Timeless Torah

Here is the goal: A land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills. A land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, bless the L-rd for the good land he has given you. (Deut. 8:7-11)
Here is the worry: Be careful that you do not forget the L-rd…Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the L-rd…You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the L-rd, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth. (Deut. 8:12-18)
The two passages are linked chronologically (one begins, where the other ends), and by the phrase, “When you eat and are satisfied.” This level of success would be achieved, Moses promised, when you cross the Jordan. The question is how will you respond. Will you eat and remember that all things come from Him; or you will eat and forget to Whom you owe thanks? Although this may seem a small difference, your future as a nation will depend upon it.
Moses warned us about the unexpected. You may have thought that the tough times were behind you. You wandered for forty years without a home, at times with no water or food. You may have imagined this was the test of your strength. It wasn't. The real challenge is not poverty but affluence; not slavery but freedom; not homelessness but home. Many nations when faced with difficulties rose to great heights. They survived droughts, plagues, recessions, defeats, and were toughened by them.
When times are hard, people come together. There is a sense of community, of neighbors and strangers pulling together. The real test of a nation is not if it can survive a crisis, but whether it can survive the lack of one? Can it stay strong during times of ease, plenty, and power? That is the challenge that has defeated many civilizations. Let it not, pleads Moses, defeat you.
Moses' foresight is stunning. The pages of history are littered with the relics of nations that seemed impregnable, but which eventually declined and lapsed into oblivion, and always for the reason Moses prophesied. They forgot. They lost sight of the values they once fought for; justice, equality, independence, freedom.
The nation, its early battles over, becomes strong. Some of its members grow rich. They become lax, self-indulgent, and decadent. They lose their sense of social solidarity. They no longer feel it their duty to care for the poor, the weak, the marginalized. Their wealth and position, they now believe, is theirs by right. The bonds of collective responsibility begin to fray. The less well-off feel an acute sense of injustice. The scene is set either for revolution or conquest. Societies succumb to external pressures only after they have long been weakened by internal decay. That was the danger Moses foresaw. How right he was.
Philosophers have long argued which human attribute (i.e., reason, duty, compassion, etc.) would create a moral society. Each of these has its virtues, but none has proved failsafe. Judaism took a different view. The guardian of conscience is not man, it is memory. To paraphrase one Ethic from our Fathers: Remember where you come from and you will not fall into sin.
Time and again the verb Zachor/Remember resonates through Moses' words: Remember that you were slaves in Egypt...Remember how the L-rd led you all the way in the desert these forty years…Remember and never forget how you provoked the L-rd…Remember what the L-rd did to Miriam….Remember what Amalek did…Remember the days of old, consider the years of ages past.
Only amongst Jews is the injunction to remember a religious imperative. Nations begin to stagnate when they forget. Israel was commanded never to forget who is the true Source of their blessings. Remembering that there is a G-d means that there are moral limits to the use of man’s power. Neither the French nor the Russian revolutionaries recognized any such boundaries. The result was bloodshed on a massive scale.
When we forget G-d we begin to lose our humanity. Attempting to be more than merely human, we become less. The result is idolatry - of the nation, the state, the race, the class, the system, the party, or the tyrant. Idolatry never dies. It returns, always in a new guise, and always demanding human sacrifice. The prelude to disaster is the belief, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”
None of this should be construed as mere history. Today, the great threat is not Islam, it is the West itself. It is in danger of forgetting its own fundamental values. It currently shows all the signs of a civilization on the brink of moral decay, cultural suicide, and political disunity. This is why the principal responsibility of Western leaders should not be to reshape other cultures in the their image, but to preserve, protect, and renew the unique qualities of Western mores.
If this is vital for the West, it is even more acute for Israel and Jews worldwide. Israel has forgotten its original premise: a homeland that gathers in our people and offers them a safe harbor. Similarly, across the globe many Jewish institutions have, “Eaten and are satisfied. They have built fine buildings and settled down. They have become proud and have forgotten the L-rd.”
Our future hangs suspended by the gossamer strand of memory. If only one generation of mothers and fathers fails to convey to its children what it has learned from its parents, then the great chain of Judaism snaps. This was Moses' insight, and its truth as well as relevance, like every other lesson of Torah, becomes more apparent with each fading empire.