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

And He Prayed

A poetic meditation on the parashat Va'etchanan*

Attune your ear, oh Israel!

Let your soul listen

In the natural world,

independence comes through graduation 

and not through rebellion

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 and giving neighbour

You might as well tell them....

So long as they continue 

to envy and compete with one another 

for place and position,

they will serve lying idols,

who in the end will breath over them

and hunger for them 

Their idols will consume them

People will themselves become joyfully 

the commodity of the idols they created 

Because their fearful hearts 

were hearts of violence,

so that they lost their senses in darkness

and desperately trusted in liars

But if they turn while they can

And seek the freedom of kindness 

It is not to late to return completely 

and to graduate 

from the school of Tikkun and Teshuvah

For great is the mercy of God 

And he waits a very long time,

even though it means suffering,

for the people to learn from the mistake 

of proud ambition,

and from measuring all things with money

God suffers long and everything suffers,

until they know that God was always with them 

and God’s kindness was their existence 

And this is how God brings an end to suffering:

God has given to the Israelites

The right to inherit the world

First the right of inheritance was established

This is the eternal 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 Jew’s personal inheritance in the Land

Then comes the inheritance 

of every outer dimension of the world 

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

in order to come to believe in the God of Israel 

For if they pay this price,

the price of this attention,

their neighbour will acknowledge

their right of inheritance

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 

Understand, 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 

Everything must pass through the Jordan waters,

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 cannot consciously remember the unity

of the one organic humanity,

the singularity of the one corporate human family 

Many Jews can still consciously remember 

the singularity of Knesset Israel

They remember it every day

The Land of Israel itself

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 Below must unite with the Above,

to become 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 of humble 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 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 God of Israel

is at home and 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 walls of water,

with God as their only fear

because they are afraid only

of failing to do what is good

Whoever takes hold of the tsitsit of the Tzaddik,

They see 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 borderlands of wandering spirits

The city was at its greatest height 

It’s pride 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 tomorrow?

Would it even be a thousand years?

Only God knew…

Only God knows…

Moses whispered in the ear

like seven secret thunders

Speak no more of this matter

Neither add nor subtract

Of the Torah, touch not foot nor crown,

in order that you may live

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

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 attached to your God,

more than Adam was in the beginning

You the commanded 

are become the commandment 

Be the tsitsit 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 cloud clouding over cloud

covered our minds, and yet covers them

when we try to hear His terrifying voice

His voice inscribing 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, to come back to life

Keep the angels at your back

and your ears pointed toward God's court day 

For if the angels escort you away

you may not return from the final day

In a consuming fire there is no compromise

If you cause the Holy Land to die of thirst

to make it a land parched and eviscerated

for the word of God

Will crossing back and forth

over the waters of the Jordan then help you?

Ask Adam, ask Noah!

Did ever a people hear God’s Voice

speaking out of the midst of the Holy Fire…,

as did the congregation of the Jewish soul,

who heard and lived?

Moshe whispered intimately in the ear of Israel:

What nation’s god 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

And you are the children whose mother 

is the commandment of God

For you, Moses left cities of refuge

in the promised lands

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 God’s rest

If only their hearts would be like this rest,

in Time, as they are in Eternity

This is the challenge

This is the prayer

And Moshe-Mashiach prayed 

that God would be at home

in Time, as He is in Eternity

For God cups Eternity in His hand

and balances Time on His fingers

But 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 and found the arrow

It had flown 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,

so 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