Vayeilech | Gathering for Our Song of Liberation

וַיֵּלֶךְ מֹשֶׁה וַיְדַבֵּר אֶת־הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ 

וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם בֶּן־מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה אָנֹכִי הַיּוֹם לֹא־אוּכַל עוֹד לָצֵאת וְלָבוֹא וַיהֹוָה אָמַר אֵלַי לֹא תַעֲבֹר אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּן הַזֶּה׃ 

Moses went and spoke these words [things] to all Israel. He said to them:

One hundred and twenty years am I this day. I can no longer be active. Moreover, Unfathomable Compassion has said to me, “you shall not go across this Jordan [River].”

Deuteronomy 31:1-2

 

The Torah, the five books that cycle through the birth of the world as we know it, and Moses' life, are coming to an end. Moses is reaching the end of his words as his journey with the word reaches completion. Soon there will be only song in his mouth. And still he walks, to remind us of the miracle of walking on Earth. Of walking, going out, to each other. To meet and reconnect, as we do in this month of teshuvah, reconnecting.

Torah will leave us, in song, the words Moses sings. We are left to find our own melody.

This week's short Torah portion, Vayeilech, “He Went,” is the final preamble to the song that Moses sings into the mouths of the people he gathers to enter the Promised Land.

Perhaps Moses will sing the song in the melody Pharaoh's daughter sang when she rescued and adopted the infant Moses. The song of freedom she sang when she came down to the water each morning and touched her humanness so deeply. Perhaps he will sing the melody his birth mother, Yoheved, sang into his milk as she nursed him. Or the song of his sister Miriam who always guarded the waters, and who guarded Moses as he floated down the River Nile, in a word woven by women.

The infant Moses was saved by these women in a word —a teva *— floating on the Nile. To the ancient Hebrew and Jewish mystics, the Torah and its letters are the word-basket that held Moses. Perhaps now, at the end of his life, Moses is singing the song of the teva, the basket-vessel-word that held him in the river of Torah.*

*In Hebrew teva תֵּ֣בַת, means a vessel, including Noah's ark, Moses' floating wicker bassinet and a printed word. In contemporary Hebrew, a teva can be a mailbox, delivering the word.

God instructs Moses to write down a song and put it in the mouths of the Children of Israel. Moses passes the teaching to us, “Take the Torah, all the instructions, and make it your own.” Put it in your own mouth. Sing this new song that reflects the meaning and purpose of life, the Source of Life, the Oneness of Life:

וְעַתָּה כִּתְבוּ לָכֶם אֶת־הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת וְלַמְּדָהּ אֶת־בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל שִׂימָהּ בְּפִיהֶם לְמַעַן תִּהְיֶה־לִּי הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת לְעֵד בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ 

Therefore, write down this song and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, in order that this song may be for you as a witness against the people of Israel.

Deuteronomy 31:19

What does this mean and how is it relevant for us?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes about some of what this has meant historically and spiritually to the Jewish people:

It was their world. According to one Midrash it was the architecture of creation: “G‑d looked in the Torah and created the universe.” According to another tradition, the whole Torah was a single, mystical name of G‑d. It was written, said the sages, in letters of black fire on white fire. Rabbi Jose ben Kisma, arrested by the Romans for teaching Torah in public, was sentenced to death, wrapped in a Torah scroll that was then set on fire. As he was dying, his students asked him what he saw. He replied, “I see the parchment burning but the letters flying [back to heaven].” The Romans might burn the scrolls, but the Torah was indestructible.

— R. Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation, “Parsha Vayeliech”

Relevance for Our Crises Today

A teaching from spiritual teacher Sobonfu Some, of blessed memory, shows us how the song in our mouth is the witnessing that creates healthy community. Sobonfu came to teach in America from the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso in Africa. She wrote of:

...a tribe in Africa where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him.

And then, when they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it. And then, when the mother is pregnant, the mother teaches that child’s song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people around her sing the child’s song to welcome it.

And then, as the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child’s song. If the child falls, or hurts its knee, someone picks it up and sings its song to it. Or perhaps the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song.

In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them. The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another. And it goes this way through their life.

In marriage, the songs are sung, together. And finally, when this child is lying in bed, ready to die, all the villagers know his or her song, and they sing — for the last time — the song to that person. You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it does not. In the end, we all recognize our song. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.

— Excerpt from: Welcoming Spirit Home: Ancient African Teachings to Celebrate Children and Community, by Sobonfu Some

Sh'mita and Earth Overshoot Day

In the Torah portion, Moses explains the ritual of the song of the seventh year when the people will gather to correct their relationship to the Land.

וַיְצַו מֹשֶׁה אוֹתָם לֵאמֹר מִקֵּץ  שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים בְּמֹעֵד שְׁנַת הַשְּׁמִטָּה בְּחַג הַסֻּכּוֹת׃ 

And Moses instructed them as follows: Every seventh year, the year set for sh'mita, at the [gathering ] holiday of sukkot,

בְּבוֹא כׇל־יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵרָאוֹת אֶת־פְּנֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחָר תִּקְרָא אֶת־הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת נֶגֶד כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּאׇזְנֵיהֶם

when all Israel comes to appear before Life Unfolding as You in the place that They will choose, you shall read this Teaching aloud in the presence of all Israel.

Deuteronomy 31:10-11

With Rosh HaShana this week, in the Hebrew calendar we begin a new sh'mita year. The sh'mita year is the “letting go” year, the “emptying out” year, the year we are called to stop looking at earth as our resource. The sh'mita year historically has meant letting the land lie fallow every seven years. And, just as seven-year floods, fires and hurricanes are now coming every few months, our new song calls for continual sh'mita.

Sh'mita calls us to reverse our relationship to Earth. Instead of looking at Earth as our resource, we now have to see ourselves as resources for Earth. Earth is crying and we are the consciousness that can hear and take action.

Our new song: By the end of this year's shmita, let us become the resources for earth.

We have just passed Earth Overshoot Day, the day that marks the date by which we’ve used up our annual ecological budget — the amount of timber, food, and forests needed to absorb CO2 and other resources we demand of our planet, so that it can regenerate within a year. Our Earth can only sustainably provide so much, and Earth Overshoot Day marks the date, each year, by which we’ve used up that amount. The number of days before December 31st on which Earth Overshoot Day lands is how far we have fallen out of right relationship to the Land of Promise.

Environmentalist Bill McKibben suggests a new approach, a new song, for returning to a mutually sustainable relationship with the Land from which we came. Sounding a lot like the sh'mita year, McKibben proposes:

that we choose to “manage our descent”. We need to learn and grow, see the reality, and take actions that jettison excess consumption and work out how to live " with a lot less stuff and a lot more neighborliness and local self-reliance. In place of growth, our national projects will be about “keeping what we've got” and “holding on against the storm.” On a less forgiving 'Earth,' McKibben writes, we will need local decision-making rather than centralization.' "

— Based on Nature Magazine, “Two views of our planet's future,” David Orr, April 2010. https://www.nature.com/articles/4641273a

Torah's Model for Mobilizing
: Go Out, Gather, Learn

Moses went to the people to teach them the witnessing song to sing every seven years, at the end of the sh'mita. In this time of complete climate collapse, we need to sing this song constantly. First, Moses models, vayeilech, go out to where the people are to deliver your message. To put the song in their hearts. Get proximate, as racial justice activist Bryan Stevenson says.

Next, Moses instructs, הַקְהֵ֣ל , gather the people, so that they will hear and learn.

הַקְהֵל אֶת־הָעָם הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף וְגֵרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ לְמַעַן יִשְׁמְעוּ וּלְמַעַן יִלְמְדוּ וְיָרְאוּ אֶת־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וְשָׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת־כׇּל־דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת׃ 

Gather the people—men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and so learn to revere the Source of Life Living Through You and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching.

Deuteronomy 31:12

The learning comes as a result of meeting and gathering people where they are. Of course this is no simple matter. Challenges to hearing, learning, and understanding the new song are daunting. The obstacles are built into our histories, our wounds, our cultures. We don't always know how to meet our needs for belonging, trust, safety, and connection when we break from the habitual.

Submit, Rebel Or Sing A New Song Of Learning.

We need a new song of liberation: liberation from the cyclical trap of submitting or rebelling. We don't learn anything new when we react to misfortune and misuse of power by either submitting or rebelling.

Here is an example from the ongoing threads in my life about Covid:

A friend told another friend she’s concerned about her joining a meeting in her house because she isn't vaccinated. The woman who has chosen to not be vaccinated replied, "Well, I guess you don’t want to be with me."

And the other woman replied, "No, I guess I don’t."

This is what Marshall Rosenberg might call a conversation full of "tragic attempts to meet unmet needs." Neither one of these women expressed their truth. They've been friends for a long time, and do want to reconnect in trust and companionship. Their conversation didn't meet their needs for acceptance, friendship, or mattering. Their submission was a tragic attempt to meet their needs for having a say, for empowerment and choice. And the cost was high. Too high. It cost their friendship and partnership in the endeavor.

We need a new song of partnership, so we can gather and create the empowerment that is needed to take on the crises of today.

This week's Torah portion offers a way out: collective learning.

What are the obstacles to learning? Trauma educator Gabor Mate explains that trauma is from the Greek word for wound. Unhealed trauma can be like inflammation: it is prone to irritation and always sore when touched. Or it can develop scar tissue: hardness, protection, rigidity. No flexibility. Another tragic attempt to meet needs for protection and safety.

Either way, being constantly vulnerable to re-wounding or in a state of hardness and constriction, prevents us from learning. Trauma becomes frozen life and catches us in either submission or rebellion.

Gabor Mate explains that on the metaphorical level, trauma is constriction. And this, in Torah, is Egypt: the narrow place where consciousness is limited to submission or rebellion. In these closing passages of Torah, Moses' final teaching warns the people, “You’ve been in constricted places, you will return to constricted places, you will be seized by constricted places.”

Without safety there can be no learning. Compassion creates the quality of safety that is needed so that the wounds can begin to heal, so that life returns to the wounded parts of us, circulating its healing energy and nourishment. Then we are ready to learn.

We have no time to lose. At the beginning of the journey through the wilderness, the tragedy of Korach showed the people that Earth inevitably swallows those that continually take for powers’ sake.

There is a way out. This Torah portion repeats three times, be strong and resolute.

חִזְקוּ וְאִמְצוּ

Be strong and resolute,

Deuteronomy 31:6

There is only Now to make compassion our ally in mobilizing and gathering people everywhere to correct the harm and destruction of the planet. In Torah, a cycle of seven years signifies Now. Now is the only time.

Go out and gather the people in resoluteness and compassion. Every action counts.

A Hasidic story:

“The king’s son had fallen ill,” he began his tale, “and the royal doctors could offer but a single cure: a potion that would be prepared from the powder of a certain gem. This gem, however, served as the centerpiece of the royal crown. Furthermore, even if the crown — the most precious possession of the throne — were to be dismantled, only a slim hope existed to save the prince’s life, who had deteriorated to the point that his ability to swallow the potion was in doubt.

“But the king decreed: ‘Grind, pour and squander my most precious of treasures. Perhaps a single drop will enter the lips of my son, and his life will be saved . . .’”

— Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson; adapted by Yanki Tauber.