8/7/2015

How the Torah Sets the Stage for Real-Life Struggle

Published on Reform Judaism (http://www.reformjudaism.org)

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How the Torah Sets the Stage for Real-Life Struggle

How the Torah Sets the Stage for Real-Life

Struggle
By Rabbi Steven Moskowitz , 8/07/2015
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Real Torah is about preparation.

Take Moses life as an example. First of all, Moses does not even begin his true calling until, at
the age of 80, he leads the people from Egypt. We know incomparably little about his first 80
years. In fact, the majority of the Torah details his, and the peoples, life from the Exodus
forward. What little we do know about those years is more the stuff of legend than Torah. We do
read there that Moses did not even want the job.
The 40 years of wandering and struggle are a prelude to Moses dream of leading the people into
the Promised Land and yet he is denied this dream. Moses, who fails to achieve his lifelong
ambition and singular goal, is allowed only to stand on the other side of the Jordan and glimpse
the dream from afar. He is not allowed to touch the land of Israel, a privilege instead granted to
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8/7/2015

How the Torah Sets the Stage for Real-Life Struggle

his successor, Joshua.

The Torah suggests a reason for Gods harsh judgment. Moses gets angry one too many times,
losing his temper with the people. He smashes a rock when they complain, yet again, about the
lack of water. Because of this action, his career concludes on the precipice of a dream, and his
life ends with its goal unfulfilled and its ambition unrealized. He dies at the age of 120 years.
It is Joshua who leads the people into the land. We discover this not in the Torah, but instead in
the Book of Joshua. The Torah concludes on the other side of the dream in essence, on the
wrong side of the river. It never fulfills its stated goal. After Moses death, we roll it back to
creation and we begin the preparation all over again.
The Torah is not about the fulfillment of dreams. It is instead about preparation and it must
therefore remain incomplete.
If we are to discover ourselves in its words and in between its lines, the Torah must never be
perfectly fulfilled. This is real living. Perfection is an unrealizable ambition. Even the life of
Moses, the prophet of prophets, falls short, which is why the tradition calls him not Moses the
prophet, but instead Moses, our teacher. We learn from his life.
Perhaps the Torahs very incompleteness is a hint, then, of its perfection. It offers a perfect
teaching: We wander. We struggle. And we prepare.
During the forthcoming days of the month of Elul, Jews the world over will turn inward. We will
count 40 days from the first of Elul until Yom Kippur. They mirror the days Moses spent on the
mountaintop communing with God. They are reminiscent of the 40 years when Moses lived
Torah. Those years are, in fact, the majority of our scrolls verses.
These 40 days are intended for us to prepare for the High Holidays. We are meant to use these
days to focus on repentance, change our ways, and most especially seek out those people we
have wronged. We can only reach out to God if we first repair our human relationships. Yom
Kippur is useless without the Torah of these 40 days of preparation, without first reaching out to
others.
And yet, like the dream that Moses only sees from afar, we learn that teshuvah shleymah,
complete repentance, is a distant, if not impossible, goal. According to Maimonides, such certain
judgments about the mending of our ways can only be made if we find ourselves in the exact
same situation, facing the exact same temptation but this time making a different decision. Even
repentance is incomplete.
Still we continue to prepare. And this is where Torah is discovered.
We hold a dream in our hearts. We can improve. We can change. Friendships can be repaired.
Relationships can be healed. We count our days in preparation for that dream. We wander
through the Torah toward that dream.
Before we know it, our High Holiday prayers will conclude, and the gates will close.
We take comfort in the scroll that has no end. The dream seems distant. The preparations must
begin again in earnest.
Our Torah is learned. The Torah is relearned.
Published: 8/07/2015
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