{"id":49452,"date":"2019-02-15T06:42:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T04:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=49452"},"modified":"2022-09-08T17:22:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T14:22:22","slug":"a-tale-of-thwarted-desire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-tale-of-thwarted-desire\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale Of Thwarted Desire"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[363,397],"acf":{"old_id":"49452","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34004,"related_cahpter":"156","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Moses heard God\u2019s personal address as an invitation to prayer, but\u2026.","content":"

These final speeches hold a peculiar pathos. They are, in a sense, deathbed speeches. In the most personal among them, Moses tells of his own failure to achieve his life’s desire\u2014to enter the Holy Land. <\/span><\/p>\n

Moses tells of a desperate plea to God, and of a cruel repudiation. In a sense, he is telling the people of his failure to be heard by God, a failure that replicates his original failure of voice: “And God would not listen to me….” God cuts his plea short, and closes off any future pleas in this vein: “Never speak [<\/span>dabber<\/span><\/em>] to Me of this matter [<\/span>davar<\/span><\/em>] again.” God seals off his language in words that echo the description of his outburst of language at the beginning of the book: “These are the words [<\/span>devarim<\/span><\/em>] that Moses spoke [<\/span>dibber<\/span><\/em>].” With all the pathos he can command, Moses, the newly eloquent speaker, reports to his people how God interrupted his most passionate speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is, in fact, the only account we have of this encounter between Moses and God. There is no independent narrative of this painful moment. We know of it only because Moses chooses to tell the story to the people. Why does he do this? What would possess a leader, in his final speeches, to report such a crushing interaction with his God? What is his rhetorical purpose, the implicit demand he is making on his audience? <\/span><\/p>\n

Rashi, trying to understand when this event occurred, places Moses’ prayer at the historical moment when Moses finds himself already, in a sense, inside the borders of the Holy Land. Having conquered the territories of Transjordan, he allows himself to hope that he will, after all, be permitted to cross the river and lead his people into their future. Perhaps the decree has been annulled? The moment of first conquest might plausibly have been a moment of personal hope for \u00a0Moses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rashi tells his midrashic tale of thwarted desire. Moses draws courage to pray from the wording of God’s instructions: “You [personally?] shall give them possession of their inheritance….” He hears God’s personal address as an invitation for prayer. Perhaps, too, he is inspired by God’s acceptance of \u00a0the plea of the daughters of Zelophechad: Since one boundary has shifted, perhaps this is the moment to press his own case? But God answers, “My decree stands in place”\u2014inexorably blocking Moses’ movement of hopeful imagination. <\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpted from: Bewilderments<\/em>, Schocken Books, 2017, p.<\/span>286 – 291<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":70033,"id":70033,"title":"jer14-moses-prays","filename":"jer14-moses-prays.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer14-moses-prays.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/echoes-of-moses\/jer14-moses-prays\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer14-moses-prays","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":70032,"date":"2020-02-11 11:29:28","modified":"2022-09-08 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