In your mouth, in your heart, in your hands

A piece of meat

A few years ago I was at a barbecue, during a boat trip, talking with someone from an evangelical congregation. “Hey,” he said, “want a piece of meat?”

Now, my preference is not to eat pork. Not out of a whim, but because I have read in Scripture that it is an abomination to the LORD — that it was precisely the godless, the people who live without God, who cooked pork in their pots. God has told us which food He created blessed and clean, and pork is not among it.

But to my evangelical brother this was strange. If I did not eat pork, he said, then I was legalistic. And to not be legalistic, I really ought to eat it after all.

Let that sink in. I had to do something that my conscience — and not only my conscience, but God’s own Word — says God detests. And I had to do it to próve that I was free.

Do you see the reversal? In the name of freedom, a law was imposed on me again. God’s word had somehow drifted far away — a burden, a badge, something with which one measures another. And it is precisely there that our parashah sets something in opposition.

Not in heaven — on the countertop

For listen to what Moses says, at the end of his life, to all the people:

“For this commandment… it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven… Neither is it beyond the sea… But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.” — Deuteronomy 30:11-14

Not in heaven. Not beyond the sea. Not on the top shelf, where you have to fetch a ladder, or ask someone, or can just barely reach. No — it lies already in front of you. On the countertop. In your mouth, in your heart. And in some old textual witnesses it sounds even more concrete: and in your hands.

In your hánds. To dó it.

For that is what the word is given for. Three times it sounds in these few verses: to do it, to do it, to do it. The word is not brought near so that we may study it and set it on a shelf. It is brought near to be dóne.

And that is exactly the opposite of what happened at that barbecue. There the word was made far away — a discussion, a reproach, a yoke. Here God says: it is not far. It lies in your hand.

A circumcised heart

But — and now we must be careful — we can immediately turn this “doing” into a feat of strength again. As if God says: here is the bar, now climb over it yourself.

He does not say that. Look what stands a few verses earlier:

“And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart… to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart.” — Deuteronomy 30:6

Hé circumcises. God frees the heart first. The hard shell off, so that love can come in again. And only then, on that ground, does the “doing” come within reach.

Do you see the order? It is not: do enough, and then God will open your heart. It is the other way round. God opens the heart — and thát is why the commandment is no longer too heavy and no longer far. The doing is not self-reliance. It is response, made possible by a heart that Hé has freed.

So grace is not that the commandment is abolished. Grace is that it has been made reachable.

Received or grasped — on both sides

And now back to that piece of meat. For if I am honest, the knife cuts both ways.

My brother imposed a yoke on me: you múst eat to be free. That is grasping — making freedom into a new law. But my abstaining can just as easily become grasping. The moment I use my plate to set myself abóve him — look at me, I am more faithful — something has gone wrong in my heart, even though there is nothing wrong on my plate.

For listen to the root this parashah warns against: the person “that he bless himself in his heart” (Deuteronomy 29:18) — who in secret proves himself right and yet walks his own way. The danger is not on the plate. It is in the heart that secretly blesses itself.

Paul saw this precisely. He forces no one:

“Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth… Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” — Romans 14:3,5

Do you see how honest that is? Paul condemns neither the eating nor the not-eating. He condemns the impósing — on bóth sides. For it is not about the meat. It is about the direction of the heart: do I receive, and answer God in my conscience — or do I grasp, and secure myself at my brother’s expense?

Choose life

And then Moses lays it before us. Not as a threat, but as an open hand:

“…I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” — Deuteronomy 30:19

Choose. The word lies in your hand — so choose. God calls heaven and earth as witnesses, and then He truly lays the choice with the human. Not because we can do it of ourselves, but because Hé has made it reachable. The gift comes first; the choosing is response.

Into your child’s hand

And that word in your hand is not for you alone. Look what happens in Vayelech.

Moses is a hundred and twenty years old. He is going to die. And the last thing he does is pass on the word. He lays it into Joshua’s hand: “Be strong and of a good courage” (Deuteronomy 31:7). And he commands that the Torah be read aloud every seven years — for the men, the women, the chíldren, and the stranger within your gates:

“…that they may hear, and that they may learn… and observe to do all the words of this law.” — Deuteronomy 31:12

Hear, learn, do. From generation to generation. As Moses laid it into Joshua’s hand, so we lay it into our children’s hands. It is not a burden you carry alone. It is grace that became do-able — and that you pass on.

That is the opposite of the secret self-blessing. Not a word I keep for myself to prove myself right, but a word I read aloud, pass on, lay in the open hand of the one who comes after me.

The Mouth that does not speak from Itself

And at the very end this near word becomes a Person.

John tells us that Isaiah saw Yeshua’s glory and spoke of Him (John 12:41) — and note, it is the same prophet Isaiah who fills our haftarah this week. One Word, from Moses to the prophets to the Messiah.

And what does Yeshua say, as His last word to the crowd?

“For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father… he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.” — John 12:49

Do you hear it? A Mouth that does not speak from Itsélf. That is the perfect opposite of the person who secretly blesses himself. Yeshua is the near word, embodied — the word that is dóne, wholly received from the Father, wholly passed on to us.

And He adds:

“I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” — John 12:46

The Light came. We did not have to climb to heaven to fetch it. It came to us — in our mouth, in our heart, in our hands.

So if anyone ever imposes a yoke on you in the name of freedom, or you make yourself a badge to secure your standing — return to this one thing: the word is not far. God has freed your heart. It lies in your hand.

Receive it. Do it. And lay it into the hand of the one who comes after you.