In this past week’s Torah portion, Moses relates the experience of the 40-year journey the Israelites have made to the generation of Israelites who stand on the brink of the Promised Land. They are getting ready to enter it without Moses, who will no longer be by their side. It comes in Sefer Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy, the final book of the Torah, whose English name comes from the Greek “Deuteronomion,” which literally means “second law” — a fitting name because in it, Moses spends much of his time restating the laws that were revealed at Sinai to the Israelites, calling out to them to fulfill them.
In doing so, he names for the Israelites that they should not take for granted that their blessing of entering the Promised Land is due to their own good deeds — their own fulfillment of the commandments — up until this point. Much to the contrary. Moses reminds them of the experience of the Golden Calf, during which they (or, really, their parents and grandparents) constructed an idol and worshipped it, running afoul of one of the most fundamental commandments: to hold sacred that which created them, rather than the work of their own hands.
On the one hand, this teaches us not to assume that all of the blessings we experience in our lives are solely a product of our own making. There is much outside of our control. Many forces — including, and perhaps centrally, God — contribute to what we experience in life. We neither “deserve” all the bad things that happen to us, nor are we able to take sole credit for all our fortune. We are born into circumstances we had no part in choosing, and much of our lives is out of our hands.
At the same, in the very same breath, the parashah (Torah portion) seems to hint at just how much our choices matter, and just how much agency we do have to influence the world for the good.
As Moses is recounting the experience of the Golden Calf, he relates that God told him to hurry down Mt. Sinai, for in his absence the people had strayed in their construction, and worship of, the idol. “I see that this is a stiffnecked people,” God said to Moses “leave Me be and I will destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make you a nation far more numerous than they.”
While at first glance this might seem like one of those oft-referenced, vengeful “Old-Testament” portrayals of God, the ancient rabbis pick up on an important phrase there, with powerful implications for us: הֶרֶף מִמֶּנִּי — “leave Me be!” God says.
Now, in what world would God actually need to say to Moses “leave Me be” in order for God to do what God wanted to do? Could Moses actually interfere with God’s plans if God didn’t want Moses to?
Quite the contrary. This, according to the rabbis, was a signal from God to Moses that God very much wanted Moses’ intervention; that God very much wanted a human being to express compassion for his fellow human beings — the other Israelites — and take action on their behalf, which Moses does, praying for mercy on the Israelites’ behalf, prayers to which God accedes.
As the rabbis of the Talmud put it, Moses, who had been down on himself for the experience of Israel prior to these words, said to himself: “If God is telling me to let God be, it must be because this matter is dependent upon me. Immediately Moses stood and was strengthened in prayer, and asked that God have mercy on the nation of Israel and forgive them for their transgression.”
The matter is dependent upon me, upon us. It’s true, Judaism says, we can’t take all the credit for the blessings that redound to us; there is much outside of our control, and it is important to hold that humility.
But neither should we think so little of ourselves as to imagine that our actions don’t matter. They very much do! God signals to us, the rabbis teach, that God needs us, wants us, to play a role in the uplifting of humanity.
In a sense this is the narrative articulation of that famous precept from the Talmud which teaches: “it is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it” (Pirkei Avot 2:16).
Let’s not desist. Let’s act.
