Parashat Devarim

Our hero had led his people for a generation. Early in his career he buoyed their spirits when they were drowning in a sea of doubt. He gave them steadfast encouragement, and inspired them to fearlessly fight on, and brought them from the brink of disaster to the pinnacle of achievement. Suddenly, at the apex of their ascent, he received a message from above, that he would not accompany his people in their pursuit to recover the mantle of greatness. Their hero would die in the desert. He gathered his troops, and made an impassioned speech that would go down in history as one of the most inspirational moments of all time. He began,

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth….”

On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig, legendary first baseman and captain of the New York Yankees, after receiving his death sentence of ALS, a debilitating neurological disease, addressed his people and expressed his unwavering appreciation for the good fortune of his life, family, associates, and fans. His words were echoed on the silver screen by Gary Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees.”

Instead of an angry defiant backlash against G-d, Gehrig took the opportunity to inspire us to see the good that is present in our lives, even when clouded by our day to day challenges.

In Parashat Devarim (Deuteronomy), Moshe, after receiving a message from above that he would not accompany his people on their pending conquest of the Promised Land, stood before the Israelites and began to deliver one of the most poignant goodbye speeches in the history of civilization.

On that side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses commenced [and] explained this Torah, saying,”The Lord our G-d spoke to us in Horeb, saying, ‘You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. Turn and journey, and come to the mountain of the Amorites and to all its neighboring places, in the plain, on the mountain, and in the lowland, and in the south and by the seashore, the land of the Canaanites, and the Lebanon, until the great river, the Euphrates River. See, I have set the land before you; come and possess the land which the Lord swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them and their descendants after them.” (Deut. 1:6-8)

But Moshe was not content to list his personal achievements, or stroke the egos of his flock. Rather, in the ultimate act of love, he takes the opportunity to point out their shortcomings, and inspire them to surpass their own expectations.

Our sages teach that at first his words of rebuke were subtle, and couched in geographical and chronological references. As he proceeded he strengthened his approach, hinting at some major impediments to the ultimate destiny of the Jewish people:
Eicha esa l’vadi tarchakhem u’masa’akhem v’rivkhem. How can I bear your trouble, your burden, and your strife all by myself?( Deut. 1:12)
It is no coincidence that the word ‘Eicha‘ is the very same Hebrew word that begins and names the Book of Lamentations we chant in our sorrow, on Tisha B’Av, the ninth of the month Av, which occurs each year in the week following Parashat Devarim.

Moshe gets even more specific, until he openly mentions the single most catastrophic incident to befall the Israelites in the wilderness:

And all of you approached me and said, “Let us send men ahead of us so that they will search out the land for us and bring us back word by which route we shall go up, and to which cities we shall come.” (Deut. 1:22)
We first learned about this incident in Parashat Shelach.The incident of the scouts is brought up again here, and we are all urged to consider it well. Our inability to appreciate the gifts of G-d, no matter how small, will prevent us from receiving our spiritual and physical inheritance. Moshe continues:
And the matter pleased me; so I took twelve men from you, one man for each tribe.. And they turned and went up to the mountain, and they came to the valley of Eshkol and spied it out.
And they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us, brought us back word, and said, “The land the Lord, our G-d, is giving us is good.”
But you did not want to go up, and you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord, your God.
You murmured in your tents and said, ‘”Because the Lord hates us, He took us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to exterminate us.” (Deut 1:23-27)

Here is the story as it unfolded back in Parashat Shelach, in the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar):

They spread an [evil] report about the land which they had scouted, telling the children of Israel, “The land we passed through to explore is a land that consumes its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of stature. There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, descended from the giants. In our eyes, we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.
The entire community raised their voices and shouted, and the people wept on that night. All the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the entire congregation said, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this desert. Why does the Lord bring us to this land to fall by the sword; our wives and children will be as spoils. Is it not better for us to return to Egypt?” They said to each other, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt!” (Num. 13:32-14:4).

The Torah tells us of G-d’s response, that the entire generation would wander in the desert for 40 years, and only the next generation would be able to enter the Promised Land.

The Talmud ( Taanit 29a and Sotah 35a) tells us that it was the eve of the Tishah b’Av. G-d said “they cried for no reason. I will fix the day to be a day of crying for generations.”

Tisha b’Av would be the day that both Temples were destroyed, and prove to be a most unfortunate date on the calendar through the centuries:Moses related all these words to the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. (Num. 14:39)

In this week’s parsha of Devarim, Moshe now implores his people not to repeat the mistakes of the previous generation, to be open to recognizing the inherent good in all that G-d bestows.

Lou Gehrig’s speech inspired his team to go on without their fearless leader, and they won the 1939 World Series.

Moshe did not live to see his people win the conquest of the Land of Israel. Ultimately, the failure to appreciate G-d’s gifts resulted in a break down in the moral and spiritual fabric of the nation, and Israel went into an exile that continues to this day, two thousand years later.

Gehrig concluded his address, “When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body — it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed — that’s the finest I know. So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

May our prayers this Tisha b’Av, expressing our sorrow at a life without the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, without prophecy, without the physical presence of G-d dwelling between the cherubs, penetrate the depths of centuries of anguish and exile. May our mourning arise not out of self pity, but as part of a process inspiring us to return to our true spiritual lives, with gratitude for all of G-d’s gifts, no matter how small. We too have an awful lot to live for.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Greg

Full text of Lou Gehrig’s speech here

What is ALS?
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ( also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord resulting in muscle weakness and atrophy.