Parshat Devarim
by Rabbi Avi Billet
Moshe said, “God was also angry
at me… [as He] said, ‘You too shall not go there. Yehoshua bin-Nun… is the one
who will apportion it to Israel. As for your children of whom you said ‘They’ll
be taken captive,’ and your children who did not know good from evil this day –
they will come there. To them shall I give it and they shall possess it.’”
(Devarim 1:37-39)
Without going into too much of
the background, in this passage Moshe outlines who will be inheriting the land –
as the apportioner and the apportionees – and who will not be involved in the
process (Moshe himself).
His focus on the children being
the ones to inherit – along with the emphasis on good and evil – prompted the
Midrash Tanaim to explain that this is a reference to war. “They have to know
that it is God who wages war for you, and that you do not have to fight when
you are doing God’s will.” The Baal Haturim goes along similar lines when he
says exile would have never happened had the people not turned to sin.
Rabbi Yehuda Amital, the
founding Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion (“the Gush”), was appropriately critical
of people (i.e. certain contemporary rabbis) who would look at any event and
ascribe causality to it. “This tragedy happened because…” is in an ineffable
statement to make. We don’t explain rockets, destruction, wars, and a
Holocaust. We are not prophets. We do not know why these things happen.
God-fearing people say “This is
God’s will. It is part of His Master Plan,” and continue to live their lives in
the service of God, trying to get closer to Him despite the sadness that may
pervade at any particular point in time. Rav Amital, whose fifth yarzeit was
this past week, was in several labor camps during the Holocaust and lost his
entire family. In response to the question of how he could have faith in God
after the Holocaust, he explained that if he had lost his faith that wouldn’t bring
his family back. It wouldn’t answer any of his questions about God’s hiding His
face during that era of darkness.
But the message of the Midrash
Tanaim is still worthy of consideration. We do not understand how the “doing of
God’s will” plays a role in the upper spheres. But every one of us can probably
pinpoint a time in our lives when we knew we were doing things right, and other
things in our lives fell into place. Whether it was a job, a promotion, a
family member getting better from illness, or life just being good. It happens
all the time – we just don’t always notice.
And so it is up to us,
particularly at this time of year with Tisha B’Av approaching, to ask ourselves
if we are properly doing God’s will. The great prophets and Sages were granted
the insight to say the first Temple was destroyed because of murder, idolatry,
immorality, and the Second Temple was destroyed on account of baseless hatred.
And while we don’t dare make similar pronouncements in our times (and shame on
those who do!), we can certainly improve in those areas! Idolatry and murder
are, thank God, not big challenges for our people. But immorality is. And baseless
hatred certainly is.
There’s a reason many of the “al
chet”s we include in our Viduy confession are for sins of the eyes and the mouth,
because it is through these channels that most of our sins are committed –
whether we ourselves look at things we should not be looking at and say things
we should not, or whether we cause others to look at things they should not see
or have them hear things they should not be hearing.
The good and evil that the
Midrash Tanaim says refers to war could have two meanings. The esoteric meaning
is for the internal battle that a person fights between the yetzer hara (the
evil inclination) and the yetzer hatov (the good inclination).
But in a practical sense, it
refers to the battles which were to soon be waged by the Israelite armies
entering the land. And Moshe is recalling how 39 years earlier he told the
generation that was not going to be entering the land that it would be up to
their innocent children, who had not yet tasted good and evil, to lead the
charge in inheriting the land.
The verses which follow show the
response of the people when they heard this pronouncement: “We have sinned to God! We will go up and do
battle according to everything that our God has commanded us!” (1:41)
And the Exodus generation was
told not to, because God was no longer with them and would not fight their
battles any more.
Are we reliving this history?
Every generation in Israel has borne the responsibility of fighting the battle
that the previous generation did not finish. It is the “children” (18-22 year
olds are young men, but they are all sons of the nation of Israel) who are
fighting, the children who learn quickly about the difference between good and
evil. Many of these “children” are older reservists, and they too are battling
in the trenches.
Our job is to love them, to care
for them, and to do our part through doing God’s will. Unlike the generation
who left Egypt, who were told (when they messed up with the spies) that God is
no longer with them, we must assure, for the safety of our soldiers and our
People in Israel and around the world, that we are doing God’s will, so God
will in-turn be with us.
When the enemy is so evil and
only cares to rack up deaths on both sides, we must know where we stand. War is
sadly a necessary evil. And it brings great sacrifice in pursuit of a hopefully
attainable and sustainable peace. The attitude of Tzahal (IDF) through all of this has been inspiring.
May our efforts, not just during
the Nine Days, but throughout the year as well, sway God to continue to guide
the soldiers of Israel in their important work, and may all of Israel merit to live
peacefully under the banner of the promise that “your children who did not know
good from evil this day – they will come there. To them shall I give it and
they shall possess it.” In safety, in peace, and – much like has been demonstrated
in Israel in support of the soldiers – with a complete sense of Ahavat Chinam, loving
our fellow Jew.
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