Devarim
The Book of Deuteronomy

Rabbi Haim Lifshitz

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A Human Religion

 Translated from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MAYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL

Religion is perceived on the one hand as a system of laws whose purpose is the enforcement of arbitrary rules of behavior.  These rules have no relation to the utilitarian agenda of resolving the problems of one's existence.  Religion is perceived as the deliberate ignoring of existence’s needs, in favor of another world’s needs. 

Religion is a deliberate deviation – away from the narrow system of the existential survival instincts, and toward an axis of confrontation with survival that diverges from the narrow cycle of here and now.  Religion serves the human need to break out of the stranglehold of space and time toward the wide open spaces of infinity.  The rules of the game of religion are characterized by a movement from the tangible to the abstract.  From the clear and exact to the vague and undefined – to the mystical.  From logic and common sense to the absurd – to that which cannot be judged by utilitarian criteria, or by any other criteria belonging to a fixed monitoring system.

On the other hand, religion serves to bypass the compelling distresses of reality, guiding one toward an escape from the need to confront it, turning one away from a reality in which effort invested and successful results stand in direct correlation to one another, to look toward a reality in which effort invested stands in direct correlation to nothing at all in this world.

Along comes the Torah with the latest intelligence. “These are things - the dividends from which man eats  in this world, while the capital is kept for him for the next world.”  He eats here, and there as well.  His needs are not arbitrarily pushed aside.  He is not required to sacrifice his existence for the sake of an abstract value.  He is not required to uproot himself from his real and tangible situation for the sake of a vague and misty subjective experience that reduces the fullness of objective existential experience.

There is no spirituality without an expression of values.  There are no values that are not attached to human morality.  There is no generality without particulars.  There is no “ahm Yisrael,” no "People of Israel," without Reb Yisrael – the individual Jew.  There is no society without private individuals, just as there is no private individual who does not belong to a group.  “Do not separate yourself from the public,” insists the Torah.  There is a symbiotic connection between the group and the private human being.

 This is the essential meaning of Sefer Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy, which is called Mishneh Torah, "retaught Torah," meaning "the entire Torah on one foot."  “Love your friend as yourself – here is great rule of the Torah.”  “What is hateful to you, to your friend do not do.”  Sefer Devarim brings the Torah down, as it were, from the lofty heights of the mountain to the human dimension.  The Book of Deuteronomy bends the laws of creation to fit them to human behavioral quality.  “And the days that we walked from Kadesh Barnea until the time we crossed  Zared River were thirty eight years, until the termination of that whole generation of warriors, from the midst of the camp.”  The sages of the Talmud comment on this passage: “When they left Egypt, they crossed a great sea in one night by the sheer force of their faith.  And the faith-lacking generation of the desert were halted by a river whose dimensions were one zeret’s length by one zeret’s width, and they could not cross it for thirty eight years – until the termination of that entire  faith-lacking generation.”

We see here that objective reality does not determine success.  Control of reality is transferred from natural law to the human qualitative capacity, and it is this latter which determines the extent of existential success.

Thus the right to the Promised Land is not dependent upon the physical might of the seven nations who dwell upon it, but rather upon their declining qualitative level, and upon the soaring qualitative level of the Jewish nation.

Here in Deuteronomy we are seeing a new state of affairs that has come into being, in the creation - that expresses its Creator.  The individual Jew is now the water line running between the universe and its Creator.  From now on, the Creator shall broadcast His messages to the universe by way of  the individual human being.

It is important to point out that man’s function as the broadcasting station is not a passive role.  This obligation and this duty are a function of man’s ability to determine the rules of the game in the agreement that inheres between the Creator and His universe, which agreement later took on flesh to become a covenant between man - who became the bearer of the burden, with responsibility for the universe placed upon his weak shoulder – and his Creator.

How is it possible to place a burden so heavy upon the shoulder of a creature so limited?  The key to this mystery is found in the other half of the equation: Man bears upon his second shoulder a burden far heavier than the burden of the universe.  Simultaneously with the burden of the universe, man is granted the title nezer habria, “crown of creation”.   This is not merely a title appended onto a prior entity.  It transforms man into new and different stuff:  As nezer habria, he becomes Godly Presence,  as in “all the nations of the land [and all the other creants as well] will see that the Name of God is called upon you, and they will fear you.”  As Godly Presence, he is capable of bearing the responsibility for the universe, for the simple reason that creation has been ordered to obey him.

Man thus wears three crowns: The crown of one who is formed in God’s image, the crown of one who controls his own existence, and the crown of one who controls the creation.  Man wears these three crowns within the three concentric circles that surround him: The first circle is the personal circle  that encompasses his self, his own uniquely original, personal quality.  Within this circle, sustenance is drawn in a direct flow – from the image of God within his soul to his Godly source.

The second circle encompasses his personal expression, which is directed toward his immediate environment.  This is an expression of his Godly Presence, through creativity, through actualizing his unique qualitative potential, thus carving its personal stamp upon his environment – an environment that provides the raw materials for expressing his moral, value-driven uniqueness.

The third circle encompasses the reality that is not directly included within the needs of his existence or within his direct sphere of influence.  This circle contains the universe that is indirectly subject to his Godly will, that obeys his value-driven expectations of actualization, dedicated to actualizing the causes of justice, goodness, and truth.  The laws of nature are transformed, as soon as they are included in this circle – into laws of morality.  They become the law of the good and the righteous.  “Justice shall you pursue” becomes a law of nature.  “Halila. [Abraham protests in the Book of Genesis.) It would be a desecration for the Creator of the universe to cause the death of a tsadik a righteous person, together with a rasha, a wicked person. ”  The prophets demand, as their natural right, that justice be clear and visible.  They have throughout time refused to be satisfied with hidden justice, with that justice that while congruent with the long-term Divine Plan, appears to short-term superficially-perceiving human eyes as: “For the tsadik, all goes badly.  For the rasha, all goes well.” 

This circle too – though it appears unconnected and inaccessible to man – joins with the second circle to become an intimate reality directly reflecting Moral Man, who has absorbed Spiritual Man who deals with the worlds above and beyond the horizons of human existence.  When Spiritual Man is absorbed by Moral Man, then wonder of wonders, the spiritual becomes the spirit of life.  It revives existence’s dry bones, turning them into its raw materials, turning it into the robot that hurries too (although  he is mechanical and although he is perhaps reluctantly compelled against his wishes) to join the animated and ecstatic circle, to dance with a Hasid’s devotion and dvaikut, to turn the parched eastern wind into the heart’s joyous song.

In the wake of this vast cosmic revolution, man finds himself entangled in unexpected difficulties.  The Promised Land that he has anticipated, by force of the Divine promise, and which he has assumed to be surely and unequivocally safe in his pocket, now becomes his heart’s desire, his soul’s yearning.  It absorbs him entirely, requiring his self-sacrifice, his devotion, his endless investment of effort, and his determination to stand up to sublime moral expectations.  What once seemed like a comfortably owned property and a good deal turns into a test of one’s very existence, of one’s quality, which renews itself constantly in the face of trials and temptations that contradict his very nature.

Quality’s test has pushed natural survival’s test aside.  It is not as an existential right that one receives the Promised Land but as a tool for the expression of one’s Godly Presence, as the tool with which one serves one’s Creator.  Upon the dweller of the Land, a mission is placed, upon which all of the creation depends: To cultivate the place of encounter that connects heaven and earth.  Cultivating this place brings about union, and the reconciliation of opposites that contradict one another and that threaten the wholeness and the stability of the universe.  Makom HaMikdash, the place of the Sanctuary, is the place where spirit receives its tangible actualization, and where the tangible receives its spiritual quality.

One must not, God forbid, fail in one’s mission, and this is no reference to technical failure – to a failure in the “doing”, in the fulfillment of the ritual commandments or the service of the korbanot, the sacrificial offerings – but rather to a failure in the human realm, in “being” whole in one’s moral perfection.  Upon the interpersonal sphere ben adam la’havero, between one man and his fellow, rests the interspiritual sphere, the ben adam laMakom, the connection between man and God.  The moral burden is immeasurably heavier than any objective mission.

It happens suddenly, without prior warning, and despite God’s promise to our forefathers, despite “see, I have given...the land that God promised to your forefathers.”  Suddenly the Divine promise is insufficient.  A personal difficulty  unexpectedly appears:  “I cannot bear you by myself.”  “How can I bear it all alone?”  “Your tiresome nuisance...your quarrels.”  “This teaches that they were nuisances; it teaches that they were heretics, and it teaches that they were quarrelsome.” (Rashi)

It was not that the People of Israel had deteriorated.  Rather the new personal role in the service of God, in avodat Hashem had had the effect of highlighting every personal deficiency in stark relief, a condition which could impede their chances for success at inheriting the Land, whereas at an earlier stage, the Land had been freely given to them, it had lain in their pockets as paht b’salo, ‘the loaf of bread that lies already in one’s basket’, by virtue of God’s promise to their forefathers.

Suddenly a new need is felt – the need for morally/personally qualitative people.  “Get you wise and insightful people...”  “Also I [Moses] was snubbed by God, because of you...” since the onset of the new methodology.  Even I lost the power that had been vested in me by virtue of my position.  Matters no longer depend on my direct connection with the Creator of the universe, which connection I had created by my own merit.  From here on, it all depends upon you, upon a system comprised of normative, average human beings and of  each one’s individual human quality.

Gone are the supermen.  No more is the sublime super-tsadik.  The Land will be built upon the toil of midot, the efforts of self-betterment and character refinement, upon the devotion of all its inhabitants, upon their success at creating a model of behavioral perfection, a wondrous ideal for all the world to behold and emulate: How to build a society that is “a regal province of priests and a sacred people.”

Deuteronomy: How simple human beings can and must create unity  by together actualizing an ideal, by actualizing moral values and applying them at the level of conventional, normative behavior.  By resolving ancient feuds without using force as far as that is possible, while advancing peaceful suggestions.  It is only when the hand outstretched for peace is returned empty – then and only then are you permitted, and obligated to make war: “See I have given Sihon and his country into your hand.  Begin to inherit, and provoke him to war.” 

Why?  Because a forceful posture in this instance indicates faith in the ideal, in the Godly imperative.  It does not come from faith in one’s own power, in one’s own strong arm, but rather as an expression of faith and devotion to the Godly imperative – as a demonstration of Who the ba’al habayit, the real Landlord is.  “Today I shall begin placing  a dread of you and a fear of you over the face of the nations under the entire heavens.”

There is a force that does not draw from the power of force itself but rather expresses the will of the Creator.  Only force that takes its imperatives from the power of mitsvah, from the Creator of the universe - may be called kosher force. 

Milhemet mitsva, the war of mitsvah.  One who dodges this draft evades his Godly task; he is shirking the Divine imperative: “Do not fear them, for it is God Who is fighting for you.”

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