ד”ר ישראל אלדד, תשס”ג
Man´s Merging with His Land
This Is the Song, and This Is the Blessing
Here he stands, the master of the prophets and prophet of lordliness and mastery, the man of G-d, here he stands at the summit of his life, at the summit of his vision. In Egypt and at the Reed Sea he conducted with his staff. When necessary, the staff became a serpent,when necessary it brought forth water from the rock. Now he conducts with his voice. He conducts all the instruments of speech and music and war, over all the tribes of Israel. Each tribe with its standard. He unites the people with its land to which he led them, ever since he brought them forth from slavery. Many have sinned against him, many have aroused his wrath, but this unification, the merging of its soil with his people atones for all the iniquities. The melodies of the past, whether for happiness or for suffering, burst forth. Their rise and fall raises high the enemy, the blessing of the land, and the hissing of vipers, campaigns of conquest and the lament of captivity, the sound of the wings of eagles, and the song of vineyards; the deeds of our forefathers, and the fate of the children during the great and broad course of their history.
Here they are, all the tribes of Israel, all the standards of Jacob, all laid down at his feet. To them will he issue his commandments, the Torah he will command. Under this Torah and on this soil he will rally together all the standards, join together all the motifs, unite Heaven and earth within the nation, overcome chaos and the darkness and wilderness it contains, kindle a light in their eyes and in their souls, and there will be kingship in Yeshurun.
Ascending and Elevating
And so Moses ascends from the steppes of Moab to the summit of Pisgah, and so he elevates us with him, by the force of his pronouncements. From there all the land stretches forth in all its breadth, and from the poetry and the blessing stretch forth all the history of this people to the distance: the Land to the last sea, and the people to the last day. His eye has not dimmed, for he sees everything clearly. And all that was and all that are with us to this day are revealed before him. “His eyes were undimmed, and his vigor unabated [lo nes leho]” (Deuteronomy 34:7), for his voice was clear, his thought and the fire in his soul burned with the power of the material and the spiritual; words, considered thought, logic and imagination, thought and emotion were united and grasped in the staff of prophecy in Moses´ strong hand, in his hand that remained firm until his last moment. This is the miracle of his vigor [nes leho], and this is the miracle of his people Israel, the renewed miracle. The vigor of Israel is abated [nes] again and again, and its eye is dimmed. But this is the miracle [nes], the miracle of the renewal within Israel.
Israel begins from anew [literally, “from Bereshit – the beginning of the Torah].
