וָאֶתְחַנַּן

“I pleaded”

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Emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically, Va’etchanan is one of the most significant parashot in the Torah. Of course, there is infinite power in every letter of Torah. But here it sits very close to the surface.

The Israelites have arrived at the edge of the Jordan river. Moses begs God for entry to the promised land, and is denied. Moses turns to the Israelites and reminds them of their most basic commitments. The ten commandments. The shema. His death is imminent.

In his 1929 Moses and Monotheism, Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud delves provocatively into this story. Freud speculates, using the text and his psychoanalytic method as his guide, that the historical Israelites, in a fit of rage, in fact rose up and killed Moses on the bank of the Jordan. Overwhelmed by guilt for their crime, the people repressed the memory and developed, through reaction-formation, a compulsive drive to observe Mosaic law. According to Freud, the neurotic and obsessive way in which Jews have been known to practice has roots in this primal crime.

I invoke Freud for two reasons. First, in his atheism he nonetheless represents some of the greatest strengths of Jewish culture. Second, his penetrating interpretation of the life of Moses is worth exploring. As Freud’s friend and rival, the Swiss psychoanalyst CG Jung writes in his 1952 Answer to Job: “we don’t have myths; they have us.” Through myth, people literally become part of something bigger than themselves. We do not unpack them casually.

In his 1972 Violence and the Sacred, French philosopher René Girard discusses the psychological role of the scapegoat in regulating social life. According to Girard, intra-group tensions, the jockeying for power and position, inevitably erupt into violence and threaten the survival of the group, unless there exists collective coping mechanisms for channeling and redirecting this tension: mechanisms of sacrifice.

Seen in its bronze-age context, Mosaic law was a spiritual revolution. At a time when the Canaanites offered children to their bull-god Moloch, Moses taught something different, and more subtle. The akeidah, the binding of Isaac, is a foundational myth: this then-new God demands, and Abraham offers, his only son – the greatest possible sacrifice. And this then-new God declares: enough, not us, no more. Take this ram instead.

On that mythic foundation, Moses built a temple of law, and the basis for our civilization.

For a thousand years, the ancient Israelites worshiped at their temple, with hereditary aristocracy offering elaborate animal sacrifices. This temple service regulated the ancient Israelites, enabling them to build their more-just society. After one thousand years, that temple was destroyed. On Tisha b’Av, just this past week, we mourned this loss. “The saddest day in the Jewish calendar,” some say.

But there is another perspective.

One definition of “progress” is movement away from violence and towards inclusivity. If Mosaic law and animal sacrifice represented a psychological and spiritual advance over the then-widespread human sacrifice, we can understand the development of Rabbinic Judaism, and sublimation through prayer and creative works, as an equally revolutionary advance. The destruction of the Temple was a tragedy, but it was also an invitation into something even more subtle and profound.

American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his 1951 The Sabbath, described Jews observing shabbat as building “palaces in time.” American-Israeli rabbi and scholar Daniel Boyarin takes this idea further, describing the way that Jewish peoplehood is perpetuated not by shared blood, nor by shared faith, nor by shared place, but through the shared repetition of Jewish acts.

If you don’t believe me, look around. Jews are literally gathered to offer sacrifices of creative acts in service to our lord. Welcome to the spiritual frontier.

Va’etchanan recounts a stirring moment in our history, and a powerful reiteration of our fundamental commitments. Moses took risks; his people may have killed him for it. But through courageous and creative acts, he had an impact far beyond his one, single life.

As Jews we have a choice. We can continue to see ourselves as perpetual victims, mourning year after year the loss of a romanticized past. Or we can see ourselves as being continuously pulled – sometimes forcefully – into greater depths of spiritual capacity and creative leadership. We can continue thinking in terms of us or them, or begin thinking in terms of us and them.

Moses and our sages developed powerful tools for building better worlds; what an honor it is to use them.

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This dvar was given in-person at the Korban Shabbat gathering in Bushwick, NY on 13 Av 5784