Judaism into the future, to opening a new book.

From Porto, Portugal: Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Julia Knobloch