Devarim: Heading to Zion

There is much to discuss in this week’s parashah—if we were to go word by word, the first word alone would suffice for an essay, and we may do a post on it in the future. But this week, the parashah coincides with Tisha B’Av, so we are hoping to make two related posts, one for the parashah and one for Tisha B’Av. And to begin that, we jump to verse 6.

In that verse, God speaks to us at Horeb, saying רב-לכם שבת בהר הזה—along the lines of “that’s enough of you sitting at this mountain.” In other words, it is time to leave Sinai and head to Zion.

It has been nearly two millennia since any practical talk was possible of rebuilding the Temple. In that time, our worldview and daily rituals shifted with the realities we faced, and we focused on that which we could achieve in that period in history in which we found ourselves. We turned inward, and focused on our personal self-improvement—when we hear about the Temple, it is often along the lines of building and maintaining “our own personal spiritual Beis haMikdash.”

There is something very right about this development. After all, everything that takes place in the Temple is symbolic, and proper Temple service involves understanding that symbolism and applying it to one’s own life, outside the Temple. Reading the Navi, we quickly see that the destruction of the Temple follows when Temple service becomes rote, and when the symbolism is no longer applied to life outside; this defeats the entire purpose of the Temple.

To respond to the destruction of the Temple by focusing precisely on the application of its lessons to our lives is a national response that, when considered in depth, can well in itself make one proud of being a part of the Jewish people. It appears that we learned all the right lessons from the destruction we endured.

There is one thing for which the Temple was never intended: spending one’s entire life there and never going outside. If the lessons we learn are to have a purpose, we must apply them; and for that, we must step outside. Among Christians, the idea of spending one’s life in a monastery as a monk, studying and never leaving, is sometimes seen as a positive, higher level on which to spend one’s life. But this is not how we view it. Torah exists to be applied.

There are those among us who see constant study as the ideal. To some, the thought of venturing outside is much like the thoughts they have as they say asher yatzar—it is unfortunate that we are physical beings with physical needs (be they food or a roof); let us take care of them as quickly as possible so that we can get back to studying.

We expect that if we study hard enough, the day will come when the Temple will simply come down from the sky; there are many who explicitly say this. But that does not appear to be how God operates with regard to the land. In Breishit 16:7, God tells Avraham that He took him out of Ur to give him this land[1]. Rav Ovadiah Sforno comments: כדי שאתה בעצמך תקנה אותה ב”חזקה”—“so that you yourself will take it by force.” It is arguable that Moshe, who tries to tell the nation on multiple occasions that God will fight the war for conquest for them, is demonstrating precisely why he is not permitted to enter the land.

The most unfortunate thing about this view is that it fails to bring Torah down into the world. What is the point of elevating ourselves if we do nothing with it? How can we lay the groundwork for rebuilding the Temple without interacting with the world around us?

The fact is that we cannot, and as a result, in the 20th century, more progress toward rebuilding the Temple was made by secular Jews than by religious ones—rebuilding the Temple would be a non-starter if we did not control the land. Today, however, the bottleneck is elsewhere. If Israel were left entirely to secular Jews now, it would likely just give away a bunch of land and eventually cease to be a Jewish state altogether. The time now is riper than ever for those who have refined themselves with Torah to enter the scene and help direct events.

The under-participation in practical life by religious Jews came at a cost: the sometimes oppressive non-Torah secular state that secular Jews built now leaves us with many knots to untie in the process of preparing to rebuild the Temple. Untying these knots will require more participation from religious Jews.

איכה יועם זהב[2]—“How the gold has been tarnished!” we will read on Tisha B’Av. When we take too “hands-off” an approach to our gold, it tarnishes. It is up to us to return to it and polish it again.

And so God says to us: רב-לכם שבת בהר הזה—it is time to leave Sinai and head to Zion. Fortunately, looking at Israel now, it appears that many of us are stepping up to this challenge.

[1] A key word in this pasuk is לרישתה, and it would be worthwhile to trace the usage of the word through the rest of the Torah in its application to the land, but these posts are long enough as it is.
[2] Eichah 4:1