You can feel Moshe’s pain! Sefer Devarim begins Moshe’s personal account of history and the last 5 weeks of his calling as our people’s greatest leader. Many commentators and literary enthusiasts enjoy comparing the opening chapter of Devarim, with the chapters earlier on in Chumash with which they correspond, finding similarities, differences and deducing lessons from them. Aside from not mentioning Yisro when recalling the system of judges put forth, we also read in Devarim of Moshe’s complaints, most notably this one, which the tropp (the tune of the Torah reading) notes most somberly.

"איכה אשא לבדי טרכחם ומשאכם וריבכם" (דברים א:י"ב)

“How can I myself alone bear your weight, your burden, and your strife?”

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein suggests that the account in Devarim comes not from the perspective of real-time reporting, but Moshe's recounting of these painful events with forty years of hindsight. In his final words to the nation, he knows full well they will enter the land he values exponentially so much more than they do, and he will not accompany them. He knows that the scouts who died because of their wickedness and subterfuge were granted brief entry into the land he so desires, but he would not enter. “An inevitable note of weariness set in” concludes Rav Lichtenstein (reported by Rabbi Dr. Dovid Horwitz – see http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/735704).

Our sages expound that Moshe prayed 515 times (the Gematria of the word Va’eschanan) to enter Israel, and God instructs him to cease and desist from trying. What does Hashem do to allay Moshe’s grief? Hashem allowed him to behold the land from atop a mountain. This narrative is repeated from the end of Bamidbar through Moshe’s last days. Is this parallel to entering the land? What leader would not want to see his life-long mission realized? The Midrash relates that Moshe requested to be a bird or even an insect, just so he could fly over the Land of Israel’s airspace? So Moshe beheld the land. Wow! Not much of a consolation gift.

One could even argue that allowing him to see it, but not enter it, represents an even more cruel action, than merely saying no! Could it not be stated that the land was dangled in front of him but he would never attain it? What was accomplished by a merciful and just God by allowing Moshe to behold the land?

I believe we can find an answer from the burning embers of the Warsaw ghetto, a time and image appropriate for this saddest Shabbat of our year.

One of the greatest Jewish works written in the Warsaw Ghetto was a compilation of the Torah thoughts of the Piasetzner Rebbe zt'l hy'd. The Rebbe transcribed his sermons and buried the work in a canister, hoping the book would outlive him. A construction worker found the canister in 1960 and his works have been published under the title Aish Kodesh, the Holy Fire, and have found popularity in both Chassidic and non-chassidic circles.

The Rebbe (Kalonimus Kalman Shapiro – 1889- November 3rd, 1943) asks why do we use the special name of ‘Chazon’ for this week’s haftarah? The last two weeks were also of painful rebuke to the Jewish nation? Why is this week’s given a special name?

He cites a Midrash (shir Hashirim Rabbah chapter 3) that states that there are ten levels of prophecy. While at times it comes as a feeling, a dream or a voice, the most intense and loftiest level is a vision, a chazon. In this case, the prophet is shown the message. The prophet can almost feel the message and its harshness. The message of Yishaya that we read this week, is not merely a prophecy, a transmission of a message. Isaiah sees the graphic, gory and grotesque details of the destruction of Jerusalem and conveys them in the words of our haftarah. For this reason it is named, because this prophecy is so much different and more intense than others. How ironic that the Piasetzna Rebbe taught this in the Warsaw Ghetto, where undoubtedly, his holy eyes saw the chazon of destruction.

Perhaps this explains the fact that while Moshe could not enter the land, he was able to envision it. When he gazed into the land he loved so much, he did not just see it; he experienced it! It could be argued that he experienced it to a much greater degree than the scouts did. They were described as m’raglim, scouts, which literally derives from the Hebrew root r.g.l., or foot. They were people who experienced the land with their feet. They were told to see the land, ‘ure’isem es ha’aretz mah hi’ (you shall see the land, what it is –Bamidbar 13:18). When the Torah describes their mission in Bamidbar (Ibid. verse 21) and here n Devari it does not use a verb relating to sight. They did not use the same sense that Moshe did to see the land. He saw the land, they did not! His experience of the land was arguably greater than theirs. This being the case, its flip side is that the pain of not actually setting foot upon the land was acute as well.

Isaiah was not the only prophet who spoke about vision. The prophet Jeremiah was young when he became a prophet and Baruch ben Neriah served as a mentor. But his version changed the order of the Hebrew aleph Bet in the acrostic chapter of Eichah. This was not a juvenile error. He taught us a great lesson. To what do I refer?

In chapter 2, 3 and 4 of the Megillas Eichah, the Hebrew letter peh precedes the Hebrew letter ayin. Yirmiyahu reversed the order of only these two letters and only in these 3 chapters. Chapter 5 is not in the form of an acrostic and perhaps chapter one remaining in the correct alphabetical order establishes the next three chapters as an anomaly. Rashi (T.B. Sanhedrin 104b) observes the lesson of this reversal. The scouts placed their mouths (peh) before their eyes (ayin) when reporting back. The eyes, vision, are the surest way of knowing something is true. ‘Seeing is believing’ is a legal truth that is also the basis of the rules of testimony in Judaism. In Hebrew, do you know the word for a ‘rumor,’ which is the opposite of absolute certified truth? The word is shmu’a – something that is heard. It can only be considered fact when seen.

The problem the scouts introduced, which has been the kryptonite in our national armor, is our willingness to believe things without certifying their truth - putting our mouths before our eyes. This applies to lashon hara (evil speech) and rechilus (tale bearing), it applies to vilifying opponents or people with different belief structures, and it can also lead to cynicism towards leaders. There is plenty of malice, harm and poison taking place out there. No one denies that. But we need to perform investigations with due diligence, whether investigating a leader’s foibles, looking into a shidduch, or believing everything printed in a newspaper or online. Giving the benefit of the doubt does not mean one is naïve; it means that we put the ayin before the peh – as the Aleph Bet teaches us, not the reverse employed by Yirmiyahu in his tale of terror.

I really should stop here. This Shabbos is not the time for consolation. It’s the Shabbos of raw reality.  Nechama – consolation comes next week. But I’m saved by the Berdichiver Rebbe, on whose authority I can continue. He explained that the chazon of Isaiah was that he was shown a vision of the Third Temple; he experienced redemption. He offered a parable of a father who purchased a beautiful suit or outfit for his young child. The child didn't appreciate its value and soiled the suit. So the somewhat perturbed father went ahead and bought a second suit or outfit, explaining in stronger and more direct terms the importance of keeping it clean. The young child did not heed father’s warning and once again returned home with a dirty and ripped suit or outfit. This time the father was a lot more angry and needed to contain his anger. He went out and purchased a third suit. But he did not give the suit or outfit to the child. He told the young boy or girl that he or she would have to prove his worthiness; once in a while, in order to provide incentive for the young child to learn more responsibility,  the father would show the suit or outfit, so the child would realize what would be received when he or she truly earned the right to wear it.

The father in Reb Levi Yitzchak’s story is God and we are the wayward child who has not proven his mettle. We had one beautiful suit – a Temple in Jerusalem -  but we soiled it and it was destroyed. We were given a second one not too much later and again, demonstrated how we did not deserve it. Hashem prepared a third one for us, but only around the anniversary of the loss of the others do we get to see it – chazon – so we will truly earn it.

Reb Levi Yitzchak does not offer  only comfort. I believe his profound vision enables us to properly appreciate the essence of Tisha B’av. If we truly precede our eyes to our mouths, we will merit seeing the third suit – and the third Temple. In the meantime, we must sit on the ground and remind ourselves what it means when we alter our alphabet.