Devarim – “Words”

This week our parasha is Devarim, which means words and covers Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22. Parasha Devarim is the first Torah portion of Deuteronomy and is the name for this book in Hebrew. Parasha Devarim teaches us the importance of learning from our past and breaking the cycles of sin that repeat constantly in our lives.

The book of Deuteronomy begins with Moses recounting our history to the generation about to conquer the land of Canaan. We read that what should have been an 11-day journey from Mount Sinai or Horeb to the border of Canaan took forty years. Very soon we will read again the reason for such a long journey.

Devarim continues with judges being chosen to help Moses with administrating our people. The judges were instructed to show no bias, to treat every case as important, and to not fear people but the Lord. The importance of fairness and treating everyone with dignity is emphasized in God’s Commandments. It is a sad fact today that many times justice is thwarted because of bias, lack of caring, and fear of people. As Believers we should be concerned with justice in our society and advocate for a fair and moral administration of the law.

We then departed Mount Sinai for the Promised Land and arrived at the border. Twelve spies were chosen to scout the land, one from each tribe. After forty days they returned and said that while the land of Canaan was amazing, the people who lived there were like giants. Ten of the spies said it would be impossible for us to conquer this land. Most of our people believed them and refused to go out into the Land the Lord promised and commanded us to live in.

With this great act of rebellion, the Lord swore an oath and promised that no one from that generation would ever set foot in the land of Israel. Only Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who believed in the Lord, and our children would be allowed in. We were told to head back into the wilderness where we would wander until the entire generation died.

Our people refused to accept this judgement and now were very ready to conquer Canaan! We then charged in recklessly without Moses or the Ark defying God once again. Naturally we were defeated and driven back into the wilderness with many dead. The parsha ends after recounting part of our wilderness journey and several battles we fought after.

Parasha Devarim, and Devarim as a whole, remind us of our people’s history and failures. But why does Moses tell this story to the generation about to conquer the Promised Land? Why is it written as if they rebelled against the Lord? It is told this way as a reminder to that generation and to us today about the failures of our ancestors and the consequences it brought. Moses wanted us to do better when we entered the Promised Land, to learn from the previous generation and not make the same mistakes. He worried because we forget our past very quickly and we usually repeat the same mistakes. We go through cycles, especially in our relationships, and assume “well that can’t happen to me.”

But it can happen to us, the history of our people recorded in Scripture stands as a testament to how we typically live. Time after time we turned from the Lord to follow our own ways and suffered horribly for it. Parasha Devarim is always read the sabbath before Tisha B’Av, the day we mourn the destruction of both Temples. We read it during this time of mourning as a sobering reminder of our shortcomings. Moses hoped that our people would learn from the mistakes we made in the wilderness and not repeat them again. But during the time of the judges we strayed from God’s teachings again and again. Eventually the first Temple was destroyed because we failed to follow God’s law and we were exiled for the first time. Centuries later we would be exiled again with the second Temple destroyed from rejecting God again and His Messiah.

Devarim proclaims that we need to learn from our history and not continue the cycle of rebellion and suffering. We need to break with the patterns that have been set in our lives and return to the Lord. To see the patterns that have governed our lives and evaluate whether they deserve to be continued or need to be broken. Breaking any habit or pattern is very difficult to do, but when we place our trust in Messiah Yeshua the Lord’s power enables us to do it. Through the strength of the Holy Spirit we don’t have to be who we have been. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Each of us needs to examine our past and ask ourselves is there anything we need to remember and avoid repeating.

Georg Hegel the German philosopher wrote, “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” Tisha B’av is a holiday where we mourn this truth, that we tend to forget our past, what the Lord has done, and continue sins destructive cycles. But our Messiah declared that If we hold to His teaching, we are really His disciples. Then we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free. I pray this Tisha B’av that as we mourn and remember our history, we would also know the freedom found in Messiah Yeshua. That we would hold onto the truth of the Good News and experience the freedom from the cycle of sin that is only found in Him.