A.
In this week’s double parasha, as the Holy Nation prepares to enter the Holy Land, Moshe promises: ד' אלקיך הוא עבר לפניך הוא ישמיד את הגוים האלה מלפניך וירשתם יהושע הוא עבר לפניך כאשר דבר ד': ועשה ד' להם כאשר עשה לסיחון ולעוג מלכי האמרי ולארצם אשר השמיד אתם: ונתנם ד' לפניכם ועשיתם להם ככל המצוה אשר צויתי אתכם: חזקו ואמצו אל תראו ואל תערצו מפניהם כי ד' אלקיך הוא ההלך עמך לא ירפך ולא יעזבך: (“Ha-Shem your G-d is the one passing before you; he will destroy these nations from before you and you will inherit them; Yëhoshua‘ is the one passing before you, as Ha-Shem has spoken. And Ha-Shem will do to them as He did to Sihon and to ‘Og, kings of the Emori, and to their land, in that He destroyed them. And Ha-Shem will give them before you, and you will do to them according to all the mitzva which I have commanded you. Be strong and be brave, fear not and tremble not before them, for Ha-Shem your G-d is the one Who goes with you, He will neither let you down not abandon you”; XXXI, 3-6).
The alert reader אשר לו חוש חי לשפה העברית (“who has a living sense of the Hebrew language”), as one of my rebbe’im was wont to say, will already have noticed several peculiarities in our passage, which is the bulk of a paragraph in the original text and thus forms an organic whole, which may not be immediately obvious in English translation:
1. For instance, all of the second person pronouns in the first verse are in the singular; the third verse abruptly shifts to the second person plural, and the final verse begins in the second person plural, but ends (beginning with the word Eloqecha, “your G-d”) in the singular once again; why?
2. Moshe first promises that Ha-Shem will destroy Israel’s enemies, as He has done before, then suddenly admonishes them that they are to be the vehicle of the Canaanites’ downfall and destruction; how are those two statements compatible?
3. Having already promised that Ha-Shem would destroy the Canaanites, Moshe adds “as He did to Sihon and ‘Og; what does that add to the promise, which He already made?
4. Finally, given that the promise was already made that Ha-Shem would fight their war for them, why is it necessary to say and repeat that they should be strong, courageous, and so on? Why should they not be strong and courageous, knowing that the Divine power which had laid low the world’s superpower of the day, Egypt, was on their side?
The entire passage begs: Dorshéni! (“Interpret me!”). So let us do so.
B.
We begin by considering a midrash: מצינו תינוקות בימי דוד עד שלא טעמו טעם חטא היו יודעין לדרוש את התורה מ"ט פנים טמא מ"ט פנים טהור כו' אחר כל השבח הזה יוצאין למלחמה ונופלין אלא שהיו בהם דילטורין היו נופלין כו' אבל דורו של אחאב כולן עובדי ע"ז היו ועל ידי שלא היו בהן דילטורין היו יוצאין למלחמה ונוצחין וגו' (“We find little children in David’s day who had not yet tasted the flavor of sin, who knew how to research Torah in order to find 49 ways to declare [a given case] tamé’ and 49 ways to declare it tahor... After all this praise, they would go out to war and there would be casualties, for there were amongst them dilatorin... But Ah’av’s generation were all idolators, but because there were no dilatorin amongst them, they would go out to war and win [bloodless] victories....”; ויקרא רבה פכ"ו סי' ב' ). The Mattë-noth Këhunna defines dilatorin as בעלי לה"ר ורכילות, slanderers and tale-bearers.
This may be compared with another midrash: גדול השלום שאפי' ישראל עובדי' ע"ז ושולום ביניהם אמר המקום כביכול איני יכול לשלוט בהם כיון ששלום ביניהם שנא' "חבור עצבים אפרים הנח לו" וגו' אבל משנחלקו מה הוא אומר "חלק לבם עתה יאשמו". הא למדת גדול השלום ושנואה המחלוקת (“Great is shalom for even if Israel are idolators and there is shalom amongst them, G-d says, as it were, I cannot control them since there is shalom amongst them, as it is said: ‘Efrayim [a metaphor for the northern kingdom of Israel, over which Ah’av ruled] is attached to idols; leave him be’ [Hoshéa‘ IV, 17]. But as soon as they are divided, what does it say? ‘Their heart is divided; now they are guilty’ [ibid., X, 2]. So you have learnt: Great is shalom, and hated mahloqeth”; בראשות רבה פל"ח סי' ו').
Shalom is commonly translated “peace”, but it means much more than that; its root connotes “whole, complete, perfect.” In Eretz Yisra’él people are commonly greeted with the question , Ma shëlomëcha? “How are you?” “How is your health, your well-being, your general situation?” By juxtaposing these two midrashim, then, we see that the secret of military victory is unity of purpose amongst the units and the individual soldiers in the army. So long as all of them are whole-heartedly devoted to the task at hand, they cannot be defeated; but when their ranks are riven with mahloqeth, with strife and division such that there is no unity of purpose then, as we have seen, there are casualties.
C.
Now, in this light, let us reëxamine our passage.
It begins in the second person singular: If there is single-minded unity of purpose, if each member of the nation is absolutely dedicated to Torah u-mitzvoth such that Ha-Shem is Eloqecha, your individual, personal G-d, then you need have no fear. G-d will fight your battles for you; “He will destroy these nations from before you and you will inherit them.” Incredible miracles will happen, and there will be no necessity for war; Yëhoshua‘ will go before you, simply as the rav and poséq, the leader and halachic authority for your generation.
Was there ever such perfect unity amongst Israel? There was indeed, at Mattan Torah. The Torah itself tells us: ויחן שם ישראל נגד ההר (“And Israel camped there before the mountain”, when they arrived at the foot of Sinai; Exodus XIX, 2). My alert reader with the living sense of Hebrew will note that the verb is third person singular, prompting Rashi to comment: כאיש אחד בלב אחד (“like one man with one heart”). a unity so perfect and so wonderful that we celebrate it every year at the Passover séder, when we sing: אילו קרבנו לפני הר סיני ולא נתן לנו את התורה דיינו (“Had He brought us near Mt Sinai and not given us the Torah, it would have been enough for us!”). And not given us the Torah?!
To that extent is so perfect a unity transcendent, the utter solidarity elevating everything around it to sanctity, uniting this world with the next; as the Be’ér Moshe notes several times, Yisra’él is a notreiqon, an acronym for Yésh Shishim Ribbo’ Othiyoth La-Torah (“The Torah has 600,000 letters – counting the spaces between words, which therefore also carry meaning, as letters; this is the same as the number of men who stood at Sinai). Had that perfect unity lasted, it would have brought out the Torah which was inherent in Israel’s genotype from the Patriarchs (עיי' מה שכתבתי בא"ז ישיר לפרשת לך לך משנת תשס"ו עפ"י בראשית רבה פנ"ט סי' א' שאכן היתה התורה כעין ירושה גופנית מהאבות עד א"א). This is what such perfect unity can accomplish.
אבל שאר כל החניות בתרעומת ובמחלוקת (“But the rest of all the encampments were with murmuring and dispute”), Rashi continues, following the Mëchilta. Such unity is not the norm; so the Torah was given to Israel externally, through the medium of Moshe.
Which leads us to the second part of our passage. If there are differences in Israel, if the unity is not perfect and seamless (as the plural pronouns indicate), but there is at least no lashon ha-ra‘ to exaggerate and exacerbate the differences, such that they are respected, then the victory is not openly miraculous: It is instead like the campaign against Sihon and ‘Og, a conventional war with casualties, but it is no less assured. It is still G-d delivering the victory, but under cover of “nature,” behind the scenes, as it were.
Such differences must be, in short, differences which conform to Torah. The Mishna tells us that such a mahloqeth is possible, and terms it a mahloqeth lë-shém shamayim, a “dispute for the sake of Heaven” (אבות פ"ה מי"ז). As Rabbi ‘Ovadya mi-Bartenura goes on to comment, such a mahloqeth is characterized by a pure and genuine search for truth, for the best and most perfect form of Divine service. Such a mahloqeth is sofah lë-hithqayyém, destined to continue. The army of Ha-Shem may be divided into different regiments, but the regiments must be part of the same army.
D.
On the last clause in our passage, lo’ yarpëcha vë-lo’ ya‘azvekka, Rashi comments: לא יתן לך רפיון להיות נעזב ממנו (“He will not give you weakness, not to be forsaken by Him”). Weakness is not normally compatible with the concept of giving or granting; rather, it results from something being taken away; so what does Rashi mean?
Elsewhere we read: כי א-ל רחום ד' אלקיך לא ירפך ולא ישחיתך (“For a merciful G-d is Ha-Shem your G-d, he will not weaken you [lo’ yarpëcha] and will not destroy you”; Deuteronomy IV, 31), and there Rashi comments: להחזיק בך בידיו ול' לא ירפך ל' לא יפעיל הוא (“To hold you in His hands’, and the expression lo’ yarpëcha is a causative form”).
G-d’s support, Hazal tell us, is כאבא דאחיד בבנו (“like a father holding his son”; זוה"ק ח"ג קי"ב:); there is no chance of “accidental” weakness, just as a father is ever conscious that his child depends on him, and so maintains a firm and tight grip so as not to let him fall, so, too, were G-d to “let us fall”, it would be a deliberate, positive action (implied, Rashi hints, by the causative verb), and that, Rashi assures us, will never be.
This is the nature of the covenant we have entered into: If we move with perfect unity, perfect cohesiveness, as we did at Mattan Torah, all of the veils vanish before our eyes, the true underpinnings of the universe become apparent, and open miracles, without the concealing curtain of nature are the norm. If, being merely human, we differ, but differ within the frame of Torah, in the sincere and earnest search for truth on both sides of the dispute, the same things still happen, but this time behind the curtain of “nature,” with plausible deniability.
For so long as Israel remain Israel, remain true to the covenant of Sinai, however much we may differ over details and customs, He will not let us fall; He will not abandon us.
A comforting thought, in the wild and uncertain world before us, as we approach the new year.
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