Let’s orient ourselves geographically. Right now I am facing west with the eastern wall of the shul behind me. To my right is the north and to my left is the south. Everyone following? Good. Now, consider what God said to Moshe in the final days of his life. Moshe’s fervent prayer to enter Eretz Yisrael with the Israelites was denied. But God told him to עֲלֵ֣ה ׀ רֹ֣אשׁ הַפִּסְגָּ֗ה – climb the summit of Pisgah and look out to the west to the east to the north and to the south. Moshe and the Isralites were in the mountain range on the eastern bank of the Jordan river. If you’ve ever looked to the east from Jerusalem on a clear day, or looked towards the east from the top of Massada, you can see those very same mountains.
Moshe was standing on the summit of Pisgah looking across the Jordan into Eretz Yisrael; gazing with longing from one end to the other of the land he would not enter. Why was he also told to look to the east? The east was the land of Moav. The east was the pathway through forty years of wandering in the desert. The east was the way backwards not the way forward.
Rabbi Ilay Ofran, the rabbi of Kibbutz Yavneh, in his newly published collection of essays on the Torah, which was newly carried back to Chicago for me from Israel by Sara, suggests that Moshe’s entire life was exemplified by transitions that are characterized by the Hebrew root ע, ב,ר.
When Moshe is found by Pharoah’s daughter she correctly identifies him as a Hebrew baby “מִיַּלְדֵ֥י הָֽעִבְרִ֖ים זֶֽה.” When he leads the Israelites to freedom he does so ״במעבר ים סוף״ crossing the Red Sea. The tablets of the covenant which Moshe receives are written ״כְּתֻבִים֙ מִשְּׁנֵ֣י עֶבְרֵיהֶ֔ם״ written on two sides. When Moshe successfully prays for God to forgive us after the sin of the golden calf, God teaches Moshe about the 13 attributes of Divine mercy ״וַיַּעֲבֹ֨ר ה׳ עַל־פָּנָיו֮ וַיִּקְרָא֒ ״as God passes by. And finally, as Moshe stands on the eastern bank of the Jordan – מעבר הירדן he asks to pass into the land אֶעְבְּרָה־נָּ֗א וְאֶרְאֶה֙ אֶת־הָאָ֣רֶץ and God became angry when Moshe nudged him too much: וַיִּתְעַבֵּ֨ר הֹ בִּי֙ לְמַ֣עַנְכֶ֔ם.
Moshe’s life exemplifies being an עברי a Hebrew – but Moshe exemplifies a very different model of what it means to be an Ivri than the earlier model in the Torah which is that of Avraham. When Avraham is first described as being an Ivri, a Hebrew, Rashi points out that means no more than Avraham was someone who came from the other side of the river. It seems to be a simple geographic label for Avrham. But it comes to symbolize that Avraham was willing to be different. He was willing to stand aside from the rest of humanity and affirm his belief in God no matter what every other human being believed. To be an Ivri in the model of Avraham is to be an iconoclast.
Moshe’s life as an Ivri was entirely different. Moshe did not stand apart, Moshe facilitated transitions. His life was about crossing over from one side to the other. He escorted his people from slavery to freedom. He escorted the Torah from Heaven to Earth. He escorted the Israelites up to the border of Eretz Yisrael and he was told to look to the west to see where they would go and to look to the east to see where they had come from.
I want to suggest another reason why Moshe looked to the east. There is a special sort of blessing that Moshe attained in being able to look back at a long and challenging journey and to feel pride in having made that journey and to feel relief in knowing that the journey is over.
That sort of blessing is one which we have yearned for over the past months of the Covid pandemic. Time and again I thought we were on the cusp of reaching that point where we could look back in relief and pride and gratitude with the knowledge that we had reached the end of the long journey through the wilderness and that the promised land lay before us. With the confusing news of the past week, Covid cases and even hospitalizations are on the rise again in this country and in Chicago as well, with new restrictions being imposed in Israel to slow the spread there, we are very much not on the other side of the wilderness. It is very likely that by the time Shabbat ends covid rates in Chicago will once again be above 5 cases per 100,000, the threshold at which the shul’s medical task force may recommend that we again wear masks at those tefilot with high attendance such as Shabbat morning. And, like the Israelites, we don’t know the path we will need to follow and we don’t know how long it will be until we reach the other side.
But just as God granted Moshe the privilege of looking to the east, looking behind himself, in satisfaction in a job well done, so too we will be able to look back one day ourselves in satisfaction and relief and gratitude. The efforts we make today, to sustain our community, to strengthen the relationships between us, to invest in our devotion to Torah and Mitzvot, will determine just how proud we will feel in the future when we look back on these days.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 