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D'var: Parashat Va'etchanan 5783 Commentary by Dawn Elmore Friday, July 28, 2023 |
| Va'etchanan Deuteronomy 3:23 — 7:11 |
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This week’s Torah portion is one of the saddest parts of the Exodus story.
Moses, who had worked tirelessly to get the Israelites through the desert
to the Promised Land, has been told he will not be allowed to enter.
The English translation of the title is “I Pleaded,” which is what Moses
does with Adonai when he receives this judgment. This portion prompted me
to think about the nature of prayer and what it means to us as Jews and
our relationship with God.
The predominant idea of prayer in American popular culture is influenced largely by Christianity. People pray for the things they want. If they are worthy enough and their request is God’s will, the request gets granted. It’s almost like a wish list children would take to the mall when they meet Santa Claus. During Puritan times, a person’s religious standing was determined in large part by how prosperous they were and how many of their wishes were fulfilled. The thought was that God favored those who were good by granting them whatever they wanted or needed. Those who were poor or had tragedy befall them were seen as sinful or lesser people who had displeased God and suffered the consequences. We see manifestations of this history today in popular ideas such as “The Secret” and Prosperity Gospel ministries. They posit that if you put what you want out into the universe and truly believe enough that you’ll get it, that’s exactly what will occur. They even claim that God wants all of us to have whatever we want. Those whose desires are not fulfilled simply didn’t want it enough or weren’t trying hard enough. This week’s story reveals those ideas as extremely problematic. Surely of all people alive at the time, Moses would have been one of the worthiest. He did so much for his people and overcame countless challenges in pursuit of doing Adonai’s will. He wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t designed to be since he was human. If Moses could do all he did and still not be deemed good enough to make it to the Promised Land, the pursuit he devoted his entire life to fulfilling, then what hope would any of us have in prayer for getting what we want or need? Here's the part where the paradigm shifts. I invite you to think of prayer as something completely different from what we’ve seen portrayed in our culture. What if prayer isn’t a conduit where we ask for things from God and get judged worthy or unworthy? What if we saw prayer as a way of communicating with God so we can feel closer to the Divine Presence, work on our feelings, and come to terms with the way the world functions? Prayer is about our relationship with God as much as it’s about our feelings about ourselves. If we look at Moses’s situation, it’s clear he felt he’d been unfairly punished. He pushed back against God’s judgment. Adonai’s plan is set in stone: “You shall not go across.” Once that judgment is clear, what options does Moses have? Should he keep arguing in hopes that what he wants will happen if he keeps manifesting it? Should he make things difficult for the Israelites so they have trouble reaching the Promised Land and take him in spite of God’s will? Should he give Joshua bad counsel so the Israelites have poor leadership once they arrive and secure his legacy as Moses the superior leader? Should he ignore Adonai’s judgment and just go to the Promised Land anyway, hoping God will forgive him and things will work out? Moses does none of these things. Instead, he continues to fulfill his purpose by working with Joshua to secure their people’s future. In the end, he encourages the Israelites and then goes alone to the mountaintop to his death, accepting his fate. Prayer didn’t get Moses what he thought he wanted more than anything in the world. What it did give him, however, was a way to process the fact that he was old, dying, and not going to achieve what he thought was his ultimate goal. It provided him with a way to create a new goal and accept that we can’t always get what we want. Some people would call that God’s plan. I tend to be more circumspect about it. I think the world works according to a set of rules and probabilities that God laid out. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. There are things we can do to increase our odds of good or bad things happening, but ultimately it comes down to the laws God has created for how our universe works. Prayer isn’t a way to change that. Instead, it’s a way to get in tune with the divine nature of humanity. It can make us feel closer to God. It can impel us to make better decisions in light of our circumstances. It can make us feel closer to each other in the divine presence when we do it communally. What it can’t do, however, is magically give us whatever we want or demonstrate how much more virtuous we are than our fellow humans. Thoughts and prayers don’t do a thing to change the world; actions do. The true gift of prayer, as this week’s portion shows us, is the ability to use connection to something greater than ourselves to make the best of our circumstances and do the best we can in light of God’s creation. Dawn Elmore |
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