s I read the beginning of Deuteronomy, the second telling of our people’s biblical sojourns, I am brought back to the Passover holiday table of my childhood. As night would fall, our family would gather around my grandparents’ beautifully appointed table, and each of us would read a section of the Haggadah according to my grandfather’s direction. Once we had moved through the show and tell — the symbols of the feast, the four children, the four questions — somewhere around the Maggid, just as the story would get good, my grandmother would begin her traditional refrain: “How much longer? The soup is getting cold.”

So, an evening of negotiation would proceed until my grandparents could endure the dance no longer. Inevitably my grandfather would capitulate, with the memorable words, “Do you remember the story I told you last year?” (Children, grandchildren, cousins, aunts and uncles all would nod heads solemnly in agreement.) “Well, then, I need not tell you again.” A generation later, our seders still open with Poppa’s immortal words followed by a great pause. However, my father now continues, “Just in case, let me tell you again.”

Deuteronomy, literally a second telling, has the same purpose. It opens: “These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel…,” thus beginning a discourse that eventually will cover all the important principles of their relationship with the Holy One: the concept of God; the covenant; the place of loyalty and love in that relationship; what it means to be Yisrael; the Promised Land; law; the changing patterns of worship and sacrifice; the election of Israel and her relationship with other nations. But for now, Moses begins with a précis of all that has occurred to this people and to their ancestors. With the briefest of words, three volumes of experiences become condensed to three chapters in the Torah.

What is Moses thinking as he is about to turn over his leadership role to Joshua? To teach him as much as possible about his own history, in the short time they have together. To illustrate through words the challenges posed by leadership. To highlight the unwavering relationship with God, who charged this people to become an Am Kadosh, a “holy nation.” Even as he crafts his farewell message, Moses has a need to see himself as a member of the community whose whining led them away from God’s purpose. In the retelling, he hopes that they might see themselves. Moses surely sees where he erred, and he does not require a response to his discourse. He speaks in order to teach the young and to remind the old how they came to be where they are.

Moses’ Haggadah forms the beginning of his life review because he knows that his fate is bound up with his contemporaries, that recalcitrant desert generation, who will not enter God’s Promised Land. All that transpired until this moment was no accident, Moses asserts. It was not God’s intention to delay them, yet the people were unable to demonstrate that they had enduring faith. At Sinai, Moses recalls how the community responded naaseh v’nishma, “We will do and we will hear,” but they only managed a half-hearted effort. Standing at the border of Israel, Moses urges them to listen first — with the hope that action will follow. Thus, the text reads: “Moses undertook to expound this teaching.” As my father would have said…just in case. Eleh ha-d’varim: These are the words…

For our people, the ubiquitous link to and through the generations is with the spoken word. It’s no accident that today’s portion is called D’varim, meaning “words.” A word comes to life when it is spoken, translated or interpreted. What we make of it is key to our understanding of God’s creation and our place in it. Words are the plaything of the Jew, who makes life holy through study.

With a word, God brought forth the world. At Sinai, we received the Decalogue, the 10 Commandments. The Hebrew names of three biblical books — Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy — are based on words. In our own lives, we rely on spoken communication to transmit our thoughts and values, hopes and fears. And with one special word, Moses pierces the pages of our history, our calendar and the midrash to bring them together for all time. A simple, single word — Eichah, the Hebrew name for the Book of Lamentations — links this discourse to the desert years of hopeful journeying and, now, to the loss of fulfillment. Calendar and midrash also link Parashat D’varim, which always is read the Sabbath before Tishah B’Av, with the commemoration of the destruction of the Temples.

It’s not far into his discourse before Moses recounts how the people tried his patience. He was gracious enough to blame his dismay on the excessive demands on his time. The people had been blessed and grew plentiful, and Moses strained under the weight and number of their legal disputes. Reflecting upon his travails, he laments: “How can I bear unaided the trouble of you and the burden and the bickering?” “Eichah?” he asks, “How?” This sentence alone is sung in the same melody as Lamentations, preparing us for the upcoming commemoration of Ninth of Av.

Our haftarah reading from the prophet Isaiah brings us to the critical moment when the Israelites face the impending doom of the Babylonians. Echoing the plaintive mood of despair, it begins: Eichah hayitah l’zonah kiryah ne-emanah, “How is the faithful city become a harlot?” Eichah, How? This, too, is read in the trope/tune of Lamentations, linking the prophetic verse with the deep frustration Moses felt as he moved the people toward God’s promise, which ultimately would include the holy city of Jerusalem and the Temple. Eichah, How? A call, a rhetorical question, a chastisement, an indignant phrase that rebukes the people who have strayed from God, a cry of grief, alas.

Words may begin as symbols, but they quickly become entities in and of themselves. They bring laughter and concern, anger, as well as love. Simple phrases may call us to action, as we interpret them, or move us to consider our ways, to correct our errors. What is on one’s lips can heal or harm, bring comfort or shame. It is in our nature to take a word and extract from it a world.

On Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of Repentance, we read: “Take words with you and return to the Lord; say to God: ‘Forgive all the guilt and accept what is good. Instead of bulls we shall pay the offerings of our lips.’” [Hosea: 14:3] As we begin the book of D’varim and move into the last phase of the year (with its intense self-scrutiny), let us make a mental note now to be aware of our language. With a word, eichah, it seems we already have begun.