Parshat VaEtchanan: If Only We Had A Prophet

If Only We Had A Prophet

This week’s parsha is a continuation of the lengthy final speech that Moshe delivered to the Israelites before he passed on. In this week’s passage, Moshe relates the most oft-mentioned prophecy concerning the Jewish nation. Namely that we will be exiled from Israel and “scattered to the four corners of the globe”. But we will eventually return – both geographically and spiritually – to the Land of Israel and to God respectively.

And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and you will remain few in number among the nations to where the Lord will lead you… And from there, you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him – if you seek Him with all of your heart and with all of your soul. When you are troubled, and all these things happen upon you in the end of days, then you will return to the Lord your God and obey Him. (4:27-30)

Rabbi Weinberg zt’l who created Aish HaTorah back in 1974 – as well as other outreach organizations before that – used to speak of the days when he first expressed interest in reaching Jews with little or no affiliation to Judaism. It is important to keep in mind the time period when this took place. It was in the 60’s. The Holocaust was just 20 plus years earlier and Orthodox Judaism was weak and fragile and seen as being on its way out and dwindling further. The small Torah-observant communities were very inward looking, trying to just hold their own. It was in this atmosphere that Rabbi Weinberg informs his friends and family that he wants to reach assimilated Jews who have very little connection to their people, history, heritage or Torah. His friends and family basically called him nuts and told him that he is wasting his time. 

Fast forward to a few decades later when he has had much success changing the lives of tens of thousands of Jews. Those self-same folks ask him how he did it. As Rav Noah used to relate, they would say to him, “The great rabbis of old used to write on their tombstones (that they were so proud) that they would bring one or two Jews back to their Avinu Shebashamayim – their Father in Heaven! Noah, how’d you do it? How did you manage bring back thousands and thousands?!?!” 

So he would answer them with a parable: “You go to a construction site and see a crane moving a huge wall of concrete. On the ground the foreman stands and places his hands on the slab to direct it exactly where it should go. The fool who doesn’t bother looking up declares, ‘Look at how strong that guy is – he is like Superman! He can lift thousands of pounds of concrete!’ But anyone with eyes in his head sees that the crane is doing all the work and that the foreman is merely setting it in its proper spot. 

So too, the Almighty promised us in his Torah that the Jewish people will stray, but eventually from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all of your heart and with all of your soul… then you will return to the Lord your God. If God promises that the Jewish people will return to Him, then you can bet on it. It’s going to happen. God is the crane. All you have to do is put your hands out at the right spot to guide it along.” 

Rav Noah was telling us that you just have to make the effort and be the conduit to facilitate what God promised He will do. His words not only explain the meaning of these verses in our parsha, but they also teach us about the power of prophecy.

We often wish that we could meet a prophet face-to-face. That to meet such an illustrious person with such a close connection to God would perhaps magically change our life. But we got it backwards because the power of prophecy is not when it is being made but when it is being fulfilled. 

If you hear an Isaiah or Jeremiah prophesy, you might scratch your head and wonder if he is legit or a nut-case. They are talking about something that might happen soon, or maybe in a year, or maybe in a decade, or maybe in another century or maybe even in thousands of years. Or maybe he is just a crazy or charlatan spewing nonsense. Who knows? 

But once the prophet’s words come true and the totally unforeseen thing indeed takes place, it is then and only then that we see the fulfillment of the prophecy. It’s only at this latter time when we appreciate the special and miraculous nature of the prophet’s words.

And this is what we witness in our time. It goes without saying that the fulfillment of the many prophecies of return to the Eretz Yisrael after thousands of years of exile is miraculous in its own right. But the return from our spiritual wasteland is just as miraculous. And in my lifetime I have seen a dramatic realization of these words of Moshe.  

When I went to Aish in the summer of ‘79, the idea of someone from a non Torah-observant background studying in a traditional yeshiva, changing his or her lifestyle and starting to keep Shabbat, keep kosher, put on tefillin daily – or any other of a number of Jewish practices – was practically unheard of. There were very few people back then “seeking the Lord your God” let alone finding Him. Wasn’t happening. And if it did, other family members thought we were caught up in a cult and brainwashed.  Siblings were sent to Israel to rescue us as my father did when he sent over my brother, Sid “to talk some sense into him.” 

Now compare that to today where everybody, and I mean everybody, is all too familiar with another Jew who has come back to Judaism in some way or manner. In 1979 hardly anyone knew of someone stepping up their game Jewishly and becoming more observant, who has “returned to the Lord your God” as mentioned in our parsha. Today everyone knows someone who has done just that. 

The power of prophecy is not when it is being made but when it is being fulfilled. Can anyone deny that Moshe’s words that he spoke thousands of years ago are happening right here and right now? You just have to open your eyes and see it happen. Better yet, be like Rav Noah and put out your hands and make it happen. Put your hands out, seek him with all of your heart and all of your soul and become a part of the fulfillment of that wonderful prophecy the Moshe made so very long ago. 

The great song traveler passed through here
And he opened my eyes to the view

And I was among those who called him a prophet
And I asked him what was true
-Jackson Browne