Judges: Chapter 6

 

To be clothed in God's spirit

or be its clothes

and feel rain fall, while the earth cracks sear

or see earth drink, as the cloth stayes dry

As if the rain did not fall on all, 

or every day

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Forty years of peace--the count of a generation, as transformative as the forty years wandering in the desert to birth a nation capable of independence. But the end of this forty-year cycle is breakdown, not rebirth, as "Israel does what is offensive to God", and are delivered to the Midianites for a symbolic 7 years--seven, the number that structures the covenant and its abnegation, creation and destruction.

And indeed, this enemy is destructive--the leitwort is ש'ח'ת, destroy, as the nomads come to pillage, not settle, and strip the land "like locust".

If the previous chapter returns to the Song of the Sea, in complement and echo, this chapter is in dark dialogue with the Exodus story, as the mighty hand that God once employed against Egypt crashes down on Israel. The "living" (מחיה) that Joseph provided for his brothers is here taken away (they left them no מחיה ), and if once Israel called (ve'yizak) and their voice rose to God, now the only thing that rises is the enemy, while Israel's cry dangels, unanswered. And indeed, when God does send a "man prophet" in place of the "woman prophetess" Deborah, his message is now an accusation of how they have failed the Exodus: "I rescued you from Egypt...yet you did not obey Me" (Judges 6:9-10).

The message ends abruptly and hopelessly, in a seeming rejection of Israel's pleas for help. "If God is with us, why has this befallen us? Where are all the wonderful deeds with which took us out of Egypt?" Gideon demands, giving voice to this hopelessness. Yet an angel is waiting under a tree to appoint a new redeemer. Gideon's initiation is replete with intertextual allusions to Moses and to his initiation: "Bi adoni", Gideon says, echoing Moses' double "please sir" as he tries to convince God to send someone else; I have sent you (שלחתחך), God says, echoing his appointment of Moses. Like Moses, Gideon is given multiple "signs" (ot). Like Moses, he asks "if I have found favor" (Exodus 33:13). If Moses was the only prophet to see God "face to face", Gideon declares "I have seen an angel face to face."

Yet this very parallel highlights the essential difference. Moses asks to find favor in order to reject God's plan of an angelic intermediary, saying "Unless Your face goes before us, do not lead us from here. For how else shall it be known that I and Your people have gained Your favor, unless You go with us, so that we may be distinguished, I and Your people, from every people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 34: 14-15). But having failed the Exodus so deeply, the angelic intermediary is all that remains. Gideon is the Moses of this angelic redemption, a shadow who communicates with angels rather directly with God; a postlapsarian redeemer who "wears" (לבש( the spirit of God, rather than feeling it intrinsically within him. For God, as expressed by the prophet, is indeed angry, rejecting Israel's call; but on a lower level, an angel can respond. If Moses ' signs are primordial--water that turns to blood, an Edenic snake--Gideon's are homely: let the earth get wet while the wool stays dry; let the wool be soaked, while the earth stays sere. Yet look closely, and this is his own version of Moses' request to be "distinguished": let there be, even at this lower level, some element of care. Show us we can still be special.]

Even though he is driven by fear, Gideon ends up echoing the redemption of the Exodus "at night", as he finally fulfills the commandment of breaking the altars, and destroying the Ashera trees. It is not that appointed, awaited "night" when God acts with no intermediary as he did in Egypt. But it is something.]

Joshua: Chapter 12

In the end

look back

and tie it together

with song

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In the last chapter, we begin with sepcific battles that wind into years of warfare; there is a sense of unfolding chaos, the time that passes until the "country rests from war."

This chapter, by contrast, offers a retrospective view, looking back at those blurred years of war in order to place them in context and give them form.. The nameless cities are now enumerated by name, in a repetative, rythmic litany that places all in order. 

Only now, looking back, can the seperate conquests of Joshua and Moses be seen as one, as succesive steps in a single process: "these are the kings whom the Childre of Israel smote, and posessed their land beyond the Jordon, toward the rising sun..." "these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the Children of Israel smote beyond the Jordan westward...for a possesion according to their devisions." Now,  the focus on kingship tht characterizes the Book of Joshua reaches backward to redefine Moses' victories in Deuteronomy.

True, Joshua is more directly associated with warfare, while Moses remains the "servant of God"; true, Moses gave the land as "inheritence", while the westward lands remains to be divided. But for the first time, teacher and student are completly interlinked, working together to acheive the posessions of the two sides of the Jordan.]

Joshua: Chapter 8

Learn to lie.

Learn to trap.

Learn to circle round from the back,

weapon clenched in upraised hand.

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With the exorcism of Ahan, the worse seems to have passed. The Children of Israel are no longer infected with the contigion of herem; God once more speaks as comforter rather than in "fierce anger," telling Joshua "do not fear, and do not be lowered." Yet even though God speaks as he did "at the first" (one of the key phrases of this chapter), something fundamental has changed.

From a world of miracles and open revelation, we move to a world of tactics. There is a huge chasm between the capture of Jericho, and the destruction of the Ai. The fall of Jericho does not require warfate in the usual sense of the word. The warriors circle silently, doing nothing. On the seventh day, after seven circles, the walls of the city fall away--just as on the Jubilee year of seven-seven, all human ownership falls away. God's presence is palpable, and His central command is to restrict human action: "do not open your mouth." And after the victory, the command not to try to approparite this victory: all spoils are to be herem to God. 

In Ai, by contrast, God acts as a tachtician. He does not provide victory--only the information that can allow Israel to win by their own means. Yehoshua, under the direction of God, plans a sophisticated ambush that takes advantage of the Ai's own over-confidence (an echo of Israel's over-confidence in the previous chapter). The mistakes and failures "of the first" are used to Israel's own advantage here, as the backup (two?) ambush parties attack the undefended city, leaving the main force to turn around and wipe out the war party. The leitwort  of this chapter is "hand", emphasizing the role of human action: if in Jericho, the inhabitants "hearts" melted, here, the warriors of Ai don't have a "hand." Emphasing the change is Joshua's hands, which remain upraised trhoughout the battle--an echo of Moses' upraised hands in the battle against Amalek.  Yet in contrast to Moses' empty hands, upraised to heaven, Joshua's hands hold up a spear, emphasizing the importance of tachtics and weapons. 

The violation of the Herem moves us out of the world of divine Precense and into the human realm . The spoils now belong to the people rather than God.

 The chapter ends with an enactment of the covenanat at mount Gerizim and Eival that Moses commanded before his death--a covenant that emphasizes the human role in recording the Torah. It is unclea if the stones here are the same stones taken from the Jordan. The ambigity of whether this is a new covenant or a reitification emphasies the transformation: having changed the framework of the relationship between God and Israel, the covenant must be changed as well. ]

Joshua 1: In writing

Hold me tight

as I hold on to you

seeing you in 

the palm of my hand

the sole of my feet

I fit my foot to your footstep

disappearing over the plane

winding up the mountain.

Can I be you—

You, whose loss is path I cannot trace

I search for your face

that saw face to face

while I see reflections 

in the murmuring waters

separating between us

you carried between rushing reeds

you carried over the deeps

as I wait at the bottom

listening to a distant roar

till you appear

face a beacon

blinding.

as the distant mountaintop

how can you be quenched and dark

how can I rise

and take what you never got

barred at the river.

Do not leave me

as I get up to leave you.

Joshua: Chapter 1

How do you rise when down? 
How do you learn to walk? 
Hold me please!

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"And it was after the death of Moses, servant of God"--these words open the new section of the Bible, and are definitive of the new era. Again and again, the chapter emphasizes that "Joshua, minister of Moses" draws from the remnants of his master. The land will be given "as I spoke to Moses"; God will be with him, as He was "with Moses"; the people will obey him, as they "obeyed Moses." He seems to have no presence or will of his own. This sense of diminished potential is reflected in the grammatical structure of the chapter, which is dominated by negative ( lo) rather than positive forms. The word rak--only--is repeated throughout.

Yet within this crushing ambiance of loss, God exhorts Joshua to "rise". He must learn to walk, to move beyond the stasis of drawing from Moses. His relationship to the land will be defined by where "the sole of [his] foot falls." His wisdom will come through movement, "in every way he walks." Only then will his "path succeed."  God's exhortation is dominated by the leitworts "walking" (l'kh) and "path" (derekh}. And indeed, Joshua moves on to order the Children of Israel to prepare to move.  

Learning to walk is not easy. Again and again, God promises not to let go--"I will not loosen My hold, and will not leave you." On his part, Joshua must--as Moses exhorted him back in Deuteronomy--"Be strong and have courage." ]

Deuteronomy 34: In Writing

Always across

always abyss

Pour myself out

over water, into water

wafting on the waves

waiting for hands

that reach, will not reach

Watch me as I look outward

nothing between us

sky above us.

Do you watch for me?

You will never find me.

As I can never pass

onto dry land.

Let me curl into the clefts

between the waves

listening for your voice

the brush of your breath.

Deuteronomy: Chapter 34

Everything and nothing:

what you see and what you cannot have

eye to eye

face to face

At the moment of ending 

who will know me

who will I know?

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We come to the final chapter of Deuteronomy, a chapter of ending, and transitions. There is a harsh finality to this closing: some things are irreplaceable, irreparable. Moses' tears and pleading cannot undo his one mistake at Meriba. "You shall see the Land, and there you shall not pass." And with the death of Moses "in the land of Moab" is the end of an era. An intimacy has passed that will not return: "there arose no more in Israel like Moses, who knew God face to face." We touch absolute limits and absolute loss.

Moses climbs Nebo for a bird's-eye view of the Promised Land. Yet of Michel de Certeau sees the synoptic high view as presenting the position of power, here is serves to demonstrate absolute limits: "and God showed him the land of Gilead as far of Dan, and all of Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Menasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the last sea... And God said to him: 'this is the land that I swore unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... you have seen it with your eyes, and there you shall not pass." The Torah closes with a harsh lessons that not all you see is there for the taking. Is this perhaps a return to humanities first, failed, lesson in boundaries, with a Tree whose "fruit was a delight for the eyes," yet was not to be eaten?

Yet it is the harshness of absolute limits that itself that reveals the deepest intimacy. In Moses' lonely journey up the mountain, it is God who is with him. He dies "by the mouth of God," and it is God who buries him "in a valley in the land of Moab, and no man knows his burial site, to this very day." No man knows Moses' final resting place, but Moses "knows God face to face." It is this mutual knowledge that defines Moses and provides his space, as the people move onwards. 

For this is also a chapter of transition. There will be no replacement for Moses, but there will be a next step. Joshua is filled with the "spirit of God, for Moses laid his hands on him." The days of mourning "end," and we await the next step.]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 33

from word

to blessing

draw it together

Waters above

waters below

pain of not-love

lack 

of knowledge

let us live and not die

let us be one in You

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We come to Moses' final address to the Children of Israel. After a whole book of "the words that Moses spoke"--a book of exhortation, rebuke, warning, promise--Moses "made an end of speaking all the words" (32: 45), and begins is another kind of address: blessing. "And this is the blessing that Moses the man of God blessed the Children of Israel before his death."

In closing with a blessing, the final book of the Torah takes us back to the closing of the first book. Genesis also closes with a blessing before death--Jacob's final blessings to his sons.

These two closings are indeed linked by multiple intertextual allusions. At the opening of the blessing, Moses declares that we are dealing with the "inheritance of Jacob," and closes by declaring Israel "the spring of Jacob." As in Genesis, these blessing combine a focus on the future with a look back on the past. As in Genesis, the blessings are performative, and interweave a whole from the disparate parts. As in Genesis, the leitword is asaf, to gather, to bring together: "And there was in Yeshurun a king, when the heads of the nation were gathered, all together, the tribes of Israel,"

Like Jacob, Moses brings "together, all the tribes of Israel"  by interweaving the children of the various mothers, erasing the painful divisiveness of Jacob's family by creating new connections. Jacob created his new whole by cross-hatching the liminal surrogate children of the maidservants,  not quite Rachel's, not quite Leah's, making them the binder for the two sides of the family, interlinking Rachel and Leah's children through their proxies. Moses follows in Jacob's path, interlinking Bilhal's Dan with Zilpa's Gad through the imagery of the lion; and Zilpah's Asher with Bilha's Naphtali, through the key-word "ratzon" (desire, will). Yet Moses is more ambitious, and actually creates a matrix that unites Rachel and Leah's children directly: Levi, who has renounced all particular loyalties serves as the glue, allowing Benjamin and Joseph to be couched between Judah and Zebulun. 

Once again, Joseph seems to act as a primal binding force, as he merges the waters above and the  "deeps lurking below," reconnecting the split "waters above, and the waters below" that have not merged since the Deluge. Gad also returns to the primal "beginning" (Reishit) that opened the Bible. Throughout, the blessings bind through returning to "the eternal hills," "the ancient earth." Bringing "together, all the tribes of Israel" is tied to going all the way back to the primal divisions of creation, bringing together air, water, seas, sand and hills--all the natural phenomena that define these blessings. 

The centrality of Joseph in the blessing serves as a reminder that the question of redemption in Genesis is linked to bringing Joseph back, to undoing his sale and exile. 

Return to central. In the end, it is the Land itself that will  will act as a binder. In living within the "everlasting hills" Israel will actually, metaphysically, be living living within God: "The eternal God is a dwelling place, and beneath are the everlasting arms... and Israel dwelleth in safety, the spring of Jacob alone, in a land of grain and wine, and his heavens drop down dew."]

Deuteronomy 32: In Writing

Between listening sky

and attentive earth

between my call

and silence

between seeing and hearing

between what is

and what is not

 between drops of rain

between blades of grass

between the eagle and its nest

between inhale and exhale

between my God

and the cliff walls

stone without crevice

leaking honey

of the ending

unconsummated

between emptiness and hollows

between being lost and gathered

on this mountain of passage

that blocks the path

does something cross between?

Deuteronomy 31: In Writing

Stand and see 

the fire flame between

us, a pillar we can-

not cross.

What remains witness

when I am hollowed 

flattened to a shadow

on the sands?

Barred at the river

of no traverse

I cannot leave

cannot come

can only dissipate

as I walk towards you

again and again.

The sea, the sky, the ground beneath

bear the marks of my passing.

The disturbed air

my weight born on the waves

leave a hollow no

one will find.

Don’t loosen me

don't leave me.

Make my word stone

let it sprout water

and drink it deep

feel its cold slide down

your empty belly

its residue on you tongue and lips. 

Deuteronomy: Chapter 31

What continues  when you can no longer come or go?
Who crosses to the other side ?

Write the words 
and make them live 
on the ears 
on the tongue...

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"Behold, the day approaches that you must die." With this chapter, we arrive at the final section of the book: the death of Moses. Again and again, the word tum'am, "closing, ending, completion" is repeated. We have come to the final day of  Moses' life: "I am one hundred and twenty years old today. I am no longer able to come and go."

With Moses unable to "cross" ('a'v'r--another key word of the chapter), he now "goes" to attempt to provide for continuity. First, he passes the mantle on to Joshua, who can "cross before you."  Joshua will be the emissary who will "come with you" into the land, a physical continuation of Moses leadership. The next tack of preservation is writing. If the Book of Numbers focused on learning how to speak, this Book of Words (the literal meaning of the Hebrew name, Devarim) ends with a focus on how to write: "And Moses wrote this teaching (torah) and delivered it to the priests and the sons of Levi...and the elders of Israel" (31:9). This is a writing that is meant for reading, a code being lain down for public transmission: "you will read this teaching before all of Israel, in their ears. Gather the people together: men women, and children and the stranger within your gates, that they may hear and may learn... so that their children, who do not know, may hear and learn" (10-13). Through this writing, Moses' teaching will live on, to be heard by later generations who do not "know" Sinai.

God responds to Moses' "going" by calling him to come "stand" by the Tent of Meeting with Joshua.  God too sets out to provide for a transition from Moses, and His vision both reflects and departs from Moses'. The message at the Meeting is harsh: "Behold you will sleep with your fathers, and this people will rise up and go astray." For naught, Moses, desperate entreaties and plans to teach "the fear of God." Regardless of all teaching, the people will inevitably stray, like a fact of nature, like the sea will rush and the sky will rain. Nature itself, the earth and the heavens, will stand witness to this.

Continuity does not imply avoiding disaster. It is finding a way back after disaster. God, like Moses, appoints Joshua to lead the people. Yet Moses sees Joshua as a mirror of the people,  who like them must be told to "be strength and take courage,"   who like them, is dominated by "fears": he will "come" with the people, not lead them. By contrast, God empowers Joshua, seeing him as the new leader, "standing" in place of Moses, the two of them side by side: "you will bring the people." 

In a similar fashion, God also echoes Moses' need for writing, yet this is writing of a different kind. Moses focuses on recording "teaching / law" (torah), which would be entrusted to the national leadership of priests, Levites and elders. The teaching would be sounded out to the people, laid on their "ears" as they imbibe and listen. The act of reading and of listening is collective, God, by contrast, commands to "write for yourself this song, and teach it to the children of Israel, put it in their mouth." Not a "teaching/law" but a "poem"; not for the leadership, but for the people; not for passive listening, but for speaking; not for the collective, but for each individual. Just as He empowers Joshua, God empowers the people. Yet the purpose of this writing is different. It will not control the future, and make distant generations "fear God." Rather it will be a "witness," placing this history-that-will-inevitably-unfold within the specific context context of God's words. "Not [to] be forgotten from the mouth of your seed," it will shape the meaning of their experiences.

The chapter closes with the intertwining of both the human and divine vision of continuity. Joshua is appointed as leader to "bring" not to "come"--yet Moses strengthens him. Moses "writes the whole teaching / law to its completion" and gives it over to the leadership. Yet he also "writes the words of this song and teaches it to the children of Israel." Finally, Moses, as per his original vision, speaks into the "ears" of the assembled people. Yet this time, he calls heaven and earth as "witnesses." It is not simply a teaching, but an act of testimony.]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 10

Can you go back 

to the first

Recreate what is gone

Remove the scar tissue
hardening your heart
Soften the stiffness of your neck
and turn around...

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After the digression of listing Israel's various rebellions, Moses continues the story of Sinai and its aftermath, coming to the last of the series of "forty days and forty nights" that he spent with God on the mountain. Again, the passage of year--and the presence of the narrator--are highlighted. Forty years in the future, time wraps, and events separated in time merge into a single continuum. The sin of the spies becomes a side even in the central drama of the Golden Calf. Aaron's death, which was decreed at the same time as Moses' own, is here redefined  as a result of the  Calf, as an after effect of God being "very angry at Aaron, to destroy him." The appointment of Levi is also recontextualized. They become part of the broader ripples of he Calf, an added level of protection for the second Tablets, placed within the Ark.
Once again, Moses role is highlighted, emphasizing his place as speaker. The second set of Tablets is to replace the "first which you [Moses] broke." The chapter emphasizes again and again that these Tablets are to replace "the first"--in a kind of play back reverse in which Moses will "go up" as he once "went down", once again "holding the two tablets in my arms." Yet time truly be reveres, and what was done cannot be undone. These Tablets are not like the first. Rather than being "God's writ," these Tablets are a joint creation. After being the destroyer, Moses must become a creator. His involvement is highlighted by the staccato series of verbs: "and I made...and I sculpted... , and I went up..." Here, the involvement is so intense, that all middlemen are cut out, and it seems that Moses himself created the ark, without the involvement of Bezalel .
The chapter closes with Moses' paean to God,a rising poetic exhalation that moves from the absolute to the specific. From the omnipotence " Lord of lords and God of gods, mighty and awesome," God becomes the God of small things, who "gives justice to the orphan and the widow and loves the stranger..." And through God's care for the stranger, Israel can learn  to love an accept themselves: "therefor love the stranger, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt."
Moses closes by returning to his denunciation which opened his retelling of the Exodus and Sinai. Israel was not righteous--Israel was "stiffnecked." Not for nothing has Moses retold the story "of that time" (ba-et ha-hi). It has implication for "now" (ata). On "this day" (, ka-yom ha-ze) Moses hopes for a change. Like the Tablets remade, he hopes that Israel will be remade, learning  to "circumcise the seal from your heart, and be no more stiff necked". ]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 9

Falling down,  down,  down...
What you break, 

what you see shattered.

To know it is not
you

Fall into the lacuna
and be consumed

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This chapter opens with an anaphora that links it to the previous chapters: "Hear, O Israel." We return, yet again, to Sinai. But this is almost a reverse presentation. If before, Sinai was the proof of a binding, consuming love, here it is a proof of failure, of a foaming, consuming anger, Sinai now comes to warn Israel not to  "think in your heart... ‘Because of my righteousness God has brought me in to possess this land.’ 

This doubling is thematic to the chapter, which highlights again and again the doubling of the Tablets of Law, which are held in Moses' two hands, and the opposition between "ascending" (a'l'a) and "going down" (r'd). The tablets engraved in stone are broken. Everything changes quickly (m'h'r) and easily. All concrete symbols are disintegrated. "The sin"--embodied by the Golden Calf--is ground up by Moses, in an act that echoes the shattering of the Tablets. 

Yet the "going down" is not only a failure, but also a source of strength. The ground up dust of the calf is sprinkled on the water "coming down" the mountain; Moses "falls down" (etnapel) before God, in a reflexive form of the verb that can suggest "attack" or struggle. 

Here, Moses moves center stage. If before, he was the conduit between God and the people, here he becomes the active party: It is he (in God's accusation) who "took" Israel out of Egypt; it is he who stands between the burning mountain and the people; it is he who stands between God and Aaron; it is he who dashes the tablets, written in God's own writing, to the ground, in a series of four decisive verbs ("and I took hold...cast down...broke...fell")

If this chapter comes to teach Israel they have have earned nothing within themselves, that the relationship comes from without, Moses closes with the other side of this argument: "Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom you brought out with Your mighty power..," In rescuing Israel, even if for no inherent virtue, God has created an unbreakable bond. It is destiny because it it is unearned. ]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 5

The extended presence

here and not here

distance or death

In a world of consummation

who will stand between

and leave a space within?

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Beginning again, Moses once again recounts the story of the covenant at Sinai/Horeb. This chapter continues, develops, and departs from the previous one. The keywords remain the same: an emphasis on sight and sound (re'eh, eynayim, sh'm'a). "Voice" "kol", "come close" (k'r'v); and "guard, keep" (sh'm'r). Now, however,  another root gains prominence:  "life / alive" (hayim). 

If the previous chapter revolved around the dangerous power of direct perception--and so focused on the Second Commandment's prohibition on graven images--this chapter focuses on the aftermath of that perception. It lists the full Ten Pronouncements, but as told over by Moses, highlighting his part. If the previous chapter dealt with the danger of translating an overwhelming experience into a limited pictorial form, this chapter deals with the danger of overwhelming experience itself: 

“when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain blazed in fire, you came near me…and said: ‘…We have seen this day that God speaks with a human, and he may live.  Now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we keep hearing the voice of God our Lord more, we will die.”  

The consummation of a relationship with the Divine is literal consummation. Nothing is left from the conflagration of sound and sight. Give me distance, or give me death, Israel demands: "You go close and hear all that God our Lord will say, and tell us…” The text enacts this transformation of Moses transition into a living translator between the people and God: “Then God heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and God said to me: ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have spoken rightly..'” The people speak to Moses and God responds, Moses a transparent membrane between.

This chapter is about the value of distance. Moses' position as intermediary translates the divine word into human terms that can be "taught" (l’m’d, another key word of this chapter). The generation of direct perception indeed “die.” This generation of the “living” is still branded by the fires of Horeb, but at a remove. They are virtually both there and not there, both face-to -face and separated:

“God our Lord made a covenant with us in Horeb. …not with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are living.  God talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. I stood between God and you…”

 God’s command to return to the private spaces of “your tents” creates a protective space for human continuity.  Moses, who remained “standing with Me” alone on the mountain,  still remains alone on the mount of Nebo, never to truly come down. He is not one of the “living” but remains in the liminal space between the living and the dead, between the land and the wilderness, between the human and the divine.]

Deuteronomy: Chapter 4

What you see
And what you don't see.

Can you still the fire
Within bonds of form?

See the voice in the heart of the sky
in the depth of the fire

The silence on the other side of Being

[For full chapter, click hereFollowing directly from the description of Moses' view over the Promised Land, this chapter focuses on the power--and danger--of the visual. "Your eyes have seen," Moses says, ""Look!"he commands. "Guard yourself! Carefully guard your soul, lest thou forget the things that your eyes saw, lest they depart from your heart all the days of thy life."Side by side with the need to carefully remember and preserve the "witness" is the equally urgent need to guard against what was not seen.  The presentness of the visual makes it dangerous, leads to drive to "create forms" to hold what cannot be held. 
"You came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven,...And God spoke to you from the fire: you heard the voice of the words, but saw no image; only a voice....Therefor guard yourself, for you saw no image on the day...lest you become corrupted and make a graven image, the picture of any figure, the likeness of male or female,  the likeness of any beast on the earth, the likeness of any winged birds that fly through the air, the likeness of any thing that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that swims the waters beneath the earth lest thou lift up your eyes to the heavens, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you should be driven to worship them..."
What is seen is a voice, not a form, a fire that defies any direct gaze. This dangerous tension between seeing and not seeing, having and not having, runs throughout the key words of the chapter: "see" vs. "listen"; "guard/ take care" (sh'm'r) vs. "come close" (k'r'v).Even as Israel prepares to enter the Promised Land, to have and possess, Moses' dispossession echoes beneath, in a triple negative: "God was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not cross the Jodan, that I should not go in that good land...that I  die in this land, and not be (eyneni, lit., nothingness) crossing the Jordan.You shall go over, and possess that good land"
 The delicate balance between seeing more than you see, or forgetting what was seen teeters: "Guard yourself, lest ye forget the covenant of God, your Lord, ...make you a graven image...For God your Lord is a consuming fire, a jealous power." Not having and dispossession looms at the horizon, a loss of both sight and sound: 
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall perish from off the Land...God will scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number...And there you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear..."
What is left is only Moses' promise that there is a way out of the "furnace," that what cannot be truly seen can nonetheless be found: "You will seek God your Lord, and you will find Him, if you search for him with all your heart and all your soul."The chapter ends with a chaisatic closing that returns us to the opening of the book: this is the initial message that Moses gave the people. A message laced with pain and resentment--Moses blames the people three times for his death!--yet also with the hope that Moses himself is denied. Unlike Moses, who was told to be silent, Israel will be heard.)

Deuteronomy 3: In Writing

Look out 
on unfurled longing

rising from the east, 

outstretched to the south,

winding to the setting sun

a lodestar of desire.

I am surrounded

by caverns of craving

wellings of want.

To see, and not to have
not to have and not to hold
not to hold and not to touch
not to touch and not to taste

Gritty and parched,

my mouth is a desert

never to be quenched.

my flesh,

is wavering, evaporating

as even your face melts away.

My call is lost in the heights

an eagle circling in lonely flight.

Deuteronomy: Chapter 3

Stand and gaze

At the limits of longing

To see, and not to have

[For full chapter, click here

After the long list of all the land that has "not been given" (n't'n --the key word of these two chapters) to Israel, we come at last to the land that is "given": "And God said, fear him not, for I have given him into your hands." We come to  Og, the last of the "remnant of the Rephaim"--that mysterious race of giants whose country Israel wanders. He is the giant who has been been left in waiting until Israel arrives to inherit. 
Yet to truly have what is "given," one must also actively :take"--va-nikakh. Only after an active involvement can give over the gift, as Moses does when "gives" the land of Og to Reuben and Gad; or rename the gift, as the tribe of Manasseh does, making the land truly theirs. 

The refrain of multiple names developes the key theme of retelling, recounting--the "deuter (second, retelling) nomos (of the law)" that gives this book its name. Renaming is retelling in the deepest sense,highlighting different perspectives, the alternate realities.  

Yet the chapter that begins with "giving" and inheritance ends with denial, and with absolute limits:"It is enough for you(rav le-kha! Do not continue (al tosef) to speak to me on this matter." We return to the refrain of limits, the "rav le-kha" that began this journey. Moses will not be allowed into the Promised Land. 

His longing is palpable. It paints the land in idealized shades: "the good land" "the good mountain." Even when recounting the story of the spies, Moses can only say the favorable aspect of the report: "the Land is good." However, despite this love, Moses, like the generation that rejected the land, will die in the desert: "God was wroth with me because of you." 

But if the nation would not even "see" the land, Moses is allowed to look: "Climb you to the top of the mountain, and lift  your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold with thine eyes." This is a gaze with no consummation. It is Joshua  who will be granted the fulfilled eyesight: "And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying: 'Your eyes have seen all that God your Lord has done to these two kings; so shall God do unto all the kingdoms where you cross over."

The final verse, with its reference to being "across Peor,"  sets up an implicit link between Moses, in his longing  lonely lookout, and Balaam's earlier all seeing gaze, looking over the people of Israel. Broad scope that comes at the expense of having. Like Balaam, Moses' voice is ultimately silenced: "Do not speak of this matter again" This "book of words" is also the book of the  limit on human speech in the face of divine decree]