By Rabbi Dr Walter Rothschild

As one gets older one starts to look backward as well as forward – I suppose as one gets even older there is less ‘Forward’ to look forward to in any case. In the book ”Devarim” which now begins, the fifth and final section of the Torah, Moses does both, looking both backwards and forwards, for he is speaking now to the next generation, the one that grew up after the Exodus. Their parents have by now – with but two exceptions – passed away, as have his own siblings. The future of which he speaks will be their future, not his. But he is concerned for them, concerned that he should not have wasted the past forty years trying to teach the Israelites how to behave with each other and with God. They have a destiny, a covenant, but it is one that is conditional upon their behaviour. Will they deserve it? Will they continue to deserve it? What can he do to impress this upon them? There are no guarantees and as the book progresses and he comes closer to his own departure the tone gets if anything more and more desperate. ”Remember, do not forget! Look, you have a choice, make the right one!”

This remains an ever-current issue for Jews and Judaism, both for each individual Jew and for the people as a whole. We know that there are demands placed upon us – mitzvot – and it is not always clear how to interpret them. Which is why ongoing rabbinic Judaism and commentary exists. It is perhaps significant that the rabbis in the exile created a Judaism in which we read each year the ‘Five Books of Moses’ (albeit Moses himself does not appear in the first one) but not the sixth book, Joshua, in which the Israelites take and settle the Land that had been promised to them back in Bereshit, in the First Book. The result is that our Judaism in the Diaspora is defined still as very much how to live in the Wilderness, as a wandering people, looking forward to an eventual entry into the promised Land. It is abstract and often universalistic. Jews in Israel, in contrast, have to live with the results and the consequences of having settled the Land – they have borders to define and defend, they have to come to terms with other ethnic groups and with aggressive neighbours, they have to choose their political and religious leaders and live their lives and pay their taxes there. They share the same heritage but have less room for abstract idealism, whereas we can speak idealistically of the wonders of monotheism without having to deal with the same pressures and dangers and demands.

The two Judaisms are in danger of growing apart – but the roots lie in this difference. Personally I think that we in the Diaspora need to read Joshua more and understand the nitty-gritty of conquering and occupying the land promised to us by covenant. It is in this sixth book that so much of what was begun earlier reaches a conclusion. We need to include a Sixth Book and a ‘Hexateuch’, not a ‘Pentateuch’ to cope with this new reality since 1948.

Moses looks backwards when he tells the people about the promises made to their distant ancestors and the sufferings of their more immediate ancestors. But he looks forward to tell them how to run the country when they get there, how to run the agriculture, how to establish their religious centre. He repeats the commands their parents received in Exodus, and urges them to pass these lessons on to the following generations. Which is why we are still reading them now.

Although he will not be able to lead them personally but has at God’s command delegated this task to Joshua, in this sidra he gives them a brief resumé of the land they are about to enter. Some is reserved for the Moabites, some for the Midianites, they must concentrate only on the section that God has promised. ”The Land” has to be defined. Interestingly, in Deut 2.23f. he warns them of the inhabitants of various places including Gaza, ”where formerly the Avvim used to live until the Kaphtorim came from Kaphtor and drove them out in order to live there themselves.” This indicates to me that several thousand years ago, long before the Israelites even entered the Land, there had been tensions and conflicts in Gaza…… with different ethnic groups striving for control.

The ”Earthly Jerusalem” (”Yerushalayim shel Maata”) is not the same as the Heavenly one (”Yerushalayim shel Ma’ala”). Keeping the two connected and in balance is a challenge for each generation. And sooner or later each generation must pass this challenge on to the next one.

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