Because of You

There is a sentence in Parashat D’varim that sometimes slips by us each year without much notice. As Moses begins his final retelling of Israel's journey through the wilderness, he says something unexpected:

"Adonai was angry with me also because of you..." (Deuteronomy 1:37)

Those are startling words.

If we remember the story in the Book of Numbers, Moses struck the rock when God had told him to speak to it. God held Moses responsible for what he had done (Numbers 20:11-12). So why, years later, does Moses look at the people and say, "Because of you"?

I don't think Moses is denying his own responsibility. He never argues that God's judgment was unjust. He accepts that he will not enter the Promised Land.

So perhaps he is saying something else.

Perhaps he has come to understand something about covenant.

We often think of responsibility as something that belongs to individuals. My choices are my own. Your choices are yours. That is certainly true.

But covenant reminds us that our lives are never lived in isolation.

The Talmud teaches, Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh—"All Israel is responsible for one another.”א

We often hear those words as an obligation to care for one another. But contemporary Israeli rabbi and teacher Rav Baruch Gigi suggests that they point to something even deeper. We are responsible for one another because we belong to one another.ב Covenant is not merely a collection of obligations; it is the recognition that our lives have become bound together. The life I live inevitably shapes yours, just as yours shapes mine.

Moses still struck the rock.

But neither did Moses fail in a vacuum. His failure was his own. The conditions that surrounded that failure belonged to all of Israel.

The people had spent years complaining, fearing, doubting, and testing him. They did not make his decision for him, but they helped shape the world in which that decision was made.

I wonder how often that is true in our own lives.

We rarely stop to think about the atmosphere we create for one another.

If I walk into a room carrying anger, I make patience a little harder for everyone else. If I bring generosity, I make generosity easier. If I meet another person with suspicion, I invite suspicion in return. If I choose hope, I make hope a little more imaginable for someone else.

Most of us never intend to shape another person's day, their mood, or even their faith. Yet we do it all the time.

We leave something behind wherever we go—not footprints, but atmosphere. Every conversation leaves the ground a little different from how we found it. Someone else will have to stand on that ground after we are gone.

Perhaps that is what Moses wanted Israel to understand before they entered the land.

When we first read Moses' words, we tend to hear them as an accusation.

"Because of you."

But I've begun to wonder if the Torah wants us to hear them differently. Not as words directed at someone else, but as a question directed at each of us.

Because of me... what kind of world have I helped create for the people around me?

Because of me... is it easier or harder for someone else to choose kindness? To be patient? To trust? To hope?

That is not an excuse for another person's failures, nor is it a reason to deny our own responsibility. It is simply a reminder that the lives we live ripple outward in ways we rarely see.

Because of me...

What kind of atmosphere will someone else have to breathe today?

,שבת שלום

Student Rabbi Ben

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References

א Babylonian Talmud. Shevuot 39a.

ב Gigi, B. (2016, March 13). Loving God (XIII): Loving Israel and Loving God (Part 1). Yeshivat Har Etzion.