By Zwi Reznik, 10 August, 2024; 6 Av 5784
To start on a personal note, a number of years ago we adopted a new Siddur to use in our services. At that time we were encouraged to purchase copies for our own home use as well as additional copies to dedicate. I did so and dedicated a copy to my late wife. Once the dedicated copies of the new Siddur started to appear I got into the habit of always opening the front cover to see whose dedication would appear and on one occasion did see the dedication to my wife. Since then I have felt my own connection to Lev Shalem. When I saw that Parsha Devarim needed a Darshan I volunteered because I also felt a connection to Sefer Devarim.
We begin our reading of Sefer Devarim with Parsha Devarim the first verse of which is
1:1 אֵ֣לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־ כָּל־ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בְּעֵ֖בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֑ן בַּמִּדְבָּ֡ר בָּֽעֲרָבָה֩ מ֨וֹל ס֜וּף בֵּֽין־ פָּארָ֧ן וּבֵֽין־ תֹּ֛פֶל וְלָבָ֥ן וַחֲצֵרֹ֖ת וְדִ֥י זָהָֽב׃
These are the words that Moses spoke to all the Israelites across the Jordan in the wilderness in the Arabah opposite Suph between Paran and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth and Di-Zahab,
As I’ve done previously I will be using the translation of Robert Alter—see references.
Notice that these are place names that are provided in this opening line. The Arabah is an area that refers to a rift valley that runs from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, through the Jordan Valley. Rest assured that I will not be talking about Plate Tectonics and the rift that extends to Ethiopia.
Rabbi Doctor Avraham Twerski, may his memory be for a blessing, was a Chassidic Rabbi as well as a psychiatrist who led a therapeutic community dedicated to the treatment of Alcohol and other drug addictions. In one of his books (see references) there is a section with brief commentaries on the individual parshaot and I will begin with his remarks on this Parsha. He titled his drash “Admonishment with Dignity”. He begins with the statement ““It is indeed true that when we see another person doing something wrong we have an obligation to call that errant behavior to his attention.” Rabbi Dr. Twerski then continues by citing Leviticus 19:17, noting that it is a Mitzvah “You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely reprove your fellow and not bear guilt because of him”. He also quotes Rashi: : “אלה הדברים THESE ARE THE WORDS — Because these are words of reproof and he is enumerating here all the places where they provoked God to anger, therefore he suppresses all mention of the matters in which they sinned and refers to them only by a mere allusion contained in the names of these places out of regard for Israel.” Rabbi Dr. Twerski then continues with his own commentary “Moses chose this symbolism because he did not wish to list their sins explicitly”…Moshe Rabeinu—our great Teacher—showed us how we might, must, preserve another person’s dignity while providing constructive criticism.”
Having grounded myself in some Rabbinical commentary I’ll be moving on to cite the analysis and commentaries of Robert Alter. In my previous Drashot I have often found things to discuss in the Rabbinic literature such as the various Midrashim. For this parsha I was not successful in doing so. I’ll admit that may be due to not looking in the right places on Sefaria.
However I first need to orient myself by knowing where I’m coming from. I want to provide some context. Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Torah, an early edition of which was found in the Temple in Jerusalem in the early 7th Century BCE. The book that was found was incomplete compared to the book we have now. Other materials were added during the reign of King Josiah, around 640-609 BCE. One of the last components added was chapters 1-4. Today’s parsha contains 1:1-3:22. As a further note, the first Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE and we were exiled to Babylon. We left with Sefer Devorim in hand. In 536 BCE Jews returned.
Robert Alter’s commentary contains a detailed literary analysis that I found illuminating. Some comments from his introduction are instructive. For example the Introduction begins with “The Book of Deuteronomy is the most sustained deployment of rhetoric in the Bible. It is presented, after all, as Moses’s valedictory address, which he delivers across the Jordan from the promised land just before his death, as the people assembled before him are poised to cross the river into the land. It comprises a series of speeches, discourses, or, as some scholars actually call them, sermons.” As an example of the rhetorical qualities of both this parsha and other components of the book, Alter cites verse 1:19. ““And we journeyed from Horeb and we went through all that great and fearful wilderness which you have seen, by way of the high country of the Amorite. . . .” . For comparisons he composes an example of how that line would have appeared outside of Sefer Devorim: ““And we journeyed from Horeb and we went through the wilderness, by way of the high country of the Amorite.” His commentary continues with “What is the difference between this pared-down version and the one that is actually used in Deuteronomy? My more terse formulation follows a fairly typical biblical procedure of registering space traversed in a narrative report as essentially blank space:” He continues in that fashion and concludes with: “The Israelites have completed their long and arduous trajectory through the wilderness and now stand before Moses in the Arabah, just east of the land of Canaan. Emotionally, the wilderness is a place to be remembered with fear and trembling, a place that tried the soul of the nation—“all that great and fearful wilderness,” כָּל־ הַמִּדְבָּ֣ר הַגָּדוֹל֩ וְהַנּוֹרָ֨א”
Rabbi Twerski dealt with the psychological impact of the language of this Parsha. Robert Alter considers the unique literary qualities the somewhat anonymous “D” author of Deuteronomy presents us with.
Yet another source I will note provides a more disturbing context. The source is one I’ll cite only in my footnotes for anyone interested. It is a book by an Israeli Historian. The brief sample I’m sharing is because of the similarity to Rabbi Twerski’s clear injunction to rebuke someone who is doing wrong. This additional source cites the same lines in Leviticus that Twerski does and adds one.
Leviticus 19:17-18“Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear grudges against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. ”
The historian I am citing goes on. Keep in mind that today’s parsha, as well as subsequent ones, contains Moshe’s emphatic rebukes of our people awaiting the crossing of the Jordan.
“Self-Criticism and Jews: The story has to begin with what one might call the fundamental trait of Jewish culture, both religious and secular—the active embrace of (self-)criticism. It begins in the beginning. No myths in world literature contain so many details unflattering to the very people telling the tale and the heroes whose careers they recount, as does the Bible.
And yet the oft-unacknowledged Jewish talent for this (self-)criticism, may well explain why Jews do so well under the conditions of modernity, and why so many systems of thought that depend on self-criticism, empathy and self-abnegation arise from Jews and in secular Jewish circles (Marxist historiography, Freudian psychology, Boasian anthropology, Frankfurt School critical theory). Overall, this capacity for criticism, for a culture of public dispute in which people can vigorously disagree without violence, in which concerns for truth and accuracy and understanding can sometimes override the ego’s demands to appear right, especially those egos who hold power, have made Jews highly successful in the modern world, especially where such issues are vital to success: science, academia, law, journalism, medicine, accounting, entrepreneurship, therapy, history, and so on.”
I will close with three more citations from today’s Parsha and Alter’s footnote to 2-30. I tried to find anything in Rashi and Midrashim related to these verses and could not find anything.
2-30But Sihon king of Heshbon did not want to let me pass through it, for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and toughened his heart, in order to give him into your hand as on this day.
2:34 And we captured all his towns at that time and we put every town under the ban, menfolk and the women and the little ones, we left no remnant.
3:6 And we put them under the ban as we had done to Sihon king of Heshbon, putting under the ban every town, menfolk, the women, and the little ones. 7But all the beasts and the booty of the towns we plundered for ourselves.
Footnote 2-30. …hardened his spirit and toughened his heart… The language is close enough to the reiterated formula concerning Pharaoh in the Plagues narrative to suggest a typological connection between these two kings bent on Israel’s destruction. Sihon’s offensive against Israel, in the face of the Israelite proposal to pass through his territory peacefully and pay for food and water, is taken as justification for the implementation of the brutal practice of the ḥerem or “ban” (verse 34)—the massacre of the entire population. The persistence of the Amorites as a people suggests that this drastic report does not altogether reflect historical reality. The supposed application of the ḥerem to the Amorites may in fact have the function of defining political borders. The ḥerem was to be directed against the population of the promised land. In the parallel account in Numbers, where the ḥerem is not applied to Sihon’s people, the underlying assumption is that the promised land lies west of the Jordan, with only a special concession made to two and a half tribes to settle in trans-Jordan. As Moshe Weinfeld convincingly argues, the extension of Israelite dominion east of the Jordan chiefly occurred during Davidic and Solomonic times (tenth century B.C.E.), making it a long-established political reality by the time our later writer framed his account, in which this region is included in the promise of the land.
(Extraneous Note—: What I didn’t talk about–Jordan River Rift, East African Rift System, one of the most extensive rifts on Earth’s surface, extending from Israel (my addition), Jordan in southwestern Asia southward through eastern Africa to Mozambique. The system is some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) long and averages 30–40 miles (48–64 km) wide. The system consists of two branches. The main branch, the Eastern Rift Valley (often called the Great Rift Valley, or Rift Valley), extends along the entire length of the system. In the north the rift is occupied by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the Gulf of Aqaba) (emphasis added).
References:
Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
Landes, Richard. Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad (Antisemitism in America). Academic Studies Press. Kindle Edition.
Twerski, Rabbi Dr. Abraham J., M.D., Living Each Day, The Artscroll Series, Mesorah Publications Ltd.1990
ַWestminster Leningrad Codex. The Hebrew Tanak: Hebrew Bible Edition. TheBibleStudent.info. Kindle Edition.