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Devarim: A D'var Torah by Eric Mendelsohn

Parashat Devarim
Deuteronomy 1:1-3,22

I once, tongue in cheek, summarized the Pentateuch as


1) Genesis - Everything happens.
2) Exodus - one big thing happens.
3) Leviticus - nothing happens.
4) Numbers - we are not quite sure what happened.
5) Deuteronomy - Let me tell you what happened.

Let me tell you what happened is a process known as narrative. It is a presentation of


our story, not of history. A selective reading of history, fable and popular belief
constructed into a coherent directed whole. Most of which goes as history in grade
school and high school is narrative not history. Narratives can compete, or coexist, but
narratives are told for a purpose and believed for a purpose.

An example of competing narratives are the different Turkish and Armenian stories of
the events that took place in the early twentieth century, or the narrative that says the
Japanese taught written language to the Koreans while scholarship points to the
opposite. A set of competing narratives with which we are much concerned with are that
of the Israeli War of Independence and the Palestinian Naqba. Perhaps they will become
co-existing narratives.

Competing narratives can eventually become co-existing narratives. An example of this


is the story of Tories of the American revolutionary war and the United Empire
Loyalists of the Canada -- those same traitors, thieves, and immoral no-goodniks chased
out by the revolutionaries are the people who founded three of the four founding
colonies of what became the Canadian confederation.

While visiting Fredricton, New Brunswick, my son-in-law was surprised to find that its
founders were from the same area of Maryland where he was born and grew up. I
remember the awe some 55 years ago when our public school class consisting of Jews,
Ukrainians, and Scots and Irish who came in the 19th and 20th centuries were told, and
the teacher made a fuss about it, that one little girl had insisted on the hereditary right to
place the letters U. E. L. after her name, signifying she was a direct descendant of
Loyalists. (This practice has since faded almost completely). Here we have coexisting
narratives which are contradictory and enhance both perspectives.

What I wish to present is the competing narratives of the Deuteronomist and that of
contemporary biblical scholarship and show how both can co-exist and enhance our
lives as Reconstructionist Jews.

What does the Deuteronomist wish to enhance by the narrative which begins with:
"These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan."

1) That all Israel wandered from slavery in Egypt to this place.

2) There were 12 united tribes in a single confederacy.

3) That the B'nai Israel had one God and they were punished for disobeying Him .

4) That the land of Israel was divinely promised and must be conquered.

5) That B'nai Israel were monotheists.

6) That there were no other gods.

7) That God of Israel was ethical.

8) That the moral and civil law were dictated by God.

9) That God intervened to punish both nations collectively and as individuals.

10)That God rewarded moral behavior.

11)That the God of Israel was the God of all humanity.

12)That Israel were a people chosen by God.

13)That Israel entered into a covenant with God.

Of these 13 attributes of God and Israel's relation to God none are supported by modern
scholarship and its narrative, any more than the existence of Adam and Eve in the
garden, Abraham and the Patriarch tales, the Exodus, or almost everything about King
David (who, if he existed, was a minor character) and almost all of the Solomon legends.

But modern scholarship's narrative can co-exist with this narrative and add to it a most
miraculous tale of a people and their God. It is the genius of the ancient interpreters in
the years between 586 B.C.E. and 600 C.E. (The Babylonian exile to the closure of the
Talmud), with the most important parts taking place between 70 C.E. and 200 C.E., who
took varied and fragmented texts and constructed a narrative which has at its core
ethical monotheism and preserved it through the generations as an open text for us to
study and from that glean new bases for these principles.

When we finish reading the Torah we start again. When we finish a chapter of Talmud
we say "O (whatever chapter it is) we will return to you". We have a different d'var
Torah on every parashah every week of our lives. Franz Rosenzweig, commenting on
the documentary hypothesis which postulated authors J, the Yahwist, E, the Elohist, P,
the priestly writer, D, the Deuteronomist and R, the final redactor of the Torah,
remarked that R stands for Rabeinu. Over a century ago it was recognized that the
genius was in the redaction not the text.
So let me tell you what happened to produce the central idea of Israel and its lone single
God. I am conflating and simplifying for the sake of this d'var Torah. Let us go back to
the period of the late bronze, early iron age when the fertile plain was occupied by
agricultural peoples with iron implements and the hills were controlled by a loose group
of bronze age herders who were beginning to cultivate the lower reaches of their
territory and wanted very much to conquer and occupy the plains. The period described
in the book of Judges and Samuel.

We know that these people suffered from raids from the valley peoples and could not
displace them. We know that one tribe would be angry that another failed to defend
them and some tribes like Reuven disappeared. "In those days there was no king in
Israel and each man did what was right in their own eyes".

In order to achieve victory or at least defend themselves they needed to unite. However
they could not trust any one tribe to be leader or emperor. They came to a unique
solution. In fact in all that I have read or studied no one else came up with a similar
solution except once in medieval Europe when a group in Malta made the Blessed
Virgin Mary their temporal ruler, as others could not understand a ruling council with
no ruler. These tribes made their God their emperor or Suzerain. With this arrangement
when a navi (prophet) or shofeit (chieftain/judge) issued a call to arms all within the
covenant must respond. What did making God your Suzerain imply then and what did
our wonderful rabbis do with it:

1) The Suzerain was far away but knew what was going on. - God cannot be seen or felt
but is omniscient.

2) The Suzerain demanded that you serve no other empire -- You shall have no other
Gods before me. It is much later that it develops that there are no other gods.

3) The Suzerain created a covenant of rewards and punishments – God rewards and
punishment according to God's covenant and not according to God's whims.

4) The Suzerain wanted his civil law obeyed within your realm. Here is the stroke of
brilliance that creates ethical monotheism. In all non-Abrahamic religions, God or the
gods give the emperor power (what the Chinese call the mandate of heaven) and the
emperor creates the laws and rules. This accident allowed our Rabbis to say the moral
and civil law is God's, not human. This is the foundation of ethical monotheism.

5) All were part of the Suzerain's family of tribal estates and must defend each other.
(All Israel are responsible for one another)

6) The Suzerain demanded taxes be paid and his representatives be supported. (You are
divinely commanded to give Tzedakah for the support of the community, its poor, and
its institutions.)

7) The Suzerain would defend you if you followed the law and leave you to your
enemies if you didn't. The main thrust of the Deuteronomist -- look at the passages
following the Shema in next week's parashah, which are in the siddur as part of thrice
daily prayer.
This practical compromise enabled the Canaanite tribes we call B'nai Israel to
eventually move down from the hills and exploit and settle the land flowing with milk
and honey.

Behold what the accidental side effects of this practical decision for mutual defense
became, when its fragmentary texts were redacted and made part of the canon by the
Jewish people through the brilliance of the rabbis and teachers and the people's desire to
preserve this teaching.

These narratives can and should coexist in the definition of the Jewish people. The one
from scholarship does not contradict the core values of our people, but gives them an
historical underpinning which enhances the wonder of peoplehood of the Jews and the
religious civilization in which we live and contribute.

Erick Mendelsohn Added August 5, 2008

Eric Mendelsohn is a member of Congregation Darchei Noam, Toronto and was a


commentator for the Kol Habeshamah siddurim.

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