What in the words
Devarim
This week we begin the fifth book of the Torah, generally referred to by our biblical commentaries as mishneh Torah, or a second rendition of our sacred Torah. The 15th-century philosopher and biblical commentator Don Isaac Abarbanel explains it as Moses’ commentary to the prior three books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, which deal with our freedom from Egyptian enslavement, the desert experience, and the many laws that God gave the Israelites during this momentous 40-year period.
Our sages, however, simply called this book Devarim, or Words, and indeed it contains the farewell speech that was Moses’ final legacy to the Israelites. It is almost ironic that Moses — who, when he was attempting to decline the position of leadership offered him by God, described himself as “not being a man of words” — now takes his leave of this world and his vocation with the longest farewell speech in history, encompassing 34 biblical chapters. Perhaps this was because he really did not wish to be retired at all!
The very appellation Devarim or Words for a biblical book appears to deny the validity of a popular children’s jingle, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words (or names) can never harm me.” It rather corroborates the Yiddish aphorism, “A patsch dergeyt, a vort bashteyt,” or “A slap goes away, but a word continues to stay.” Indeed, I would argue that words play a crucial role in our tradition, making a decisive contribution in the three areas of establishing new realities, cementing obligations and relationships, and reaching out into eternity.
Let us begin with the simple Hebrew linguistic fact that “davar” can mean both “word” and “object” — in no small measure because a spoken word often leads to the most impressive objects and activities. The Hebrew word “dabar” is a leader who has the ability to move people to the most positively creative or negatively destructive acts by force of his rhetoric and oratory: Witness Winston Churchill on the one hand and Adolph Hitler on the other. Hence the last chapter of our Ethics of the Ancestors (Mishneh Avot) opens with the declaration: “By means of 10 statements of words did the Almighty create the world.” There are two separate talmudic tractates, Nedarim (Promises) and Shavuot (Oaths), that teach us how words can create new realities and can alter one’s life to an amazing degree. An oath to stop talking to a specific individual or to not eat meat products or to exercise every morning can certainly dramatically change one’s daily regimen.
Every parent can well understand the difference between calling a child a good person or chiding a child for having committed an improper action, between castigating a child as stupid or constantly praising a child for his or her every academic advancement. Parental words often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Our sages teach us that “life and death reside in the word [or tongue],” and journalists reinforce that message every time we read a slanderous allegation about one of our supposed leaders.
Words establish or destroy relationships and obligations. Even if the words “I love you” have unfortunately lost their significance in most places in Western culture, the verbal marriage formula — “You are sanctified unto me with this ring in accordance with the laws of Moses and of Israel” — creates a bond between two individuals with all that such a relationship implies. The declaration of the Israelites at Sinai — “We shall do and we shall obey” — obligated at least that generation to uphold the divine law, and many of our sages maintain that those words obligated their descendants as well. And words such as “Forgive us for we have sinned” bring exoneration for transgression against God on Yom Kippur as well as during the year and for sins against one’s fellow human being when expressed directly and sincerely to the individual we have wronged. Such words of admission of guilt may well recreate the individual entirely.
And finally, words — and the ideas and ideals that they embody — reach out into eternity, because — unlike material structures and even Holy Temples — they cannot be physically destroyed. The great pyramids of Egypt have ceased influencing even today’s Egyptians, whereas the words of our Decalogue continue to inspire the entire free world.
Maimonides teaches that the sanctity of Jerusalem is an eternal sanctity, because it is the sanctity of the divine presence, and the divine presence can never be destroyed. Maimonides certainly cannot mean that the divine persona cannot be destroyed, because that famed philosopher insisted that the divine has neither personal nor physical presence (see his 13 Articles of Faith). He can mean only that the divine words that will emanate from Jerusalem (devar Hashem mirushalayim) — the words that teach us that we must “turn our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks” and that we should “not learn war any more” — can never be destroyed. And these swords are not only eternal; they are the free world’s gateway into the future, because without their being put into practice, there will be no future world.
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