Parshat Devarim
by Rabbi Avi Billet
Towards the beginning of Devarim Chapter 2 we read of the ways in which the Israelites were instructed to relate to Eisav’s descendants – their cousins! You are not to enter their land, you are not to take any food from them. You may purchase food and water from them. But Mt Seir is theirs!, so don’t even think about conquering that land for yourselves.
In this context, Moshe further recounts how “God has blessed you in all that you do, knowing your journey through this vast wilderness. These 40 years God has been with you, you have lacked nothing.” (2:7)
On a simple level, Moshe is certainly referencing the fact that the clothes and shoes of the Israelites didn’t wear out (Devarim 29:4), and how there was an endless supply of manna and water, as well as meat available and accessible – whether from the birds God sent their way, or the animals that traveled with the people through their sojourn in the wilderness.
Hadar Zekenim notes that “you had the means to purchase whatever you needed” along the way.
Owing to the fact that we always read this parsha during the Nine Days, and specifically on the Shabbos before Tisha B’Av, the Chassidic masters would read into this statement a greater message regarding the relationship of God and the Jewish people. The Kozhnitzer Maggid would note that the wilderness is a metaphor for living through dark times, and that the verse is showing that even in such dark times as the days leading up to Tisha B’Av, God is with us. If He could lead our ancestors through the wilderness, through places that no humans walked, or could certainly survive for 40 years, He can be with us through this time as well.
The Slonimer Rebbe took this a step further suggesting that any travail a Jew goes through should be looked at through the lens of comparing it to 40 years in the wilderness. Through believing that God is with you, one should easily come to the realization that you therefore lack nothing.
The Apte Rebbe (also known as the “Ohaiv Yisrael” per the title of his book) quoted a Midrash that “There wasn’t a holiday in Israel like the day the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed.”
אוהב ישראל דברים שבת חזון
י"ל אשר שבת חזון הוא יותר גדול במעלה מכל שבתות השנה. על דרך שנשאלתי פעם אחת לבאר המדרש דאיתא שם לא היה יום מועד לישראל כיום שנחרב בית המקדש עד כאן והוא פלא. וכבר עמד בזה בעל המחבר משנה למלך בספרו הטהור פרשת דרכים עיין שם. אמנם בשום שכל והערת לב. יש לומר בזה על דרך מאמר חכמינו ז"ל (יבמות סב ב) חייב אדם לפקוד את אשתו בשעה שיוצא לדרך. והמשכיל יבין. דוגמא לזה תמצא בפרשת ויגש על פסוק (בראשית מו, א) ויסע ישראל וכל אשר לו גו' יעויין שם ובפרט כשחל יום טי"ת באב בשבת והבן היטב:
He quotes R Yehuda Roseannes (author of the Mishneh L’Melekh on the Rambam) who speaks of this topic in his book “Parshas Derachim.” While I could not find the exact quote there, what might be the reference he makes is to the passage on Parshat Shmini (can be found on page ק here: https://hebrewbooks.org/48331) in which the author describes how Moshe could not build the Beis HaMikdash because then it could not be destroyed (an idea found in many places). But the idea that the Beis Hamikdash could be destroyed is what guaranteed that the generation that died in the wilderness would have a chance to enter the land at the time of the Final Redemption. This relates to the verse we are familiar with from the first paragraph of Kabbalas Shabbos (Tehillim 95)
|
10Forty years I quarreled
with a generation, and I said, "They are a people of erring hearts and
they did not know My ways." 11For which reason I swore
in My wrath, that they would not enter My resting place. |
יאַרְבָּעִ֚ים שָׁנָ֨ה |
אָ֘ק֚וּט בְּד֗וֹר וָֽאֹמַ֗ר עַ֚ם תֹּעֵ֣י לֵבָ֣ב הֵ֑ם וְ֜הֵ֗ם לֹא־יָֽדְע֥וּ
דְרָכָֽי: יאאֲשֶׁר־נִשְׁבַּ֥עְתִּי
בְאַפִּ֑י אִם־יְ֜בֹא֗וּן אֶל־מְנֽוּחָתִֽי: |
This passage indicates that the generation which died in the wilderness may not have been ever welcome to come into the land, even in some era of a Final Redemption, had there not been an overturning of their judgment.
In this light, the Apte Rebbe seems to be suggesting that the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash overturned this thought in Tehillim, and was therefore one of the most noteworthy מועדים. The additional comment by the Apte Rebbe, about the moment of departure between husband and wife, can perhaps be understood in this light as well: before parting ways through an exile, God made it clear through the destruction of the house and not the people that the relationship would remain intact despite the separation of time and distance.
The Slonimer Rebbe took the Apte Rebbe’s teaching and explained it as a demarcation of the relationship between God and Israel as being parallel to that of a parent and children. Were Israel simply a nation “chosen” by God, God could decide to reject them and choose another people, just as any king can find a different people over which to rule. But, just as one does not reject one’s children no matter how far they may stray, in designating Israel as His children – through destroying their building rather than destroying them – God demonstrated that they were not to be rejected no matter what the future would bring.
Furthermore, the fact that the verse says יָדַ֣ע לֶכְתְּךָ֔ אֶת־הַמִּדְבָּ֥ר הַגָּדֹ֖ל הַזֶּ֑ה - that God has known your journey in this wilderness – is a further hint to both the connection spoken of by the Slonimer Rebbe as well as the one hinted to by the Apte Rebbe. ידיעה, knowledge, in the Biblical sense, references a very deep and intimate connection. In the case of God and the Jewish people, that intimacy spans time, place, space, distance, sin, error, rejection, exile.
The Slonimer Rebbe concludes his essay right where he began. If you have God on your side, through all the challenges and darkness you face in life, you will find in the end that you never lacked for anything.
May this feeling be one we come to appreciate through all the challenges that life throws our way – not only in the lead-in to Tisha B’Av, but in all we experience, may we always feel that because God is with us, everything will be OK.
לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי
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