Does Our Life Have a Purpose? Depends on How You Look At It

Parshat Va'Etchanan 

by Rabbi Avi Billet

The methodology behind coming up with each topic for a weekly Dvar Torah is a study unto itself. Sometimes the thought is driven by something the writer really wants to say – the message is there, and it’s just a question of attaching it to a verse in the Parsha. Sometimes the writer has a burning question that is personally troubling, so answering that conundrum becomes the driving force behind the research. Sometimes a cursory reading through Midrash will beg the question “what is this telling us?” or “what does this really mean?” and will lead the thought in a different direction. 

 And sometimes one comes across a troubling passage and has a need to “think aloud” but on paper. 

 The following is of the latter variety. 

In asking why God allowed for the first Temple to be built and destroyed, and the second Temple to be built and destroyed, and for us to be waiting for so long until the Third Temple is presented, ostensibly to have been built by His hand, a passage in Apirion presents the following parable. 

A king found what he believed to be the perfect life partner for his daughter, a young budding scholar with tremendous potential, but who was much too young to be married. Not wanting his daughter to wait single and alone until the young man was mature, ready, and having met his perceived potential, the king found a “suitable” match for his daughter who, he figured, in due time, would prove himself unsuitable, which would prompt the princess to leave him to finally find that her true intended is available and ready to marry. And indeed, as the parable concludes, after the passage of the requisite number of years, the now divorced princess marries this incredible young man, to live happily ever after. Not only that, but her father is MOST satisfied because his daughter is now truly happy, living a blissful existence with the spouse most perfect for her. 

 The parable’s explanation weaves together two verses. 

 The first is from our parsha, chapter 3, verse 27, context being Moshe explaining how God told him to ascend a mountain and to look hard at the land which he would not be crossing into.

 27 Go up to the top of the hill and lift up your eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward and see with your eyes, for you shall not cross this Jordan.

 כז עֲלֵ֣ה | רֹ֣אשׁ הַפִּסְגָּ֗ה וְשָׂ֥א עֵינֶ֛יךָ יָ֧מָּה וְצָפֹ֛נָה וְתֵימָ֥נָה וּמִזְרָ֖חָה וּרְאֵ֣ה בְעֵינֶ֑יךָ כִּי־לֹ֥א תַֽעֲבֹ֖ר אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּ֥ן הַזֶּֽה: 

The second is from Tehillim 104, verse 31, the context being a laundry list of God’s admirable traits and how the author will sing His praises. 

31The glory of the Lord will be forever; the Lord will rejoice with His works.

 לא יְהִ֚י כְב֣וֹד יְהֹוָ֣ה לְעוֹלָ֑ם יִשְׂמַ֖ח יְהֹוָ֣ה בְּמַֽעֲשָֽׂיו: 

The Rabbis taught that since the verse does not say שמח, that God rejoices (present tense) with His works, the implication is that there will be a time in the future when God will rejoice with His works. In other words, it has not happened yet. We can use freedom from Egyptian bondage as a great example. Whatever was achieved at that time was only temporary! One of the reasons given by the Rabbis for why Moshe did not enter the land was because God knew that whatever would happen there, whatever was to be built would not last. The Children of Israel were bound to be exiled, and so this was not going to be the final passage into the land. 

 The verse in Tehillim is therefore saying, “When there will be honor for God forever, then He will rejoice in His works.” 

Moshe Rabbenu is therefore being told, “Raise your eyes and see. Really look! It is not the right time for you, Moshe, to come over. You’re the correct groom, but the people aren’t ready to have you yet. If things were to go wrong with this union, there may not be a recovery. But your looking “with your eyes” is to see off into the future, for when the time will be right, because THEN will God rejoice over His works, when God’s honor is fully restored in the future.” 

 In trying to make sense of this Apirion passage we’re faced with the reality that understanding these verses to be explaining the present, noting it is not the right time for these achievements, the simple understanding fits in with this view:

 • Moshe has to penetratingly look, to truly understand what the land is about, and how the time isn’t right for him to come into the land, because nothing that will be built in the coming thousand years will last

 • The promise of God’s true honor and joy are presented in future tense, and there is no time limit given as to when that future will come and be the present. For it to be true, it needs to be נצחי, eternal, and that hasn’t been achieved yet, even until our times. 

At the same time, is our relationship with God supposed to be compared to a princess who marries a man who is unfit for her, because the time isn’t right for her to be united with her truly intended? 

Is all of Jewish history a “feint,” like a hockey player deking out the defender who thinks he sees exactly what’s coming, but the truth is that it’s all been misleading, because there is a higher goal and a higher purpose yet to be achieved? 

 And if we go in that direction, is the true goal actually in this world, or is it something only truly achievable in the world to come? 

Has the point of Jewish history just been to serve as a bridge between the Exodus and the ultimate redemption which has not yet been achieved? Are we just tools, or better yet pawns, in a game that has hardly even begun? 

That hardly seems the point the Torah emphasizes. The Torah’s messaging, also presented through a theme that keeps coming up in our parsha, is that Mitzvos have value. They are good for a person! Some of them, when fulfilled, guarantee long life! It is hard to imagine that the long-life-promise is for a life that is void of meaning, riddled by the ultimate existential question of whether, in the end, each of our lives has any purpose at all. 

Perhaps the answer to this question is expressed in the most famous “Ani Maamin” – the one which speaks of waiting every day for the coming of the Messiah. “Even though he tarries, with all this I shall wait for him, for whichever day he may arrive.” There is merit to being a torch bearer, a banner carrier, a sentinel, a guard. We may or may not appreciate the value of what we are protecting, but each of us is nonetheless an imperial guard making sure that whatever is meant to make it to the end of days, and whether we are actually there to witness it, our role is to help preserve it, as pristine as we can, so that when that day comes, our fingerprints will be all over whatever ends up being present when God’s honor is finally considered נצחי, and לעולם, lasting forever. 

 Halevai, we should all merit to be there in one form or another, witnessing the final realization of the sentiment given to Moshe, and the hope for what the future will look like, when the true Glory of God is finally achieved in this world!