Va'etchanan

Va'etchanan - Colin Bulka 

Colin is an informal educator who made Aliya in 1992. He is a Jerusalem Fellows graduate and has just completed three years here in Britain on shlichut with the Jewish Agency. He is now looking forward to going home this summer.

In Va'etchanan, before Moses continues his speech to Bnei Yisrael (the Children of Israel) in which he recites the Ten Commandments, he pleads with God to let him cross into, and see, the Promised Land rather than dying outside of it.

There is much debate within Chazal (the rabbinic commentators) about why Moses deserved this punishment, the most commonly understood being because he struck the rock to bring water instead of talking to it as God had commanded. Though this seems from the text the obvious reason (Numbers 20:12), others claim it is less clear. In fact a midrash (rabbinic narrative) tells us that Moses questions why he deserves this, especially as God forgives everyone else, sometimes even three times. The midrash tells us that God replies that there are actually six sins Moses committed, including killing the Egyptian taskmaster and testing God during Korach's uprising, which is why he cannot be forgiven.

I however do not want to dwell on why he's punished but more on how Moses deals with it. Even from what is in the Torah, I find these verses very sad and one of those moments where we most see Moses' human qualities including flaws such as his own ego needs. Yet, what we learn through the midrashim add even more pathos.

Tradition tells us that, based on the gematria (the numerical totalling of the letters in a Hebrew word), the word Va'etchanan itself, which means 'and I besought', shows that Moses actually prayed to God 515 times, so desperate was he for the judgement to be reversed. Another fascinating midrash illustrating this tells how Moses tries to avoid the judgement's intention by suggesting to God various solutions, including sneaking in so no one else will know, having his bones carried in to the land after his death, allowing him to enter for just a few years and then dieing there and even being allowed in as an animal or a bird! To all these requests, God says no.

Abarbanel (a 15th century commentator) lists four reasons why Moses tried so hard to enter the land. These include the desire to do certain mitzvot that can only be done in the land and to be able to pray at Mount Moria and to tell the people that this place had been chosen for the building of the Beit Mikdash. But the third reason that Abarbanel lists is the desire on behalf of every person to complete their life's work.

Much of my work is with Zionist youth movements and there this idea of completing one's life's work, of living out one's beliefs and ideology if you will, is known as Hagshama and is one of the most important concepts for their committed leaders.

Of course, since being exiled from the land, we the Jewish people, just like Moses, have both collectively and individually prayed for our return. For almost 60 years however, we haven't needed prayer but could return, not just to the land as was possible if incredibly difficult throughout the centuries, but to a sovereign Jewish state, in which, as with Moses, we can see her incredible qualities as well as her many flaws. Traditionally, for Zionist youth movements this idea of Aliya to the Promised Land is what Hagshama has meant.

Of course not everyone ends up wanting to live out this ideology but for those who do they are not faced with the need to beseech God 515 times to allow that which is for many their life's work in youth movement terms, but simply to open an Aliya file and get on a plane.

As someone who made Aliya 15 years ago as a result of just such a drive, I have been here in Britain for the past three years on a Jewish Agency shlichut working with the community. Although I've really enjoyed my time here, it now feels right to go home and I am very much looking forward to it. I am happy that, unlike Moses, this fulfilment of my life's ideological dreams will not be denied me for any sins I may have committed (and I am sure I have committed many, certainly more than six!).

I hope that some of you reading this will in time choose to join me and thus not have to view Israel from the outside but will get to enter the Promised Land and thus 'do' your own Hagshama and live it out, warts and all. See you there and Shabbat Shalom.