D’varim | Multiple Voices in the Narrative

  אֵ֣לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בְּעֵ֖בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֑ן בַּמִּדְבָּ֡ר בָּֽעֲרָבָה֩ מ֨וֹל ס֜וּף בֵּֽין־פָּארָ֧ן וּבֵֽין־תֹּ֛פֶל וְלָבָ֥ן וַחֲצֵרֹ֖ת וְדִ֥י זָהָֽב

These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan.Through the wilderness, in the Arabah near Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab,

Deuteronomy 1:1

 

Deuteronomy/D'varim is the beginning of the final book of the Five Books of Moses. The narrator has shifted from an unseen and unnamed speaker (Torah herself?) to Moses. Moses speaks to the entire people, the next generation whom he believes are destined to enter the Promised Land without him. He addresses the people as an "us," and then orates a narrative of the entire  journey from Egypt from his own subjective experience.

By transferring voice and story to Moses, Torah is teaching us that narratives are fluid, subjective and ever changing. At our peril we make false idols out of our narratives. In Jewish mystical tradition, Moses' Torah is channeling the sh'kinah, the settling of the living, flowing feminine presence among us. A living, not a fixed,  concept of Truth. Throughout Torah Eternally Present appears in many forms, with many names, all depending on the receiving and receiver. 

Moses delivers his Torah from the Mountain of Transformation where he stands, overlooking the Promised Land which he will not physically enter. D'varim begins by making clear that the journey from the narrow place to the edge is a spiritual journey. 

The influential medieval Torah commentator Rashi explains how the places listed in the first verse are spiritual stops on the journey. Chazeirot refers to Korach’s rebellion, the quintessential power struggle among the Israelites that resulted in senseless death and trauma. Di-zahav, never before mentioned in Torah, means “abundance of gold.” Rashi and Talmud see this as a reference to the greatest misstep in the journey, succumbing to fear by worshiping of falsity.  This was the episode of the golden calf, which the Israelites made from the gold they took from others with when they left the first narrow place called Egypt.

The Talmud Midrash interprets the name Di Zahav as “dai zahav” — “enough gold”:

"What is Di Zahav? This is what Moses told God: ‘Master of the World! It is because of all the silver and gold that You showered upon the Israelites — until they said, Dai! [Enough!] — that is what caused them to make the Golden Calf."

Talmud (Berachot 32a)

These ancient teachings offer us a fundamental updating and re clarifying of narrative. Today, the Jewish people have established the physical place known as Jerusalem as it's "capital" city. Moses' Torah and Talmud commentary make clear that we do this at our peril. This is not a physical historical journey of conquest. This is a spiritual road to human liberation.

Here, as in the Passover seder, Torah urges us to retell our ancestor's journey as if we ourselves had gone on the journey. 

What does it mean today to be among the masses of humans — 7 billion of us — standing on the precipice of a new land? A world filled with hundreds of millions of Refugees? Climate catastrophe threatening the end of life as we know it? Seeing privilege and inequality laid bare? What does it mean for us today to see this?

As Peter Beinart wrote, describing his personal journey from loving "Israel" as a physical place only for Jews to a higher vision :

It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish-Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish-Palestinian equality.

A contemporary Torah commentator, Rabbi Ariana Capptauber, explains other differences between what Torah highlighted in the previous books and Moses' version of the journey: https://truah.org/resources/parshat-devarim-ariana-capptauber-moraltorah/.

בְּעֵ֥בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֖ן בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מוֹאָ֑ב הוֹאִ֣יל מֹשֶׁ֔ה בֵּאֵ֛ר אֶת־הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את לֵאמֹֽר׃

On the other side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses' Torah welled up from him .

(Tr. RW,  based on teachings from the Svat Emet)

Moses' Torah flows from the well of his journey, the well of life. His Torah comes through story,  his own version of the story we have heard and read so far, He is standing on the Mountain of Transformation, where his experience and the collective experience are united. By standing between the wilderness and the Promised Land, with the people and in his own awakened consciousness, he transmits the consciousness of non-duality to the new generation. He speaks his Torah for the first time, a teaching that this is a story of "us" and, at the same time, a story of "me." We are all on the same journey together, each of us having a different experience.  A wholeness can rise from making space for everyone's narrative and experience, and for the full range of experiencing within each of us.

 

Torah is teaching that when you deify your narrative, it becomes a false idol. The Torah of Deuteronomy exhorts us to choose the messy, complex, multi-faceted, multi perspective mess of life. The narrative, what gets put into words and passed on, serves specific purposes in time for a person, family, tribe; but it isn't a fixed or only truth. Choosing life in all its complexity means celebrating being born into the human form that has the capacity to hold paradox, to connect with a range of views, and to see and live the unity beneath it all. Our narratives, like life itself, are healthiest when they shift and reconnect to present connections.

In Torah, as in Nonviolent Communication, our words and narratives create worlds that can bring us into connection or disconnection.  Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of Nonviolent Communication, said, “Words are windows or words are walls.”  D’varim, the name of this week's Torah, is the Hebrew word used in Torah for the words that bring about creation of form, the "Ten Commandments," and Moses' Torah. D'varim in Hebrew signifies both "words" and "things." Their power is in their interchangeability.

When we use words and hold our stories as The Truth, as narratives and ideologies to dominate others’ experiences, they become fixed "things," false idols. Moses has realized this and now speaks and teaches his own truth without separating off from the human tribe to which he belongs, from interconnectedness of life or the One.

Moses' teaching is for us to learn from our journey; look at each step, don't turn away; find where there is authentic meaning for you. There is never a sense in Torah that others are supposed to share our narrative. The Torah is beyond "agree" or "disagree." Torah beckons us to the wholeness of the Tree of Life, freed from the separation of "good" and "evil." We are called here to reunite, to return to wholeness, not exclusion. Before we can inhabit a land of freedom, we need to step into the consciousness that makes room for all narratives.

Nakba Memorial Day

This week the Israeli/Palestinian organization Combatants for Peace honored Nakba Memorial Day. Nakba, meaning catastrophe, refers to the 1948 separation of the Palestinians from their historic land in today's Israel. Like almost all Jews, I grew up with a different narrative about 1948 than the Palestinians. It was our hope, our triumph, our freedom.

What do we need to agree on in each other's narratives to stop being enemies?

At the Nakba Memorial, Palestinian professor, scientist and activist Dr. Mazin Butros Qumsiyeh spoke to this:

Being social species, humans build narratives to sustain and strengthen group bondage and identity. Like all human constructs, narratives can bring positive or negative results.  Should we accept the notions of white or Christian or Jewish or Muslim superiority? Some narratives lead to horrors like the genocides in Congo and Rwanda or Armenia or the Jewish Holocaust last century. Can rational human beings in the 21st-century accept narratives of an Islamic “Umma” as articulated by Osama bin Laden,  that all Muslims should stand as one and justify mass killing or confession of “the other“?

Should we Palestinians accept the political Zionist narrative of the “Jewish nation“ that resulted in the displacement of 5.7 million refugees who were denied their internationally recognized rate of return?

... Narratives based on methodologies can of course be harmless when believed by people living their ordinary lives in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. But they can be highly destructive when practiced via the state power. While for some people it may be difficult to accept notions of pluralistic democracies ... it is the inevitable trend in human society.

... 95% of all colonial struggles end up with descendants of the natives and descendants of the colonizers living in one country. The other 5% end up either in genocide of natives (example US, Australia,) or genocide of natives plus ethnic cleansing of descendants of the colonized (e.g. Algeria). These rare outcomes will not happen here.

Plus we must learn to live together,  descendants of the Palestinians and descendants of the Israelis,  and eliminate all discriminatory laws. If we do want a roadmap to peace, we can simply adopt the Universal declaration of human rights including its article 13. Peace is possible and it is very different than the way tried by the powerful elites in the past 75 years period piece based on basic human rights is the only way.

— Dr. Mazin Butros Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian scientist and author, founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University where he teaches. He previously has served on the faculties of Duke and Yale Schools of Medicine.

As a Palestinian, Dr. Qumsiyeh speaks to how narratives can separate or unite, build or destroy, share space and power or take all the space and power. We have to come down from our mountaintops and see history, see what is needed now for us to move forward into a more peaceful, safe and just world.

In the Torah portion, Moses says to the people:

Deuteronomy 1:6

When we stay too long on the mountain, we are stuck in old or partial narratives that no longer fulfill their original purpose. Choosing life means accepting that change is at the heart of life, calling us to continually reexamine our narratives and ask, is my narrative in service of the values and world I am dreaming of?

Finding Voice within Connection

Finding your voice and still staying connected to a group calls us into a consciousness that is not limited by dualities such as "submit" or "rebel," "agree" or "disagree," "approve" or "disapprove." The way to this is by speaking our voice from within the collective.

American Jewish professor and journalist Peter Beinart speaks of how his daily study of the Talmud, the Jewish Rabbinic text, gives him the connection and belonging he needs to advocate for Palestinian equality and self determination in religious Jewish circles:

It’s also very important for me to root my relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people in places where it can’t be destabilized or undermined by the fact that I might be politically out on a limb…

— Beinart, New York Magazine, May 2021

From a loving and meaningful connection to the group, Beinart facilitates conversations that address dismantling the prejudice/violence against Jews in the USA, while simultaneously amplifying the work for freedom and equality for Palestinians.

“The painful truth,” Beinart wrote, “is that the project to which liberal Zionists like myself have devoted ourselves for decades — a state for Palestinians separated from a state for Jews — has failed. The traditional two-state solution no longer offers a compelling alternative to Israel’s current path. It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish-Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish-Palestinian equality.”

Like Moses' call to the new generation of Israelites, this is a call to come down from the mountain so we can cross the river.

Sitting Together at the Table

I had a powerful experience of finding my voice amidst a search for belonging in the Old City of Jerusalem a few years ago. I was seated at a large table of religious Jewish women for the shabbat after our all night Passover seder. We were in Ruth's house, built along the alley that runs above the excavated mikvehs (ritual baths) of the ancient Temple High Priests. In the Passover ritual we sat together and went on our own individual journeys to freedom as women and as Jews. We examined what it means to ascend levels of human consciousness within the Passover narrative of fleeing from enslavement. And what it means to be immersed in this particular people's freedom narrative.

I've laughed, cried, prayed, danced, and studied with this group of women for a number of years. Most know that I regularly spend time with Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem and that I am part of the Nonviolent Communication movement in the Mideast that brings together Jews, Palestinians, and others, to speak and hear our respective narratives.

On this evening, after the intensity of the collective Passover ritual, and the togetherness and acceptance at the table, I felt a wave of clarity and belonging. A voice inside me said, "I too, am part of the ‘Am’" (Hebrew for "People"). My presence here as a Jew is part of healing our broken world. My voice is an essential part of the whole voice of the "Am," a Jewish voice that speaks out for the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people.

In that moment I realized that I was participating in the call for wholeness that brings many Jews to Jerusalem, likely most of the women sitting at this table. My purpose in being called back here is to bring in the voice of the Palestinians and cry out against the injustices. Bringing in the voice "from the other side," isn't a betrayal or a separation; it is bringing wholeness.

It takes courage to find your own individual voice within the narrative of a family, group, tribe, collective. We are born into already-existing narratives and as we go through life we are shaped by them. The narratives into which we are born are like our "human microbiome."  An invisible influential environment which seems outside of us, but in fact completely affects how we interact with the world. A healthy biome is necessary to maintain the integrity of the individual ecosystem called "me" and to harmonize "me" with all the surrounding bodies.

Human microbiota: The microorganisms that make us their home:  What makes a human body? According to researchers, human cells tell only half the story. The other half involves the myriad of microorganisms that make up the microbiota — “alien” environments all over our bodies that, as long as there is a healthy balance, help us thrive.

— Dr. Maria Cohut, Medical News Today, June 2020

Crossing Over

The final book of Torah, Deuteronomy, begins with a powerful reminder that "all Israel… is on the other side of the Jordan." Moses may be standing on the mountain of transformation, in a godly realm, or at a permeable boundary between the wilderness and the land that is promised. He speaks from his direct experiences of enlightenment and as part of the desert wilderness wanderers. He is "both/and." He has realized "Ivri", boundary crosser, in its fullest sense. Not another version of the world of right/wrong duality; he rather is standing in both worlds.

In Buddhism, the Awakened Ones call us over to "the other shore," the shore beyond sides, to the consciousness of non duality. The Buddhist call, from the closing of the Heart Sutra, is

Gathe gathe para gathe parasamgathe bodhi svaha

Gone, gone, gone beyond....

This is where Moses, now speaking from his full power, calls us.

In Buddhism this is a purely spiritual journey. There is no physical territory, and the crossing of the river is the journey itself. We can see the parallels clearly with the journey of the people in Torah. The wilderness is the bank of the river the people need to cross. The new narrative of freedom is freedom from possession that dominates or excludes others; freedom from attachment to exclusive possession. Freedom to share and thrive together. Until we see that, we remain in the wilderness.

NVC Practice:
 Speaking Truth and Staying Connected
Some Helpful Principles to having a Conversation Using NVC

The purpose of NVC is to connect, not to be “right,” not to prove the other “wrong," not to fix, educate, punish or improve the other person. Go for “connection before solution.”

You are doing what you are doing (including entering into a conversation) to meet your own needs. You are not doing this “for them”.

The more you know and value your own needs, the more clarity, compassion and empowerment will show up in your words and actions.

• Self-Investigate: What are you telling yourself the other person “is” ?
• What are your images, stories, diagnoses about them? Do your own inner work to translate your judgments about them into your own feelings and needs.
• Honesty in NVC is not telling the other person what’s wrong with them.
• You share how you feel because of what is important to you — your needs/values/dreams/longings.
• Lead with Curiosity. When you listen and reflect back, doing so with curiosity about the other person’s humanity is crucial. When curiosity is alive, there is no notion of enemy or wrongness.
• We all share the same needs. Conflict does not arise between needs.
• Conflict only arises with the strategies we choose to meet our needs.
• Thinking, narrative and story telling is life making meaning of life and is a door to feelings and needs. Listen with curiosity and empathy for the feelings, needs, meaning, intelligence and experiences that generate the thoughts and stories.
• Use connecting requests to find out if the other person is hearing or experiencing blame, shame, anger, punishment. Ask for a do-over, without those elements.
• Make problem solving requests that meet your needs without preventing others from meeting their needs. Mourn, share your disappointment and ask for help when you don’t know how to do that.
• If you hear a “no,” find out the needs behind the “no” and partner to find a way to meet everyone’s needs.

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 We Cross Over, The Fifth Book

         These are the commandments and the regulations that YHVH commanded through Moshe, in the plains of Moab, at the Jordan near Jericho.      Numbers  36:17

        These are the words that Moshe spoke to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan     Devarim 1:1

Let it be our voices 

awakening as well,

in the way that Moshe’s words

text and Torah are yours’s and mine,

an aleph, a sound like a grain 

in shimmering sands 

and we are all that desert, 

devarim in the midbar

and so we begin to speak

on the plains of Jordan.

Some of us will cross over 

and some of us will stay 

where we can see mountain

and steppe, the river

holding the balance between

two necessary shores.  

The promised land, 

God whispered into Moshe’s ear 

is here, within, on both sides of the Jordan, 

within the murmuring deep of the 22 letters,  

our beginnings, everywhere and nowhere.  

I am giving you a gift, 

Moshe understood God to be saying 

to stand before your people 

on  the wide plain, to use

your own voice, with time to remember, 

to condense and to expand,

to be like the rivers 

that have always held you 

in danger and promise, 

the Nile, the Reed Sea and now 

the last, the Jordan - 

to allow the words to flow through you

and become your own crossing.

And so it is and was 

that all his life, as in yours, as in mine, 

had been this listening, a carving out 

so that in this final book 

his heavy speech would lighten 

and he would discover the prayer 

he had always longed for

as close and real as the Jordan 

calling him to step in -  

Shma, listen, the One is in the many 

and the many is in 

the One.  

Elana Klugman

draft 7-17-21

 

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The Journey
Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.