Beloved Friends, 

This week we begin reading from the fifth and final book of the Torah, Deuteronomy. The opening words are “אלה דברים” “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel…” We would expect that Moses’ words would immediately follow. Instead, we get a detailed account of the precise time and place that Moses spoke the words that would follow several verses later. 

Moses understood that his words must take into account the time and place in which the children of Israel were living. This is a brand-new generation that did not experience Egyptian slavery, nor were they the generation who experienced the great act of redemption that liberated their parents and their grandparents from Egypt. They did not participate in the revelation of Torah at Sinai. This is a new generation to whom Moses must address his words. 

The words that follow are unique to both time and place. This generation needed to understand exactly what God expected of them, what they should expect of one another, and what they must expect of themselves. The words of Torah had to speak in a relevant voice to this generation that would enter the Promised Land. 

Words have power. We know this. To maximize this power, they must be relevant and sensitive to both time and place. Each week in Torah Study we actually wrestle with this concept. So, too, each student with whom I work helping them write a D’var Torah is encouraged to find the words that convey the eternal ethical teachings of Torah to their personal time and place. 

Words, and language, must adapt to time and place in order to have and convey meaning. We, too, must be open to the evolving nature of language and the new meaning it can divine. Language around disability continues to evolve. We focus on the person with “person first” language. A human is not disabled. A human has a disability. Even this is evolving. We now talk about people being differently abled. With each evolution, new meaning and new understanding emerge. 

This is true of the LGBTQ+ community. Language has not only evolved, it has been transformed. I marvel at how words that were meant to hurt and demean have been reclaimed by the very people who were its target. New meaning, new understanding fitting for time and place is made manifest. 

This task, which he takes on in Deuteronomy, could not have been easy for Moses. Remember when first called by God to speak to the Pharaoh, Moses demurs saying, “I am heavy of tongue and slow of speech.” Yet, Moses, with Aaron’s support, finds his voice and the words to motivate the Israelites and sway the Pharaoh. How difficult it must have been for Moses to recalibrate his words 40 years later to his people who would enter the Promised Land without him. 

Today we have challenges unique to our time and place. Language is polarized and extreme. Nuance and complexity have given way to the most binary and extreme words. Our responsibility is to find the words that are necessary for our time and place to promote understanding and respect. Just as it is challenging, so too it is necessary and vital. Let us adapt our words in this time and in this place so that we can fashion new meaning and greater understanding. Let us find the words unique to this time and place that can bring healing and wholeness to this broken world. 

Shabbat Shalom,