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August 9, 2024
My Dear TOS Community,
As we enter into Shabbat, we must make space for peace, for community, and connection and joy, even as half of the Jewish people live under the threat of imminent attack by Iran, by Hezbollah, and other proxies of Iran. We live in a moment of existential threat both within Israel and in the Diaspora, and still we live. We come together in community, we love and we laugh and we learn together. Not without complexity, not with simple unity. We are diverse in our understanding of this moment and how we got here. We are diverse in our perspectives on what should happen now. In the Jewish calendar, we are in a mourning period leading up to Tisha b’Av, which falls on Monday evening through Tuesday, which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, and later catastrophes of Jewish history. The ancient rabbis believed that sinat chinam (baseless hatred) was to blame for the destruction of both Temples. Today we face so much hatred. We live each day knowing that there are people and nations committed to our destruction, and we have extremists among our people who generate hatred toward others, and toward their fellow Jews. What can our tradition teach us about how to navigate such a moment?
This Shabbat, we begin the book of Deuteronomy, in Hebrew called Devarim (words). Moses recounts the long history of our people thus far, and it is an honest recounting. It has not been easy. It has not been simple. The people has faced hatred and division from within and without. They are now, on the cusp of the promised land, soon to take on the responsibility of being the creators of their own destiny, as a free people rooted in the land. They will now create their story, and a fundamental part of this, as Moses shows them now in his recounting of their history, will be to tell the story of who they have been, where they have been, what they have experienced; and, the recalling and retelling, the integrating of the past, will be essential to creating a present and future based in living fully and with compassion and justice.
Inspired by this Torah portion, and by this historical moment, I wrote the following poem today. I welcome your thoughts.
May Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel), Am Yisrael (the People of Israel), all who are facing grave danger because of this war, and all people everywhere be safe and free. May all know peace.
Rabbi Audrey Marcus Berkman
Words in a Time of No Words: Eilu HaDevarim (1)…
A Poem for Parashat Devarim, and a Time of War
Like Moses
We are heavy of tongue (2)
And we don’t want this role
Please, choose someone else
We’re slow of speech (3)
And like Moses
Through the slow march of history
We are tasked with living and telling and creating the story
Living to tell the story
Living by telling the story
Living with the story woven into our bones
These words are like manna
They come to sustain us but we must digest and create from them
Our own story
Each footstep on the journey
A letter of Torah
We spin a tale
Like the silk used in the mishkan (4)
We spin a tale that becomes a scroll that goes on and on
Leshanot – to change, but also: to repeat
We repeat the stories
By letting them live in and through us
As we live in them
And so the stories change
Each time we take them into our mouths,
With each spin of the atzei chayim (5), each column
Of the scroll not a map
But a question
An invitation that is also a demand
Chai bahem (6)
Live in me
Let me live in you
Live through me
By making of me something new
Each step in your wilderness
Know that these words are yours for safekeeping
And for keeping you safe
Know that these words
Live and breathe
And therefore they change
Create Torah
With each step you take
Make wisdom out of every question
Know that even in times when no words seem enough
These are yours
To make alive in every time and every place
To help you live
Even when fires burn and the heavy cloud of fear rests upon your hearts
Hold these words
Make them yours
Hold fast to the atzei chayim, those trees of life
Hold each other
In and through these living words
May you choose life
Again and again
———————————
1 “These are the words…” (Deuteronomy 1:1)
2 Exodus 4:10
3 Exodus 4:10
4 Portable sanctuary/tabernacle, which traveled with the Israelites through the wilderness
5 Wooden handles to which the Torah scroll is attached; meaning “trees of life.”
6 Leviticus 18:5, referring to the laws/commandments
