NOTES for Deu 30:11

In all ages people have tended to strive for an ideal, including when it came to public life. It is no accident that the first projects of an ideal state appeared already in antiquity. But all such projects had one weak point: they proceeded not from the biblical but from the humanistic view of the human person, which was based on the postulate that the human being is good from the beginning, and that environment, upbringing, in short, society, spoils him. And all the creators of projects for an ideal state proceeded from the idea that the human being is a perfect creature, and that the task of the ideal state is to let this perfection reveal itself in full.

The Torah, however, like the Bible as a whole, proceeds from the fact that in humanity's present condition we are dealing with sinful people, and therefore with people far from perfection, from whom the ideal cannot be demanded. All the commandments, the whole Torah, are designed precisely for such sinful people. That is why it is said of it that it is close to everyone: one does not need to be a superhero in order to follow the Torah and keep the commandments given by God.

But by following the Torah and keeping the commandments, one can become a different person. Better than at the beginning. With God's help one can even become fit for life in the Kingdom and obtain this Kingdom. And a perfect society can also be created on sinful earth. Not the "best," as Plato called his ideal state, but, in his own expression, "second after the best," i.e., the best of what is possible in our world that is being transformed but is not yet transformed.

An ideal society cannot be created no matter how much one wants it, and one will not become sinless no matter how hard one tries. But it is possible to follow the Torah and keep the commandments, just as it is now possible, after the coming of Christ, to enter the Kingdom. What is needed here is only consistency. And the resolve to go all the way.

The Torah offered to the people, judging by Moses' words, is not simply a law or a moral code, even one given by God. The issue is a path. More precisely, two paths: the path of life and the path of death. The connection of each path with blessing or curse is not accidental here. A blessing, in the original sense of the word, presupposes that God grants a person strength, not necessarily some special, supernatural strength. It may mean the strength needed for the most ordinary life in this world.

From the beginning, after all, God intended the human being to live in constant communion with Him, not separately from his Creator. Constant communion also presupposed that the human being did not possess the autonomous source of energy that all animals have. According to God's design, the human being could receive everything necessary directly from God, and receive it in abundance. He did not need to make stores of energy. It was enough simply to give room within himself to that "breath of life" that everyone receives at the moment of birth. Before the fall, that is exactly how it was; afterward, however, the problems began. The human being became too much like an animal to live by God's "breath of life," drawing all necessary energy directly from it. Human nature changed after the fall, but for the human being, unlike animals, such a condition proved unnatural and brought with it many problems.

God's blessing is what returns the human being to the long-lost norm, to the extent that a person can and is ready to receive it. The Torah becomes the path on which a person sets out when he receives God's blessing. This path leads him to the land promised by God, but it also turns out to be an inner path, leading the person deep within, where he can meet God by becoming aware of His presence in his own heart. This path is not easy, but it is accessible to everyone: the commandment is not across the sea and not in heaven; it is "on the lips and in the heart." One can, of course, refuse the path, but then the alternative to life is death. The loss of strength and the loss of God, and therefore also the loss of the God-given land, which can belong to the people only as long as they themselves remain God's in the full sense of the word.

Apparently, to avoid unnecessary responsibility, we have grown accustomed to living in a world of abstractions. What could be more abstract than “good” or “evil”? Since they are remote from us and neither true good nor true evil is within our power, we can all sleep peacefully and worry about nothing. But that is precisely the point: it turns out that nothing is more concrete or closer to us than good and evil—these direct manifestations of our spirit. This is why the biblical commandment is close to us—closer than our own skin—in our mouth and in our heart.

This is what today's chapter of Deuteronomy tells us: do not say that this has nothing to do with you, for it is about your heart and your life. With this approach, the Word of God becomes truly close to us.