Devarim: All My Ancient Twisted Karma
Parshat Devarim begins with Moses speaking to the Israelites as they prepare to enter the land of Israel, a land promised to them as the site of their redemption. Given the circumstances, one might expect words of hope, even congratulation. One might expect a high school commencement speech. You made it! And now you are off to fulfill your potential! So are his first words inspiring? No. The opposite. They are words of rebuke. They remind the Israelites of their sins. The question arises, why does the Torah connect a moment of transformational growth with an examination of past mistakes?
The parsha (Torah portion) begins:
1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on that side of the Jordan in the desert, in the plain opposite the Red Sea, between Paran and Tofel and Lavan and Hazeroth and Di Zahav.
- Deuteronomy 1:1
These seem to be a list of random locations where Moses was speaking to the Israelites. Your eyes might gloss over, but the Sifri argues that these locations are in fact references to various Israelite sins. Their references would have clearly had meaning for the Israelites gathered before Moses. For example, “the desert” refers to when the Israelites complained, "if only we would have died in the desert" (Exodus 17:3) and Di-Zahav (literally “enough gold”) refers to the sin of the golden calf.
What makes this stranger is that these were not the sins of the generation of Israelites standing in front of Moses but the sins of the previous generation, a generation who had already died in the desert. Imagine a high school commencement speech starting out with references to all the class’ faults and failures: the bad test grades, the suspensions, the plagiarism, the gossip, the bullying, and the self-punishment. And not just that class, but their parents' class years before! Whoever gave that speech would probably not be invited back to speak again the next year. And yet this is precisely how Moses begins his commencement speech to the Israelites.
The message here is one of self-ownership. We must not only take responsibility, but actually stare our mistakes in the eyes before we can move on. In order for the Israelites to achieve their potential as symbolized by their entrance into Israel, they must first truly confront their painful history. And not only their history, but the missteps of their mothers and fathers as well.
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, a similar concept is seen in the prayer of repentance, which is repeated three times. The prayer says:
“All my ancient twisted karma, From beginningless greed, hate and delusion, Borne through body, speech and mind, I now fully avow. ”
This prayer requires the practitioner to fully own the long, ancient chain of pain and suffering transmitted through the generations and landing at the doorstep of this present moment in the person’s life. I, Yael Shy, may not have killed anyone, hurt someone I loved, stolen anything, or betrayed what I believed in, but all of these wrongdoings live in my body from previous generations. Similarly, the unexamined traumas they suffered and the pain and confusion they carried is a part of my lived experience, whether I realize it or not.
How does examining the past and owning our history actually prepare us to mature, grow, and enter the Promised Land? The singer Dar Williams has a song that illustrates this process beautifully called, After All. In it, she describes her depression, suicidal thoughts, and feeling of despair. She then describes her quest to uncover her family history to try and “know myself through them.”
She writes:
Growing up my mom had a room full of books and hid away in there. Her father raging down a spiral stair till he found someone - most days, his son. And sometimes I think my father too was a refugee I know they tried to keep their pain from me – they could not see what it was for. But now I’m sleeping fine. Sometimes the truth is like a second chance. I am the daughter of a great romance And they are the children of the war.
The truth is like a second chance, and Moses loves the people and wants them to be whole and healed. He begins his commencement speech to them with their failures not to shame them, but to remind them that the only way out is through, and that owning their past is their ticket to real freedom.
Learn more: jewishspirituality.org
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