In this week’s parsha, Moshe continues his address to the Jews about Torah observance. He reminds them to “... be extremely cautious for your lives, for you did not see any image on the day Hashem addressed you at Choreiv (Mount Sinai) from within the fire.” (4:15)
This excoriation appears strange. For forty years the Jewish people lead a miraculous existence in the desert region between Egypt and Canaan. Personalised food supplies appeared daily (manna) for each person, water came out of rock that propelled itself through the desert, the people were encased in Clouds that served to protect them and repair their clothes, and yet Moshe was concerned that they would forget G-d!?
The answer is that it is indeed a concern.
The Mishna (Avos 2:4) states that ‘... do not trust in yourself until the day of your death.”
The Talmud (Brachos 29a) tells of Yochanan, the High Priest, from the family of Maccabis, who after eighty years of righteousness, became a Sadducee and rebelled against Torah-true Judaism. Similarly (see Gittin 68b), King Shlomo fell from his pedestal towards the end of his life.
Moshe understood that even when surrounded by open miracles, we have the capacity to rationalise them as being normal particularly when we see the same thing happening every day. Food materialising out of thin air? Must be a natural occurrence. A moving rock supplying water? Don’t all rocks do that?
As parents we work hard when our children are young and we have some control over them, to raise them in the ways of Torah, mitzvos, and menschlichkeit so that when they no longer are under our aegis, they continue independently to follow the paths we have shown them.
The temptation is to declare for our kids (and ourselves) that ‘mission accomplished’. Moshe is telling us that even with everything stacked in our favour, we cannot rest on our laurels.
