Parashat Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22)
And the Lord God said to the
Serpent: Because you did this, cursed be you of all the cattle and all the
beasts of the field. On your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the
days of your life. Enmity will I set between you and the woman, between your
seed and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel (Genesis 3:14-15).
The Lord does not bother to interrogate the Serpent. With man and
woman, there are motives to divulge, designs to ferret out: "Where
are you?" "What have you done?" "Did you eat from the
tree?"
When shamed, man will cloak himself in fig leaves and hide behind
hydrangeas. Such is the crooked timber of humanity, one must peel away each
subterfuge, strip back each layer of evasion to get at the truth. A snake, on
the other hand, just watch and wait, it will always shed its skin.
Allegorically, the Serpent is humanity's penchant for evil. Of it,
what is there to ascertain? As surely as a stomach lusts for food, evil craves
man's heart. It can make no excuses. It exists for its own sake. Even
diminished — without legs, claws or cleverness — it still crouches at the door,
poisoned fangs ready to strike. "Its desire is for you," so Cain is
warned. Once unleashed, its venom marks him forever.
Even still, we wish to hide from it. "My punishment is too
great to bear," Cain cries out. Better to flee, to become “a nomad and a wanderer”
than to face the evil in our midst. (Genesis 4:13-14)
This Shabbat, amidst a war in Israel and relentless turmoil around
the globe, we begin Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Torah. After 40 years of
rootless travel, the Children of Israel are on the cusp of a long sought dream.
Yet as Israel looks expectantly toward its future conquest in the West, the gaze
of Moses is locked firmly on the past. His opening words contain no claim of triumph
or call to arms, rather Moses’ recollection of history is littered with Israel’s
many failures … “your trouble, your burden, your disputing” (Deuteronomy 1:12).
Alongside battles won and lost, recountings of journeys and
encampments, Moses does not obviate from mentioning Israel’s grumblings and
complaints. He persistently refers to how Israel “rebelled against the word of
God” (Deuteronomy 1:43). Of Moses, we are later told that even on his dying day
“his eye did not dim nor was his energy spent” (Deuteronomy 34:7). Moses was of
unclouded sight and unwavering conviction.
This past year or so, the
West has fallen to an awful nadir. Our sight has dimmed, our strength has
seemingly depleted. We stare into the Serpent's clouded eyes, and instead of
crushing its head, we turn heel in fear of its
bite.
Not too long ago, Syria’s Assad was on the verge of collapse; a
few more rifles and a few aerial attacks and his regime would have folded.
Instead his militias were given respite while we averted our eyes from the death
and displacement of hundreds of thousands.
We were relieved to finally leave Iraq, and have since watched (or
not) the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) rise up and massacre Shiites,
Christians, and Kurds.
Ongoing sanctions of Iran may as well be pardons for the all
difference they make. We seem destined to follow a similar course with Russia. What
might Putin do next if Europe does not have the nerve to act? We speak much, do
little and look elsewhere at first opportunity.
Observing Israel these terrible last few weeks, it is plain that Israel
has been remiss for quite some time. As we hid behind our Iron Dome, our F-16s
and drones, a warren of evil entrenched itself under Gaza, its tentacles burrowing
deeper and deeper into the Holy Land. Unbeknownst to us, a den of vipers became a
kingdom of cobras.
Is it too much to assume that if we had watched better, understood
what simmered beneath, acted sooner, fewer soldiers would return home draped in
Israeli flags? Could it be said that more vigilance might have prevented much
of the death and decimation we are forced to witness each day?
Next week we observe the 9th of Av, in memorium of our two fallen Temples,
and the many tragedies that have befallen Israel at the hands of our enemies. On
this day, we do not avert our gaze from the past, but look on it truly.
“Inquire, pray, of past days, which were before you,” Moses
instructs us. (Deuteronomy 4:32) Learn from the past, or be doomed to repeat
it.
“The wicked flee when none pursueth,” so goes the proverb. There
is a profound lesson the world needs to learn from Hamas: ‘Flee the serpent,
and it will follow.’
Rabbi Yehuda M. Hausman is the spiritual leader of the The Shul on Duxbury, an independent Orthodox minyan. He is a teacher at the Academy for Jewish Religion, CA, and a lecturer at American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinical Studies. He writes about the weekly parasha on his blog, rabbihausman.com.
