God wants us to serve Him with joy. That we can show the world what true service to God is. That we serve God, not only in prayer but in how we treat each other and that we treat each other morally and ethically with joy.
A Mission From God — And Why We Must Remember It
Now for a quick Devar Torah.
In this week’s parsha, Ki Tavo, we encounter the Tochacha—the Torah’s powerful warning about what can happen to the Jewish people if we abandon our responsibilities.
But before the Torah gives us the warnings, it gives us the blessings.
If we follow God’s commandments, if we remember who we are and why we were chosen, and if we serve God with gladness and joy, then we are promised blessing in our endeavors. But if we forget God, forget our mission, and forget the reason for our existence as a people, the Torah warns that terrible consequences can follow.
The important point is that God did not choose the Jewish people because we were superior to everyone else. He did not choose us because we were smarter or stronger. He chose us because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and because He gave us a mission: to demonstrate what a nation can become when it attempts to live morally and ethically according to the Torah.
Perhaps that helps explain why the Land of Israel is located where it is.
God could have put us in Fiji. Nothing against Fiji, but Fiji is in the middle of the Pacific. You generally do not pass through Fiji on your way somewhere else. The same can be said about New Zealand. If you are going to New Zealand, you are going to New Zealand.
Israel is different. The ancient Land of Israel stood at the crossroads of civilizations—between Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean world. Nations and empires passed through it. Israel was in a position where other peoples could see it.
The Jewish people were therefore not supposed to hide from the world. Our mission was to demonstrate to the world what a society governed by morality, justice, responsibility, and faith could look like.
In other words, we are on a mission from God.
But unlike the Blues Brothers, being on a mission from God does not give us permission to break every other law along the way!
Quite the opposite. Obeying the law and living ethically is the mission.
The Torah is telling us that our continued existence as a people is connected to remembering that purpose. When a nation forgets why it exists—when it loses its sense of mission and identity—it places its future in danger. History is filled with once-powerful nations and civilizations that eventually disappeared.
The Torah says, in effect: If you want to become simply another nation, then the things that happen to ordinary nations can happen to you. You can be conquered. You can be dispersed. You can disappear.
But if we seek God’s protection, we must strive to be worthy of that protection. We must remember the covenant, observe the commandments, and live according to the ethical and moral principles God has given us.
And we must do so with joy.
The joy comes from understanding that fulfilling the mitzvot is not merely a burden. It is the reason we were chosen. It is our opportunity to fulfill God’s will and to be proud and happy about who we are.
The Tochacha, therefore, is more than a warning about punishment. It is a warning about forgetting our purpose.
We must always remember where we came from, where we are going, and why we were chosen.
We are on a mission from God.
And the mission itself is to live accordingly.
Something to think about.
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