Weekly Torah Portion - Va'Etchanan (Deut. 3:23 - 7:11)

Something very sweet and positive happened today. An Arab man from the city of Hebron gave a "LIKE" to a post on my Facebook page ("Jewish Inspiration") with a quote from the Mishnah (an ancient Jewish text). How amazing it is! It gives me strength and motivation to keep running this page. At the moment there are over 500 people who like the page. I hope to have more soon.

To write this blog today I came to a hotel lobby in East Jerusalem. I walked here all the way from the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus, going through the Arab neighborhoods and the streets (Mt. Olive road and Nablus road), and feeling so free and happy that this is my city and I can walk here freely. The streets are so beautiful! Only recently I had the courage to come here, to walk here, and discover these areas. Up until not too long ago this part of the city was beyond the horizon to me, so to speak, a place you know exists, but to which you never go.The people on the streets here are mostly indifferent. I don't feel much hostility, and it is good. I'll keep coming here.

This week's Torah Portion is that of Va'Etchanan ("I implored"), Deuteronomy 3:23 - 7:11. In it, Moses begs to G-d to let him enter the Promised Land, but G-d refuses, and asks Moses not to pray to Him about this matter any more. He will only merit to see the land from afar, but not to get into it.
A few points to mention here:
First, seeing how the great Moshe wanted to enter the Land and couldn't, I feel so humbled. He couldn't, but I can. He would have given anything in the world just to merit to sit here, where I sit now, and see the hills of this Land with his own eyes, just like I do. It makes me feel grateful that I have the merit to live here, to walk here, to breathe the air here. It is something that generations of Jews could only dream about, and here I am, living their dream, almost taking it for granted sometimes. A point to remember on dark days.
Second, sometimes we want something so badly, we pray and pray and ask G-d to grant us what we want, but His answer is NO. We cry, we try to fight it, but nothing helps. No is no. It often happens with things in our lives that are our Promised Land, the things we want most in life, but can't get, often things we were supposed to have but lost due to our mistakes. If it happened to Moshe (Moses), it is OK that it should happen to any of us.
Third, Moshe was not buried by men, and no one knows his burial site, so we can't go there. One of the reasons for that is to make sure that Moshe will not turn into a "god". It comes to ensure that people will not start to worship him and pray to him and treat him like a god. For he is not. He was our savior, he still is, considering the fact that it is the Torah that he brought down to us that we keep learning for thousands of years now, on a daily basis. And this Torah is the basis for other faiths who sprang up from it. All thanks to him. So his influence is not just on us, but on almost every person in the world today. But still, G-d is one, and Moshe is just his emissary, not a second "god", G-d forbid.

In this portion is one of the verses that I like most. It was one of the (many) verses in the Bible that opened my eyes to the truth of the words of the Torah and the Prophets. Before I quote it, I will tell the background. Many years ago I was a student in Japan. I was secular back then, but like most Israelis I believed in G-d. I just didn't think the Bible was G-d's word. But G-d has different ways and many different emissaries to help open a person's eyes. When I was in Japan, and when I visited Korea, whenever I met new people and we introduced ourselves, they would say: "Oh, you're from Israel? Then you must be very smart!". The first time I heard it, it amused me. "If only they knew how many people I know back home who are not so smart...", I thought to myself wryly. The next times I heard it, it started annoying, even scaring me. Without even knowing me, just by hearing that I am Jewish, they made a definite conclusion that I must be very smart. It smelled of prejudice, and it could be dangerous. What else would they assume about me without knowing me? It started bothering me. I carried this tormenting question in my mind for a few days, and then on a certain Shabbat I went to the Synagogue in the city where I lived, to have a Shabbat meal with Israeli food. I took out a Bible on a whim from the book shelf, and opened it randomly, not knowing why I did this. Just like that. The book opened on this week's Portion, on the following verse, which helped change my life: "... For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, that, when they hear all these statutes, shall say: 'Surely, this great nation is a wise and understanding people'." (Deut. 4:6). I paused. I felt shivers down my spine and chills all over my body. Here I was, a student in a far away country in the other end of the earth, and everywhere I went, people concluded that I must be very intelligent without even knowing me, just by hearing that I was from Israel. And here this ancient text, black on white, written more than 3000 years ago, and the reality that this verse describes is my own reality. It was one of the 'cracks' in my shield that helped me realize that the Torah is true. The verse just prior to this one says that we should keep G-d's commandments, and this is a condition for our wisdom. And indeed, it is mainly through the mechanism of us clinging to our faith and observing the Mitzvot (commandments) that we were kept as a separate nation, with our tradition of loving and learning the Torah. This, and the blessing of G-d to Abraham ("you shall be a blessing to all nations"), are the source of this perceived wisdom.

When I visited Korea (no need to say South Korea, right? If I had visited North Korea I wouldn't be sitting here writing this blog today), I stayed at a special guest house (Kim's Family Guesthouse - recommended if you're ever in Seoul!). The woman who runs the place, Sunny, told me that in every household that respects itself in Korea there is a copy of the Talmud. I told her: "What? A copy of the Talmud?!" Being "secular" then, I don't think I ever even saw a copy of the Talmud, and here this Korean lady tells me that they have it in every household in her country. "Why?", I asked her in disbelief. Then she said that education is very important to Koreans, and since the way the Jews educate their children produces geniuses (her words), then Koreans want to replicate this method of education to make their children geniuses too. Needless to say, I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. I was shocked. Years later I realized that even though they think that what they have in their homes is the "Talmud", what they really have is a short introductory book (I would title it "Talmud 101"), written by a Jewish rabbi about the Talmud. That Rabbi had it translated to Korean, and they cling to it with reverence as if it is the real thing (the real Talmud is made of a few big volumes, it is a very big book). I find it very sweet and admirable. I'm sure that after reading it they know much more than any secular person here ever does, but not even a fraction of what a religious man here does. Still, it's something!

Throughout all this Portion, Moshe repeats the importance of us keeping the Mitzvot (commandments) for ever, not just the generation of the desert, but all generations into the future. There is such a big emphasis on it. It reminds me of another story: 

Last year I visited Norway. I still have friends there from my previous visit there in the fall of 2006. A friend of mine organized a few salon-talks for me. We gathered, every time in another home, with a different group of people, for a talk about Judaism and Israel. In each of these homes there was a lot of delicious-looking food served. Everyone was eating. And yet, even though I was hungry (I lost some weight there) I kept the Kosher laws and restricted myself only to what I could eat. It wasn't much. It wasn't easy, physically or socially, but I was determined to do it, and I did. 

One of the participants in one of the talks later came to Israel for the first time in her life. I met her here, in Jerusalem and we had a long, pleasant talk. She told me that when she saw how I was eating (or not eating, "like Daniel"), she realized that it's through such commandments that G-d kept the Jews as a separate nation, and that His covenant with us is still alive, that He has a plan for us, and that we don't need to go in the pathway of all the other nations. I was shocked and excited to hear it from her. Of course, I knew it myself all along, but it was quite emotional for me to hear someone who comes from a different faith say such things to me. She isn't the only one. Other people have told me so too after seeing me eating "like Daniel". But it was so nice to hear about it from her, and the way she said it! 

When I was in Norway someone asked me why I don't eat the food, is it because I think it's not clean or tasty? The answer was absolutely not! The food looked clean and the fresh, and most delicious. So why didn't I eat? Not because I didn't want to, believe me - I wanted to eat every bite of it! The only reason I didn't eat, is because G-d commanded me not to eat certain things! 

If it's not clear, think about Adam and Eve in Eden. Here there was a beautiful fruit (let's say an "apple"). A beautiful, red, fresh apple. There was nothing wrong with this apple. The only reason why Adam and Eve should have avoided eating it is not because it was bad, but because G-d told them not to eat it. That's it! The apple itself was probably great, but G-d said no, so no it is, and that's it! If only they had kept this one Mitzvah... 

When we keep Kosher, we fix on a daily basis a part of that original sin. When we keep the commandments, we show G-d that we cling to His word, and even though we're hungry in a beautiful foreign land, we will not eat that which He told us not to eat. Only that which we are allowed to it, we will. And the result of this is that people around us start opening their eyes and realizing that our covenant with G-d is a living one and that G-d has a plan for us. 

By the way, the nations of the world also have commandments they are supposed to keep, and the righteous gentiles keep them: these are 7 basic commandments, but in reality there are more than 50 commandments that the righteous gentiles keep. We will discuss them some other time. 

Thank you, and Shabbat Shalom!

Rev.