In this week’s Torah portion, Va’ethanan, Moses continues his long swansong, his final speech to the children of Israel at the edge of the Jordan river. In just a few weeks’ time (sooner than we think!) our reading of Torah will end with his death there. Tanakh (the Hebrew scriptures) continues with the book of Joshua and stories of conquest and Israelite kingdom, but we don’t read that week by week every year. After Simchat Torah we’ll begin Torah over again. 

In the frame of Torah, Moshe is speaking to the children of Israel, now mostly the descendants of those whom he originally led out of Egypt. After the incident with the scouts, when ten of the twelve returned to say, “the inhabitants of the Land look like giants, we felt like grasshoppers, we can’t do this,” God decided that the generation that had known slavery would not enter the Land of Promise. Their spirits were so accustomed to constriction they weren’t capable of hope.

There’s a midrash that says that every year on the ninth day of the month of Av, the anniversary of the scouts bringing their negative report, the children of Israel would dig their own graves in the wilderness and climb into them. And the next morning some of them would be dead, and they’d be buried, and the rest of the people would climb out and go on living… until one year no one from that early generation was left to die. Everyone who had known slavery was gone.

Anyway, those who remain: that’s who Moses is speaking to. He tells them the stories of everything that happened on their parents’ wilderness journey, including the revelation of the Ten Commandments (Deut. 5:6-19) – or maybe the whole Torah, or maybe all Jewish wisdom that ever was or will be – at Sinai. And then he says: okay, this is the instruction, the thing you’re supposed to really follow and obey: and he offers the Sh’ma and V’ahavta. (Deut. 6:4-9)

In the frame of Torah, he’s talking to the children and maybe grandchildren of those who knew slavery. In our own frame, these verses are speaking directly to us. Here we are, “encamped” along a boundary between what was and what will be. Between the old year that is soon to end, and the new year we haven’t yet begun. Tisha b’Av began our seven-week journey toward Rosh Hashanah. Whether we feel ready for this or not, we’re on the runway to the Days of Awe.

In a sense, Moses – or Torah – or God – is speaking these words directly to us. Listen, O Israel. That’s us: we are the children of Israel, the people Israel, that name we inherit from our ancestor Jacob who wrestled with an angel and earned the new name One-Who-Wrestles-With-God. Torah says, I’m talking to YOU. And the instruction? To love God* with all our hearts, all our souls, all our might. To teach this to our generations. To bind it to our hands and hearts.

I said God* with an asterisk after it. By now this refrain is probably familiar to many of you: if the G-word doesn’t work for you, find one that does. We are commanded to love Justice. To love Mercy. To love Truth and Meaning and Hope. Torah says: find something that matters to you and cleave to it. And let your attachment to God* or Justice or Mercy or Truth guide your actions: what you do, what you build, what you work toward, how you are in the world.

This mitzvah is self-sustaining: it says, “teach me to your generations.” It says, “write this on the doorposts of your house.” Imagine a world where every doorframe was adorned with big banners that read, “Do the right thing.” Or “Remember what really matters.” Or “Feed the hungry, care for the vulnerable, be ethical in every way.” Would we really remember, if those words were everywhere? Or would we learn to look past them and not really see? 

I think it’s probably human nature to look past our reminders. How often do we stop at a door where there’s a mezuzah and touch it and kiss our fingers, reaffirming our commitment to the ethical covenant of mitzvot that is our inheritance? I’ll admit: I forget most of the time. And I forget mitzvot. And I forget the work of teshuvah. Which is why when we hit Tisha b’Av and start this seven-week runway to the high holidays, I start to feel a deep sense of urgency.

Uh boy: there’s a lot of inner work we maybe didn’t do this year. There are places where we missed the mark and ignored it, or let ourselves believe that a half-hearted something was good enough, or let ourselves off the hook. We did not always act like a community guided by mitzvot. And the time for heshbon ha-nefesh, “an accounting of the soul,” is coming due. Torah this week comes to tell us: return to basic principles. Return to Sh’ma and V’ahavta. Start there.

What do we need to hear, this year, as we reach this point in our journey?

To what do we need to attune, both individually and communally as the people Israel?

Whose are the voices we’ve been ignoring, and what would it take for us to open to them now?

And what do we need to love, this year, as we reach this point in our journey?

What face of God or Justice or Mercy do we need to love and uplift with all our hearts? 

This is the d’varling Rabbi Rachel offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)