Entering the Promised Land

The following was given as a d'var torah at Temple Shaaray Tefila.

Our Yom Kippur morning Torah reading comes from the Book of Deuteronomy, as the Israelites are preparing to enter Promised Land. This is the moment towards which the whole Torah has been building. Abraham and Sarah, so many generations earlier, had left their homeland in search of something more, in pursuit of a dream—in search of a place where, blank canvas before them, they could practice the art of being human. Now the Israelites, so many generations later, are about to make that place their own. They’re about to become the people that Abraham and Sarah had dreamed of.

Moses, in his final pep-talk to the Israelites—his eleven o'clock number—tells them: atem nitzavim hayom / you stand here today, all of you, about to realize the dream. But this dream is not for you alone. This dream is for those who are standing here today, and equally for those who are not standing here today.

As the Israelites enter the Promised Land, they enter with the prophets Jeremiah and Deborah, as yet unborn; they enter with King David and Queen Esther; with Ruth and Jonah; with Hillel and Beruria; with Maimonides and Doña Gracia Nasi; with Herzl and Hannah Senesh; with Golda Meir and Yitzchak Rabin; with Emma Lazarus and Louis Brandeis; with you, and me, and countless others after us whose names we can only dream of—with the entire Jewish people, past, present, and future.

Because entering the Promised Land isn’t just about crossing the border into eretz yisrael. It’s about becoming the people that our ancestors had dreamed of. It’s about standing before the blank canvas, ready to practice the art of being human. It’s a commitment to the idea that a life, well lived, can be a life that’s flowing with milk and honey. The Promised Land is the promise that God makes to the Jewish people, and that the Jewish people—past, present, and future—makes to one another: the promise that your life matters, the promise that what we do here matters.

Anachnu nitzavim hayom—we stand here today, all of us, perched, as ever before, on the border of the Promised Land. We’re ready to realize the dream.