Va'etchanan, וָאֶתְחַנַּן "And I Pleaded"  Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11

And He Prayed

A poetic meditation on the parashat Va'etchanan*

Moshe prayed blessing Hashem

for his just and righteous mercy,

and revealed his prayers to Israel 

so as to say,

Attune your ear, oh Israel!

Let your soul listen

Let your soul learn 

the alephbet of life

Independence comes gradually

in the natural world

It is not independence but emptiness

that comes suddenly through rebellion

In the natural world,

true independence comes only

through discipline and competence

How much more must this be true

in the realm of divine independence?

For in the World of Holy Love,

one is only free in the service of all

True life abhors alien pride

and dwells only in the humble

wanting only to learn and do what is true

When the neighbour is giving,

true life is found

You might as well tell them....

So long as they continue

to envy and compete with one another,

so long as they covet place and position,

they will serve lying idols

Their idols will breath over them

Their idols will lust and hunger for them

Their idols will consume them

They will joyfully become their commodity,

becaise their proud, entitled hearts

were filled with fantasies of playful violence

They lost their sense in darkness

and made heroes of deadly liars

Death bullied them into its service

If the young turn while they can

If they attend the school of the holy clan,

to learn the freedom of kindness,

they can be healed from ancient blindness

It is not too late

to return to kindness completely

and to graduate

from the school of Rectification and Repentance

For great is the mercy of God

And he waits a very long time,

even though it means he is suffering,

for people to learn from their serpentine mistake

of proud ambition and spiritual gluttony

and from measuring all things with currency

God suffers long

God suffers everywhere and everything,

suffers with kindness and love

How does God suffer the world’s wrongs?

He gives the world Torah Israel

and turns the world’s wrong to right

Hashem removes from Adam's head

and gives to Abraham,

to the Israelites as one,

Adam’s right to inherit the world to come

The inheritance comes like one

who progresses on a journey,

reaching destination after destination

First the right of inheritance was established

in the eternal act of the Exodus and Passover

Then comes the inheritance

of the inner dimension of the world

This is the responsibility of the Jewish neighbour

Every Jew is invested in every other 

Knesset Israel is invested

in each Jew's personal inheritance in the Land

That is the second destination on the journey

of the inheritance of the world to come

Then comes the inheritance

of every outer dimension 

This is the dimension of the borders

between the Land of Israel and the world,

through which this world becomes 

the world to come: Israel’s full inheritance

This is like a neighbour

who has the right of refusal,

to displace all other potential buyers,

to buy their neighbouring property

To be a good and humble neighbour,

a real mensch,

all they have to pay 

is attention to what their neighbour actually needs

What does the neighbour across the border need

in order to come to believe in the God of Israel?

For if they pay this price,

the price of this attention,

their neighbour across the border will acknowledge

the right of inheritance of Hashem’s redeemed nation

Through this the knowledge of Hashem

will flow like rivers through the nations,

until the knowledge of Hashem fills the earth,

like the waters fill the seas

Like one who chooses their words wisely,

choose wisely the thoughts of the day

Understand that Moses passed over,

passed over the Jordan River above you

You will do the same in the end

You pass through the material world

You too must pass over above the material world

Everyone and everything 

must pass through the waters of repentance,

the Jordan waters of Israel’s repentance

God has made the Jordan the line

between this creation and the creation to come

Everything must go through,

back and forth into exile until

it passes over above with Moshe

People today cannot consciously remember

the unity of the one organic humanity,

the singularity of the one corporate human family

Many Jews can still consciously remember

Knesset Israel in the wilderness

They remember every day the holiness of the promise

of the Land of Israel itself

They remember the holiness 

that passes back and forth over the Jordan

The whole earth itself must cross over the Jordan,

from east to west and from west to east,

and enter the Land of Israel Above

The wisdom below must unite

With the wisdom Above

Through the outreached arms of the Tzaddik

wisdom must come to rest

in the land where time has no sway,

where a thousand years is a day

Apply your soul to the work

You must blaze a path for angels

See your sins and transgressions

rolled back like walls of water

The holy ground is cleared

The Ark cuts a path 

for the humble steps of teshuvah,

a path on which to walk right through,

with the walls of water fearing you

Who’s voice will be heard to sing

in the quorum choir of the Jewish soul?

Who’s voice will be heard to sing

led by the Mother of All Living?

Who’s infant hand will the Shekhinah hold,

when the little children walk through the waters,

to be at home with the God of Israel

when he rests in His Land?

Those who’s Sinai souls stood as one hear,

they always hear,

Moses whispering in the ear,

who’s souls pass through walls of water,

with God as their only fear

because they are afraid only

of failing to do what is good

Angels who at first wondered if you should be

are now fully converted

They work with all their might to help you to do what is good

Whoever takes hold of the tzitzit of the Tzaddik,

sees reality through the Tzaddik’s eyes

They hear the joy of redemption rise,

when in Egypt’s darkness creation cries

The God of Israel, the One the Only God of all

brings infinite justice to Adam,

bringing infinitely just mercy to all in Abraham

Nations heard this and became proud and angry

Terror gripped Philistia

Edom became drunk and disorderly

They were bandits in the borderlands of wandering spirits

The city of pride was at its greatest height

It’s military parade was fully sin and not contrite

The Day of the Lord was at hand!

The waters of the highest heaven were splitting

The Jews were entering the land

The bones of Joseph were returning there

Would there still be a child’s tomorrow?

Would tomorrow even be a thousand years?

Only God knew…

Only God knew…

Moses whispered in the ear

like seven secret thunders

For it was whispered in his ear:

Speak no more of this matter

Neither add nor subtract a white space of the Torah 

Touch not foot nor crown,

in order that you may live forever

and keep at last possession of the Land

The Land Beyond the east,

Beyond the west,

Beyond the north,

Beyond the south,

that God gave by covenant to Abraham,

the covenant that is saying,

I am commanding you,

Cross over the primordial waters of the heavens

I am using you to turn the world

inside out and upside down

I am warning you with your own eyes

Ba’al Pe’or is no more

But you who are alive until this last day

are now attached to your God,

more than Adam was in the beginning

You are commanded

and are become the commandment

Be the tzitzit of the Tzaddik!

For what nation of prayer

is like the congregation of the Jewish soul?

For as God is faithful

to the tzaddikim of the generations,

He is faithful to every lost lamb

of the quorum of Abraham

The mountain burned with holy fire

up to the Throne of Heaven

Darkness and clouds clouding over 

Frightening clouds covered our minds, 

and it yet covers them

when we try to hear His terrifying voice

His voice inscribed tables of stone....

And we found we had hearts of stone

wanting to be turned to flesh,

Our last dying breath

carrying the ordinances of God

into the Land of Life, 

hoping there to come back to life

Keep the angels at your back

and your ears pointed toward God's court 

Every soul will have its day in court

For if the angels escort you away

you might not return again on the final day

In a consuming fire there is no compromise

If we are those who causes the Holy Land to die of thirst,

to make it a land parched and eviscerated,

a land where children search for the word of God,

will crossing back and forth

over the waters of the Jordan help us then?

Ask Adam, ask Noah!

Did ever another people hear God’s Voice

speaking out of the midst of the Holy Fire…,

as did the congregation of the Jewish soul,

a soul which heard and lived?

Moshe whispered intimately in the ear of Israel:

What people has a god that has cut for itself a nation

out of the belly of another nation,

as God, Your God,

did for you before your eyes,

cutting you from the belly of Egypt?

Know this and understand it well

There is no other besides Him

There is no power of existence besides His

There is no other love,

no other life for us to seek

You are the children from the womb of redemption

Your mother is the Commandment of God

For you, Moses left cities of refuge

in the lands that were promised —

on both sides of the Jordan

In the promised land of Reuben 

and Gad and Manasseh,

Moses left you this inheritance,

his hope in the crowning of Mashiach

over all the territories of hope

and all the cities of refuge,

on Israel’s Great Sabbath Day,

when all of Creation enters the land

where God’s love rests

If only their hearts would rest like this now 

If only they would be now in Time, 

as they are in Eternity

This is the challenge

This is the prayer

The hands of the Tzaddik reach out 

to Time on the left,

to Eternity on the right

Moshe-Mashiach prayed

that God would be at home with Israel 

in Time, as He is in Eternity

For God cups Eternity in His hand

and balances Time on His fingers

For Adam’s sake, to redeem them,

He exiled them for a time from eternity

He shot their time like an arrow far away

Then for Israel’s sake

God searched for and found the arrow

It had flown away with the wings of Mashiach

It landed near Moshe’s grave

And this God did

that Adam might search and scent the wind

and feel the loss and remember

that God was once their home

God’s word was once their heart

His commandment was once their mind

Moses designated three cities here

and three cities there

He designated six cities 

so that Adam might take refuge in their promise,

until all the earth was filled with promise

until Jerusalem was come

to her time of giving birth,

and the thrilling, joyous cry

of a newborn creation was heard,

a newborn heaven and a newborn earth

in which the God of Israel lives 

and there eternally dwells