Daily Thoughts from Deuteronomy 33:1-3: This Is the Blessing (V’zoth Hab’rakah)

35 This is the Blessing (V’zoth Hab’rakah)

This is the blessing that Moshe, the man of God, spoke over the people of Isra’el before his death:

 “Yahweh came from Sinai;
from Se‘ir he dawned on his people,
shone forth from Mount Pa’ran;
and with him were myriads of holy ones;
at his right hand
was a fiery law for them.
He truly loves the peoples.

(D’varim 33:1-3)

He awoke to a new day with a familiar aching in the pit of his stomach.  It was not hunger.  He was long past that.  It was a sickness of soul.  It was the fear that he did not know how to answer the objections of the satan from the day before.

That so many countless generations had faced suffering of, at many times, unspeakable horror, was unsettling to him.  Satan, who had no love for mankind, had managed to draw upon his own compassion for people, for his kindred, as a weapon against his trust in God.

“Father, I feel terrible that I would doubt Your wisdom.  But I cannot see it.  Had I the power, I would have rescued that child whose father beat him mercilessly, sending his father to an early grave.  I would have nurtured the woman whose husband used her merely to produce children but cared nothing for her soul.  I would have stopped those marauding warriors who left terror in their wake, slaughtering, torturing, raping and making bereft of joy innumerable families.  Father, how do You justify what You have allowed?  Why did innocent children lose their lives because of me?  Why have countless souls been made to hurt when with but a word You could have changed it all?”

“Read, my Son.”

Was that it?  Was that all he was being given?  And yet he had asked.  He had asked of the One who had always been near him, had always been present with unfailing love, had been his closest friend and his dearest love.  But Moshe!  Great though he was did he really have the answer to his questions?  Had he thought about these very same issues and solved what seemed like the most difficult dilemma?

He had asked and this was his Father’s answer.  Read.  So he read.

It was Moshe’s blessing over the people.  Each tribe (except Simeon) received a blessing.  Was it just the mood his heart was in that he quibbled over why some tribes received many words and some received so few?  Simeon received none.

Moshe referred to Yisrael as Yeshurun, Yahweh’s term of endearment for the nation.  Surely this was the part his Father meant him to read:

“Yeshurun, there is no one like Elohim, riding through the heavens to help you, riding on the clouds in his majesty.”

It was true that Yahweh had gone the distance with Yisrael, putting up with her obstinacy, rescuing her over and over, revealing His majesty to her as He rode to her defense.  But why did He let her come into harm’s way to begin with?  He could have prevented her misery from the beginning, kept her from treachery of the Egyptians, paved a straight path through the yeshimon instead of one rife with problems.

“The God of old is a dwelling-place, with everlasting arms beneath.  He expelled the enemy before you and he said, ‘Destroy!’”

Something in his heart softened.  To read of God as the dwelling-place and His loving arms embracing His children melted him emotionally.  This was how he had experienced his Father, over and over.  But this did not answer the questions, did not solve the problems his mind wrestled with.

”So Isra’el lives in security; the fountain of Ya’akov is alone in a land of grain and new wine, where the skies drip with dew.  Happy are you, Isra’el!  Who is like you, a people saved by Yahweh, your defender helping you and your sword of triumph?  Your enemies will cringe before you, but you will trample down their high places.”

In a strange way this wrought a shift in his heart.  His Father had indeed brought Yisrael into the land and blessed her with richness beyond her dreams.  He had given her the stuff of happiness despite her stiff-necked rebelliousness.  And He would use her to defeat those who defiled the worship of the Holy One.

Hmmph.  His reasoning with satan was valid.  He couldn’t explain what only an infinite mind could explain.  It would be like a parent trying to explain the ways of the universe to a two-year old.  No matter how much he tried the parent would fail, and not for lack of insight but because the two-year old had no capacity for such understanding.  All mankind was a two-year old.

But what the two-year old did understand was that his parent loved him.  And Yisrael had experienced that over and over.  Doubts might come if the two-year old tried to make sense of life divorced from Yahweh’s lovingkindness, but in the context of proven love his doubts would ultimately find no basis.

He could not explain this, he was sure, to satan.  Where was that old devil?  It did not matter.  He would not listen.  He was as locked in his hatred as a person could be.  Every piece of evidence to the contrary of his viewpoint would be neatly shuffled away by his predetermination to be his own sovereign.

“Father, I am your son and nothing matters more than that.  You have been faithful and You have loved me with a pure love that has brought me joy beyond compare.  And You have even used suffering to teach me and to show me Your love.  This world is as it is, the satan is as he is, a condition You have allowed to come to pass that I cannot fully explain.  Hevel, hevel, all is hevel.  The world must be a frustrating place if we are to see our own folly and rest upon your everlasting arms.  We cannot stand on our own.  We need You.  Thank You, Father.”

He rested the remainder of the day in silent reverie, musing on the many times his Father had filled his heart with joy and left his cup brimming over.  There was none like Him.  Even the desperate times had led to sweetness beyond his expectation.

He slept well.