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Drash on Ekev 2024

Rabbi Jeffrey B Kamins

Emanuel Synagogue

WHAT DOES HEALING LOOK LIKE IN THE AFTERMATH OF DEVASTATION?

The calendar that our ancestral sages set for our people thousands of years ago, in the wake of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the beginning of our long exile, provides context and meaning for us in our times. Between the Shabbat after Tisha B’Av and Rosh Hashanah are seven Shabbatot, known as the “seven weeks of consolation”.  The intention of the rabbis was to give instruction and comfort for the generations, a path to heal from horrific loss, destruction and trauma and move toward the future with light and faith. Over these weeks, we read most of the book of Deuteronomy, known as Moshe’s farewell address to the Israelites; for our haftarah, we read a selection of seven prophecies all from Isaiah, who promises a return of our people to our land and a rebuilding of Jerusalem. Together they provide a process for faithful rehabilitation—the problem for our understanding of their message is that Moses and Isaiah lived centuries apart in different lands and circumstances, and we live millennia later in a very different reality from theirs.

Moses’ speeches in Deuteronomy, set on the other side of the Jordan over three thousand years ago, are his final testament to the Jewish people; as Rabbi Kaiserblueth wrote last week, “Moses’ ethical will”. But Moses’ ethics may not always accord with ours. His core message in Ekev is that our survival in the land is conditional on our faithfully following the mitzvot, walking in God’s path and loving and serving God with all our heart and soul (e.g. Dt. 8:1, 10:12 and in particular 11:13-21, which wraps up this week’s Torah and constitutes what is known as the second paragraph of the Shema, found in our mezuzot and tefillin). But does following in God’s ways champion an ethical code and moral rectitude as we would understand it?

We have a vast range of “instruction from Moses” this week and every one of the weeks leading to the Yamim Noraim. In our parasha, we learn to express gratitude for all the bounty provided us, including the mandate to say blessings for the food we consume (Dt 8:7-10).  We learn humility and perspective: “remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to get wealth…” (Dt. 8:18). But we also learn that we must exterminate the seven nations in the land in order to possess it (still one of the positive mitzvot according to the teachings of the esteemed 12th century rabbi, Maimonides): “You shall destroy all the peoples that the Lord your God delivers to you, showing them no pity” (Dt. 7:16, and see also last week’s Dt. 7:1-5). To which voice of God as provided by Moses shall we listen? Certainly, in this day and time we must acknowledge that there are among our people those who would say the latter as well as the former. Does our restoration demand retribution?

Isaiah, whose words were most likely spoken in Babylon after the destruction of the First Temple, promises restoration: “As for your ruins and desolate places and your land laid waste – you shall soon be crowded with settlers while destroyers stay far from you.” (Isaiah 49:19).

But Isaiah does not command, like Moses, for us to deal with the foe, but rather to trust in God, as in: “Captives shall be taken from a warrior and spoil shall be retrieved from a tyrant; for I will contend with your adversaries, and I will deliver your children…and all humanity shall know that I the Lord am your Saviour, the Mighty One of Jacob, your Redeemer.” Essentially, Isaiah encourages us to hold faith and trust the process.

So where does this leave us, on this second Shabbat of consolation, as we approach the end of this year dominated by the pogrom of Simchat Torah and its aftermath of death and devastation? Some among us do champion punctiliously following the mitzvot taught by Moses, including to cleanse the land of our enemies. Others among us preference the development of tradition, encourage nuanced, contextualised study of Torah and its mitzvot, and understand that we live in a different time and place. Isaiah does not teach us to be passive but to demonstrate our trust in God by being champions of justice, more open-minded, open-hearted, people of faith and gratitude.  I believe that the rabbis, in determining we read Isaiah alongside Deuteronomy, intended us to temper Moses’ words with the insights from Isaiah.  That is what healing looks like.  Shabbat shalom.

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