VaEtchanan: The Loneliest View

As Moshe's monologue continues into its second week, things are starting to get very personal.  We have known for several chapters of Torah that he will not enter the Land personally, for what is accounted for in the Book of Numbers and the commentaries as a variety of reasons.  Nonetheless, Moshe was determined to prevail upon God to reverse his sentence – all to no avail, or mostly to no avail. Moses asked “let me go over and see the land,” and God’s response was that Moses could see the land, but only from afar – he was not to go over into the Promised Land. 

I took the liberty of looking at the comments of John Gill, and 18th-century Christian theologian to verse 27 of our chapter.  He offers greater detail, beyond the simple meaning of the text, of what Moshe actually saw:

Get thee up into the top of Pisgah,.... Which was the highest eminence of Mount Nebo, and so a very proper place to take a prospect from; and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward; to all the four points of the heaven, and to all the four quarters and borders of the land of Canaan: and behold it with thine eyes; even the land of Canaan, and particularly Lebanon, though it lay to the north of it, that mountain he had such a desire to see. Moses, though old, his natural sight was very strong, and not in the least dim; and It is not improbable that it might be more than ordinarily increased and assisted at this time: for thou shall not go over this Jordan; into the land of Canaan; this affair, of not being suffered to enter there, Moses frequently takes notice of, no less than four or five times, it being what lay near his heart.

One can only imagine how breathtaking was this view – the entirety of the Land and then some!  And yet, it was not the response that Moshe had sought; he was literally on top of the world of his people's past and future, only to feel bereft of the tangible lifeline to their destiny.  Fortunately, though, Moshe has the remaining chapters of Devarim to apprehend his solid place in our collective story.  While only his eyes could behold the place toward which his spirit yearned, we take Moshe with us into every nook and cranny of our Jewish homes – and salute the nobility of his campaign!