Devarim — Making Peace

Parashat Devarim

August 10, 2024

This parasha is read on the Shabbat before Tisha b’Av, the day of national mourning for the destruction of the Temples of Jerusalem.  When I was a teenager, we had a pair of big, tall trees in the backyard. I remember helping my father plant it and watching it grow.  They were just a decoration because they did not provide much shade. Without warning that it was in distress and no storm to blow it down, one Tisha b’Av it fell down.  Nothing was harmed as if fell in a yard without anything that could get hurt.  We didn’t even hear or see it fall. I took this as a sign that we have to remember the fall of the Temple.

On 7 Av 1970 out family lost Uncle Morris Zimbalist  (אלימלך בן חיים)  The family would have been sitting shiva on Tisha b’Av. Since I was in camp when this happened, I don’t remember the funeral or shiva.  Uncle Morris led family celebrations such as holidays and family gatherings. He was in shul every Shabbat except when he was sick.

This morning at Shaharit  my stepson, my wife’s youngest, was the hazzan because he was remembering the yahrtzeit of his father.  He was not even a bar mitzvah when his father died.  The family would have been sitting shiva on Tisha b’Av.

The book of Devarim has three discourses from Moshe.  The book is also a remembrance of the wondering sin the desert and the history of the nation.  The eventual entrance into the Land of Israel part of the preparation Moshe does for his people.  Today in the St. Louis Jewish Light online version they had a quote,   “When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming”?  After 39 years and a few months, the Jewish nation is getting ready to enter the land and create the city of Yerushalayim.  It was like going home.  (The Light challenged the readers to be the first to identify the quote.  Eli Wiesel said it, and I was the first person to email the correct answer.  I was promised a Laurel and Hardy Handshake, but that doesn’t work online.)

I was asked, “What belief did you have as a child did you find out was a myth and not possible?” We look at current events and see nations threatening Israel and people who don’t understand history or human nature and making demonstrations in the streets.  We see people who can’t figure out the difference between good and evil trying to make public policy.  It hurts when given a choice between peace and prosperity and war and hate. People choose war and hate.

In Sanhedrin 27a, the sage Rava has the view that one who is ethically upstanding, but deficient in his ritual observance call still be a valid witness.  While ritual observance is supposed to make us an am kadosh, a holy nation, people can be more easily forgiven for transgressions between God and Man than between man and man.  One need not confess in public  for the lack of ritual observance, but when one mistreats or offends a person, one should make a public apology.  (see Rambam’s Hilhot Teshuva 2:5  [1])

The business lesson is:  while ritual observance is what defines us as a nation and an ethnic group, the laws are but tools to help us to be better people.  Shabbat teaches (in part) to make peace with our environment and is one part of making peace with our people and the world.  Our relationship with God and the Divine is a private matter.   Our relationship with others is a matter of public concern.

May you have an easy fast and remember it is just tool to have a better year ahead.

[1] He should tell them: “Though I sinned against so and so, committing the following misdeeds…. Behold, I repent and express my regret.” Anyone who, out of pride, conceals his sins and does not reveal them will not achieve complete repentance as [Proverbs 28:13] states: “He who conceals his sins will not succeed.”

https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Repentance.2.5?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en