Coming Together: Affirming and Spreading Our Core Values
This commentary is dedicated in honor of the upcoming
wedding celebration of Adam Lowe and Pamela Jagger, making their own transition
and new beginnings with a deep foundation of mutual commitment to social
and environmental justice.
Like the ancient Israelites taking a deep breath on the last day of
the life of Moses, before the upcoming transitions in leadership, we
read Parshat Vayelech every year during a time around the High Holy
Days when we seek new meaning and direction in our own lives. This portion,
whose name comes from the Hebrew root for movement, is frequently read
together with another portion, Nitzavim, which means standing firmly
in place. This juxtaposition implies that, ironically, we move and grow
most successfully when we are like trees, firmly planted in a soil rich
with experience and tradition, but nurtured alongside living and moving
streams.
Parshat Vayelech contains the last two of the traditional counting
of 613 commandments, both of which can connect with the spiritual work
we need to do in this transitional period, both for the individual and
the community.
In the Torah narrative, Moses completes the writing of the Torah and
hands it over to the kohanim, the priests, and the elders. He
instructs them to read it to the people at regular intervals, not to
keep it to themselves as a private esoteric document. He also prepares
and writes down his final "song", a moralistic epic poem to be read
and remembered regularly. It will serve as a witness to the fallibility
of the people about to enter into possession of a holy land.
From these texts, the Rabbis extract the following mitzvot, or commandments:
(1) the entire people and those who identify with them must be gathered
every seven years to hear some specific teachings publicly; and (2)
every individual must write down this spiritual legacy.
This second commandment was originally understood to mean that everyone
is required to make his or her own copy of the Torah. As Jewish law
developed, this was modified to include support for the writing of any
sacred literature, whether taken from the "written" Torah or its oral
(rabbinic) interpretation.
A less literal expression of this commandment is the creation of an
ethical will, a statement of one's own interpretation of the spiritual
lessons we derive from our tradition and wish to pass on to future generations.
This tradition of writing an ethical will has a venerable pedigree in
Jewish history, extending from ancient times to today, through which
Jews act upon the felt obligation to summarize and pass on the lessons
of our lives.
The penultimate command of the Torah is referred to as hakhel,
meaning "gather" or "assemble" the people. This sabbatical retreat has
some very unusual features. The gathering occurs on the harvest festival,
Sukkot, following the year in which there has been no harvest--the sabbatical
or shmitah year, in which the land has been given its rest. (The
just-ended 5761 was one of those years!) All of the people are expected
to assemble: men and women, children and elders--and not only the Jewish
people, but also the local non-Jewish residents are invited to participate.
In fact, Sukkot, on which the gathering takes place, was in Temple times
the most universal of the national holidays, when sacrifices were offered
on behalf of all the nations of the world.
The traditional prophetic reading, or I>haftarah,which the Rabbis connected
to Parshat Vayelech is taken from Isaiah (55:6-56:8). It contains a
précis of universal morality and a strong emphasis on the interconnection
of matters of spirit and justice. The prophet declares: "Seek the Eternal
while God can be found; observe what is right and do what is just. Let
not the foreigner who has attached himself to the Eternal say, 'The
Eternal will keep me apart from God's people'…for My House shall be
called a house of prayer for all peoples."
Why is this particular gathering designated to be so inclusive, and
what are the texts the gathered are supposed to learn? The three segments
read are all from Deuteronomy: (1) the recapitulation of Exodus history
through the giving of Ten Commandments, and the passages contained in
the Sh'ma and V'ahavta prayers (1:1-6:9) (2) the section which describes
the relationship of moral human behavior to the ecology of the land
(11:13-21); and (3) a potpourri of laws including the intrepid pursuit
of justice (tzedek, tzedek tirdof), concluding with the blessings
and curses which are the consequences of moral action or inaction (14:22-28:69).
Interestingly, these particular sections parallel the path prescribed
in the Talmud for a person who wishes to join the Jewish people: (a)
recognize the traumas of the Jewish past; (b) learn some of the laws
of justice seeking, particularly the laws pertaining to the responsibility
we have toward the poor and vulnerable; and (c) recognize the consequences
of moral failure for the earth and its inhabitants.
But even more striking is the fact that together, these very last commandments
in the Torah demand that the entire Jewish people periodically re-engage
ourselves with our tradition's core values, and then share our legacy
with neighbors--according to Isaiah, with all the nations.
This, according to our tradition, is the very year to do it.
Rabbi
Gerry Serotta has served since 1982 as Campus Rabbi at The George Washington
University, and also serves as Associate Rabbi, Temple Shalom of Chevy
Chase, MD.