כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹ֥א רְחֹקָ֖ה הִֽוא׃
לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַעֲלֶה־לָּ֤נוּ הַשָּׁמַ֙יְמָה֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַעֲשֶֽׂנָּה
וְלֹא־מֵעֵ֥בֶר לַיָּ֖ם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַעֲבׇר־לָ֜נוּ אֶל־עֵ֤בֶר הַיָּם֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַעֲשֶֽׂנָּה׃
כִּֽי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד בְּפִ֥יךָ וּבִֽלְבָבְךָ֖ לַעֲשֹׂתֽוֹ׃
Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too wondrous for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”
No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.
(Deuteronomy 30:11-14)
Our Tendency To Feel It’s Too Hard
“It is not too wondrous for you and not too distant,” beyond your reach. We do often feel that things are out of our reach, that life is too hard for us, that it is impossible to live the way we want to live, that our goals are unreachable, too wondrous for us, especially our spiritual goals. We feel small and incapable; a looping recording plays the refrain: “I just can’t do it.”
Our Tendency To Think It’s Elsewhere
Lo bashamyaim hi, “it is not in heaven,” and lo me’ever layam, “it is not across the sea,” the Torah further says. Here, too, we can relate. We tend to think the solution is elsewhere, in the sky or over the sea, in some far away time and place, never right here and now, continually deferring our arrival at peace and contentment until we get “there,” until we get to the far off imagined place where everything in our lives is just right.
Our Tendency To Think Someone Else Can Give It To Us
The solution lies outside us, we think, not just in a distant land, but also in other people, not inside us. The Torah articulates this habit of mind as well, acknowledging that we might say: mi ya’aleh lanu hashamayimah, who will go up to heaven or cross the sea for us in order to bring us back what we need? We are constantly looking outwards for the answers, for the nourishment, for the truth. We yearn for a Magical Other or a savior figure, someone who can finally rescue us, do it for us, make us feel whole. We turn outward; we reach outward; we develop a posture of helplessness and dependence; we lose agency. In our desperation, we cal out – Will someone please get me out of this mess?
It’s All Right Here, Inside Us
To all of this, the Torah responds – lo, not so. Ki, “rather” – rather, karov hadavar befikha uvelevekha la’asoto. Rather, “the thing is very close, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” You got this. You have everything you need right here inside you. You don’t need to go traipsing around the world and you certainly don’t need someone else to do it for you. It’s so close; it’s in your very own heart, bilevavekha. The thing that you are searching for is right here inside you.
The Treasure In Your Own Backyard
It’s like the story of the man from a little village who dreamed of a treasure buried under a bridge in a distant city. He traveled to the bridge and began digging. A passing policeman asked what he was doing and the man explained. The policeman laughed and said: “You shouldn’t believe in such night visions. Why, I had just such a dream about a treasure, but the treasure was buried under a tree in a certain man’s backyard in the village of so and so.” The man, recognizing his own name and the name of his village, returns to his home and indeed finds the treasure in his own backyard. We run around every which way looking for the treasure, when it is is karov me’od, buried right here, in our own heart. The treasure is our own heart.
Arriving Inside Yourself
Maybe you can sense this story in your body, first the energy of effort and search and travel, the restlessness and the drive, the reaching outward, the digging in other people’s spaces. Lo rehokah hi, the Torah says. It is not far, but karov, so close. We can sit very still, let go of the restlessness and arrive inside ourselves, inside our own bodies and hearts, digging right here, going deeply into our own selves. It is right here. Whatever you are seeking – the Torah leaves it vague, calling it hadavar, “the thing”– whatever the thing is that you are seeking in this moment – peace, love, God. connection, a sense of your own worth and wholeness – whatever it is, you can turn inside and find it already there in your own heart. Arriving right here, inside yourself.
With Ease
Make sure not to work too hard at this. It is karov me’od, it is very close. Sometimes we put in so much effort in running after the thing we want that we don’t notice it is already here. Standing still and letting it come to you, catch up to you, letting life in all its goodness catch up to you, turning around to find whatever you were looking for right here inside you, so close.
It’s like we’ve been swimming against the current for years in search of God and ourselves and some peace, we’ve been resisting the river for so long, holding our fists tightly clenched against it. We can let go of some of that tension, control and resistance, relaxing and trusting that what we need is right here inside us, so close, so easy, we don’t have to fight to get it, we don’t have to climb mountains to get it, we just have to relax into the river’s current, floating in it without effort, trusting it, trusting ourselves.
It turns out what we want is not beyond our reach, not hard to get. And it doesn’t take a long time to get there. It is like a young child who has been crying frantically for a long time, and then suddenly something catches her attention, she pauses, gets very quiet and begins to smile. The shift is that easy, that full of grace, that sudden, immediate and total. It’s like a light switch, all is dark and then, flip, all is bright. That internal switch is so close inside us; it may have been covered over by years of disuse and forgetting, but it’s still there. Just reach inside and turn it on now. You have all the light you need inside you. We think we have to work so hard to make it right, to feel ok, to be at peace. It’s so close, so simple. All that is required is the confidence and faith that it is possible. This is what the Torah is giving us by telling us: Karov hadavar me’od. It’s so close. Relax and let the light spread through you. You were made to do this. It’s all right here inside.
Teshuva to a Remembered Self
This is teshuva, a return to God and to the divine fullness that was planted inside us. It’s like a remembering of something long forgotten, a memory of another lifetime when we were not just karov, close, but completely attached to our Source. Perhaps that is why the Torah says befikha, in your mouth, because the mouth is the site that holds this memory. According to tradition, before we are born, we are taught the whole Torah, and then an angel presses on the spot just above our lips so that we forget it all. Perhaps it is through this spot of forgetting that we also come to remember, to recall what we knew, who we were, who we are, how we are connected, how close we are. Karov hadavar befikha. It is through your mouth that you can access that closeness. We can reinhabit that part of our bodies, remembering who we once were, who we still are.
Recovering Our Voice
This is a return to our authentic selves. The mouth makes sense as a place of return also because what we are returning to is our own voice, the voice that got buried under the external influence of our societal upbringing. We have been swimming in an ocean of external voices for so many years that we have forgotten what our own voice sounds like, what it once sounded like. Karov hadavar befikha, the Torah says, this thing you are searching for, it is very close – you can find it in your own mouth, in your authentic voice, in your own inner authority. You wanted to be shome’a it, the Torah says, to hear in your ears what someone else would bring down from heaven for you, but that’s not how it works. The source of authority is in your own mouth, in the words that want to come through you, to be channeled through you as if you are a prophet, or as if you stand at the Red Sea and open your mouth to sing Az Yashir, knowing somehow, without being told, the words that are needed in this moment, learning to trust your own peh, your own mouth.
We ask: Hashem sefatay tiftah ufi yagid tehilatekha. Oh, God, open my lips, that my mouth, my peh, that same word, can speak your praise. My mouth wants to sing your praise. It knows what to do. There is a voice in me that is aligned with the divine and it is this voice that I return to and allow to speak. Maybe you can feel in your own mouth some of its lost power, its ability to be an authentic channel for the divine to flow through you in your own unique way. Karov hadavar befikha, reinterpreting davar as “word,” your unique word, your unique song, your voice – it has been stopped up for many years, chasing after other people’s words, but it’s still there, very close. Pausing now to return to it, to return to the authentic word of your mouth that wants to be spoken into the world. It is like a flower that wants to blossom. Perhaps it’s been stomped on or covered over with pavement. But feel the power of its authentic movement to live and flourish, feel the power of your own voice; it’s so close. Let it blossom.
Acting From This Place
La’asoto. This thing is so close in your mouth and in your heart la’asoto. “To do it.” There is action that emerges from this process. It yearns to move outward and have an impact on the world. This is not a reaching outward that looks to others to rescue us, but a reaching outward because we have unearthed something inward to offer the world. Maybe you can feel the surge of your authentic divinely aligned self wanting to emerge, so close inside you, letting it flow into all your limbs, that good energy of authentic self, so that when you do go to act in the world, whatever it is you do, la’asoto, it comes above all from this place of integrity and authenticity, from your own inner authority and deep knowing of the divine.
Returning to Ourselves
Closing with a return to ourselves, we can sit quietly and with effortless ease, turn towards hadavar, the thing, that our hearts have been seeking, whatever it is — God, self, love, peace — feeling how very close that thing is inside, resting in that confidence and inner knowing, resting in the light of our own completeness, not running anywhere, but sitting right here, turning inward and returning to ourselves. Everything we need is right here.
Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy at Pexels
