Moshe Looking Out At The Destination
Moshe, about to die, stands on Mount Nevo and looks over into the land of Israel which he is not allowed to enter (Deuteronomy 34:1). He stands, sad and longing and disappointed, wishing he could get there, reach that destination, that ultimate goal point.
Our Own Restless Yearning to Get “There”
I invite you to stand on Mount Nevo with Moshe and look out onto whatever destination point you have set for yourself, the place you are wishing to reach next. What is it that you imagine would make you feel complete, what would allow you to relax and finally give you a sense of – ahh, yes, now I have done enough, accomplished what I needed to accomplish? Perhaps it has been a shifting goal in your life, first one thing, then, once that is accomplished, another destination pops up; that’s how it was for Moshe, too – first, the goal was to get the people out of Egypt, then to give them the Torah, and now to settle them in the land. Each time we get to one place, we shift the goal post farther along the horizon, always maintaining that yearning restless sense of incompleteness, never quite getting there. As the Talmudic saying goes, “A person does not leave the world having achieved even half of his desires (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:13).” We are always reaching, wanting more.
So right now, standing with Moshe and feeling into that restless yearning in your body, looking out at your current destination point with longing, feeling the urgency and the reaching. Maybe turning around, too, and looking back at all your previous destination points, all the other mountain tops lined up behind you that you have climbed or not climbed. Getting a sense of the landscape, the whole inner landscape of your desire, the past, the present and the future reaching, the relentless striving, the sense of always wanting to get somewhere else.
Maybe we sometimes need that restless drive to move us forward. And yet it is also so difficult to live like that, never really at peace. Again, the rabbis say: “No one dies with even half of his desires fulfilled.” How are we then to live with any sense of contentment and presence? Are we always to be standing on a mountaintop, looking out into the next land, always reaching forward, looking ahead, wishing to be somewhere else?
The Creation Story: An Alternative Perspective
On Simchat Torah, layered into our reading of this text on Moshe’s final days is another text that I think offers a different perspective, an intertext that we read every year right alongside this one – the story of God’s creation of the world.
In that story, on each of the six days of creation, God creates something, God accomplishes something. And at each point of accomplishment, there is a pause to look around and appreciate what has just been accomplished. Vayar Elokim ki tov. “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:4, 9 and throughout). That phrase is repeated six times, at the culmination of each new creation.
Seeing What’s In Front of You
Consider the contrast between this divine seeing and Moshe’s seeing from the mountaintop. Moshe is looking out into the next land, the next place, the next goal, the next imagined future. By contrast, God sees what is good right here in what God has just created. God surveys the present, and finds contentment and pleasure and delight in the present. Maybe taking a moment now to look down at where you are, not looking out from this mountaintop to another mountaintop, but just looking here around you and noticing your situatedness, noticing the good in this moment. Vayar Elokiim ki tov.
Celebrating Our Accomplishments
Now, to be more precise, what God saw was good was the creation, the thing that God had just made. God produced something and then God admired that production. Do we do that? Yes, we pay lip service to celebrating our accomplishments, but how often do we really pause, on a regular daily basis, to look at what we have done and take pleasure in it? To see the good in this one accomplishment. God didn’t wait for them all to pile up. God created just this one thing – light, on the first day, for instance – and stopped the work to notice and celebrate and see its goodness. There was no rush to fit more creations into that first day, to be more productive or efficient. Just that one thing was enough. Dayenu. This is good and this is enough for today. That is contentment, for the good of today to be enough for us.
Maybe you can bring to mind right now something that you have already done today or yesterday that is even a tiny bit of an accomplishment, maybe one insight you had, one line written, one soup cooked, one connection made with someone, one seed planted. And maybe you can look at that one thing, and like God, see that it is good. We don’t have to be done with our work to celebrate, just as God didn’t wait till the world was fully created to see its goodness. Just this one thing is enough. Vayar Elokim ki tov. Seeing that it is good. Seeing the divine in it. Seeing your own capacity and power in it. Seeing how the world has these hidden glimmers of goodness in it, and you are part of that. Celebrating, rejoicing and savoring the contentment in this small divine goodness.
Seeing the Good Brings It Out
Maybe you are thinking – well, but God made light. If I made something as spectacular as light, I, too, would be satisfied. But maybe that’s not how it works. Maybe what made light so good – so eternal and powerful and magical – maybe what made light so good was precisely that God paused and noticed its goodness. Maybe light became its own brilliant self because God saw its goodness. Maybe that’s what it takes – the focus, the looking, the recognition – that’s what it takes to draw out a thing’s goodness, or a person’s goodness; we help them manifest it by seeing it. It is realized through our eyes, its glimmer of divine light released through our seeing. Our children become the good we see in them. As the Torah says of Moshe’s mother: Vatere oto ki tov hu (Exodus 2:2). She saw that he, baby Moshe, was good. Look how good he became from her seeing him that way. Everything rises to our noticing of its goodness.
In our society, we talk a lot about critical thinking, the ability to look for what is missing, what is wrong, where the problem is. And we do need that capacity in life. But I think we undervalue this other divine way of seeing – seeing the good, highlighting the good, focusing on it and celebrating it. Not – what’s the problem here, where do I need to go next, how can I fix this so it will be better, but simply – what is good right here and now. What is good in this moment I am in, in this relationship as it is, in this person, in myself right now. What is good here, not what could be good tomorrow when I get to that other mountaintop, but what is good right here. Stopping here to rest and enjoy this day I’m in, this step along my own path of creation.
Good, Not Perfect
Not because everything is done and all is perfect. Far from it. God didn’t look at each thing and say – oh, that’s perfect. I’m done. God said – this is good. God wasn’t done after the first or the second or the third day. There was still fixing and adding to do. And yet there was, even in that incomplete state, the capacity to stop and say – ok, this in and of itself is good, not perfect, not complete, not done, but good, perhaps good enough. Can you feel how your body might relax if that was the goal for you in each step? Just to take the next good step, not to make it perfect or done, just good enough. There is so much in the universe that partakes of that goodness, a thousand good possibilities, no exact right answer, room for each of us to do it differently, no perfect box to fill, just our own precious goodness to express as we make our way, at ease and with enjoyment at each step. Just this step, just good enough, stopping to enjoy it along the way.
Unfolding Process Fueled By Our Joy
This is important, that there is joy and pleasure at each step in God’s creation, that the process itself is joyful. It feels like this noticing of the good and pausing to savor it is part of what encouraged the creative process to continue to unfold over the course of those six days. When we enjoy each step, the next one naturally emerges out of that joy, out of our celebration, out of the strengthening of that goodness. It is as if our enjoyment fosters that continued growth. God ended each day with contentment and over night that contentment flourished into a new creation. Out of the earth grew trees, out of the light emerged the sun, the moon and the stars. We notice what is good and that noticing strengthens it, encourages it to unfold further, to blossom into new forms. What else wants to be born out of that goodness? What else? Coaxing it, loving it into new birth. As if there is some hidden organic process whose fuel is our delight. We water it with our attention, with our positive regard, and it perks up like a plant in sunlight, like a child, who, once encouraged with a smile, begins to dance and flower before our eyes.
Our Own Process of Development
We are each of us such a divine creative process that wants to manifest. Perhaps what our process needs most is to be loved into further development. We need to water ourselves and each other with celebration, to focus on the good and build on strength rather than noticing the problems. We don’t need to stand on a mountaintop and wish we were somewhere else. We can notice the goodness that is here in us at this moment and trust that that noticing – that loving divine gaze, that contentment – will guide us to grow into whatever next place we are supposed to arrive at or become. Vayar Elokim ki tov. God sees your goodness even in this incomplete moment of fruition.
Image by andrea-piacquadio at Pexels
