Sometimes Jewish history mirrors the larger human condition. When, then, our sedra looks ahead to a time that "You [Israel] enter the Land," we should understand the Torah as describing the general process of human growth — a journey toward a Promised Land within, where we feel at home with ourselves.

We sense the power of "coming home" from English literature. Charles Dickens captures its mystique when he defines "home" as "a name, a word. . .stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to." Home is where the heart lies; home is where we yearn to be.

Entering the Land is a metaphoric allusion to a destination sought by the journey of the soul. It corresponds to what we call "the building of character."

We are born into this world with nothing to hide. Babies cry openly, toddlers smile innocently, children say the darnedest things. Only as adults do we discover the disjuncture between what goes on within and what we display without. "The Land" that we enter as our true "home" is that place of authenticity where we have nothing to hide but where we reach a higher level than just "letting it all hang out." Homecoming is the stage where we need do nothing to display a newfound nobility of character, because people cannot fail to see it.

This week's sedra contrasts living in fear of what we have to hide with reaching the point where we have removed all falsity and become a beacon of wholeness for others to emulate.

The spiritual bankruptcy of sinning within while pretending to be meritorious without is presented when the Israelites who "enter the Land" are adjured especially to swear off clandestine sins: idolatry, incest — the sexual deviance we might successfully practice in private — misleading the blind who will never know we did it. All of these, say our commentators, are universal sins human beings might commit with reasonable certainty that no one will find out.

We can add others: some just trivial, like accepting too much change from a salesperson; others are serious, like underpaying immigrant laborers or manipulating stock prices; some are outright heinous: like abusing children in the darkness of their own rooms. All these are misdeeds we might reasonably expect no one to discover.

The more we lead such dual life, the more the person we pretend to be becomes just that — pure pretense, requiring more and more effort to be shored up, robbing us of the energy to prevent our inner core from rotting away. "Going home" means matching what we are on the inside to what people see on the outside. Failing such a match, we will never "enter the Land"; there will be no interior homecoming. We may look settled, but internally we will know exile, constant running from whoever we suspect sees through us.

Just living without having to exhaust ourselves in concealing secret sins is itself an accomplishment. But it is only a first step toward true moral maturity: achieving "character." To be considered men or women of character is perhaps the highest praise, because character is something you cannot boast of; the minute you do so, you no longer possess it. No less than secret sin, character too remains unspoken by the person who has it. But it is hidden out of humility, not guilt. No one who sees us can miss it.

The ultimate moral goal is a life of inner nobility that you feel no need to display but which is perfectly evident no matter how you try to hide it. Hence, one of my favorite insights carries an interpretation of our sedra's simple demand, "You shall answer and say before God": "'Answer,'" says Itturei Torah, "means crying out," in the sense of speaking the truth so loudly that no one can ignore it. There are, it continues, "three recognizable signs of character: showing humility even while standing erect, crying out while keeping quiet, and dancing without moving."

If we want truly to find our way home to our true selves, we begin by living with no evil deeds that we must hide. Having cleansed our inner self of evil, we are free to fill it with nobility, which we cannot hide no matter how we may try to. Standing tall, a model for all to see, we yet remain humble. Even in our silence, we are seen as "crying out" — just to lay eyes on us is to be reminded of the moral responsibility that true character entails.

And then the reward! To feel perpetually as if we are dancing, even when we are still.