By: Shira Schechter August 9, 2025
Moses stands at the Jordan River, denied entry to the Promised Land, yet his words burn with unquenched longing. “Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land” (Deuteronomy 3:25), he pleads with God in the Torah portion of Va’etchanan (Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11). This desperate prayer comes to us each year on the Shabbat immediately following Tisha B’Av (the ninth of Av), when we have just finished mourning the destruction of the Temple and our exile from that very same land. Why does Moses’ unfulfilled desire for the land follow so closely upon our remembrance of losing it?
The Shulchan Aruch (the authoritative code of Jewish law compiled by Rabbi Joseph Karo in the 16th century) records this pattern as fixed tradition. The Sages even created a memorable phrase to capture this sequence: tzumu u’tzlu – “fast and then pray,” “fast” referring to the fast of Tisha B’Av and “pray” referring to the prayer of Moses that opens the Torah portion of Va’etchanan. But what does this cryptic formula actually mean, and why does the rhythm of our spiritual calendar demand this specific progression?
The answer lies in the very opening of Va’etchanan, where Moses recounts his desperate plea to enter the Promised Land. This is no simple historical narrative. Moses’ prayer becomes the template for understanding how broken hearts can rebuild their connection to the Divine, and how a nation in exile can still reach toward redemption.
Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of both Temples and multiple catastrophes throughout Jewish history. Yet its roots stretch back to an even earlier tragedy – the sin of the spies. When the twelve scouts returned from surveying the Promised Land, ten spread fear and despair among the people. “We cannot go up against this people, for it is stronger than we,” they declared (Numbers 13:31). The nation wept that night, rejecting God’s gift of the land. The Sages teach that this weeping, which occurred on the ninth of Av, became the template for all future sorrows on that date – a night of tears that would echo through millennia.
Against this backdrop of rejection and loss, Moses’ prayer in Va’etchanan takes on revolutionary significance. Here stands the greatest leader in Jewish history, barred from entering the very land he spent forty years guiding his people toward, yet still declaring his love for it with undiminished passion.
“O Hashem, You who let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your mighty hand, You whose powerful deeds no god in heaven or on earth can equal!Deuteronomy 3:24
Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Yarden, that good hill country, and the Lebanon.”Deuteronomy 3:25
Moses wasn’t simply making a personal request. He was deliberately teaching his people what love for the land looks like by showing them the depth of his own desperate longing. The spies had seen the same landscape and recoiled in fear, poisoning the nation’s heart against God’s gift. Now, Moses demonstrates the opposite response – raw, unashamed desire for the land that burns even in the face of divine rejection. He wants his people to witness how their greatest leader yearns for every hill and valley, how he pleads for just a glimpse of the good land beyond the Jordan. Where the spies saw obstacles, he sees opportunity. Where they counseled retreat, he demonstrates a passionate desire. His prayer becomes both a master class in loving the land and the antidote to their poisonous report, teaching us that exile need not extinguish hope and that separation from the land should intensify our longing, not diminish it.
But the connection between Tisha B’Av and prayer runs deeper than geography. The destruction of the Temple created a crisis in Jewish spiritual life that reverberates to this day. The Sages teach that when the Temple fell, the gates of prayer were sealed. Jeremiah captures this anguish in Lamentations: “Though I call and cry for help, He shuts out my prayer” (3:8). Isaiah, whose prophecy we read on the Sabbath before Tisha B’Av, delivers an equally devastating message when rebuking the people for their sins that led to the destruction: “And when you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear” (1:15).
This is the spiritual reality of Tisha B’Av – a day when the very foundations of our relationship with God lie in ruins. Prayer feels hollow because the Divine presence has withdrawn. The normal rhythms of spiritual connection are disrupted. Even our liturgy reflects this reality. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik noted that we deliberately omit certain prayers on Tisha B’Av because the day itself represents the breakdown of prayer.
Here lies the genius of tzumu u’tzlu – fast and then pray. The sequence is not arbitrary but therapeutic. Tisha B’Av forces us to confront the full weight of spiritual destruction. We sit on the ground like mourners, we read Lamentations in darkened synagogues, we feel the absence of God’s presence in our bones. Only after we have properly mourned, only after we have acknowledged what we have lost, can we begin the work of rebuilding our connection to the Divine.
Moses’ prayer in Va’etchanan becomes the model for this reconstruction. Notice how he begins: “My Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your strong hand.” Before making any requests, Moses offers praise. This establishes a fundamental principle in Jewish prayer law: first praise, then petition. You cannot simply burst into God’s presence with demands. You must first acknowledge His greatness, establish the proper relationship, and only then present your needs.
The bridge between Tisha B’Av and Va’etchanan thus represents the essential movement from destruction to reconstruction, from mourning to hope, from broken prayer to renewed relationship. Moses shows us that even when barred from our deepest desires, we need not abandon them. Even when God says no to our requests, we can still maintain our connection to Him. Even when exile seems permanent, longing for return remains sacred.
The calendar’s wisdom emerges with stunning clarity. We cannot skip the mourning and jump straight to prayer. We cannot ignore the reality of destruction and pretend everything is fine. But neither can we remain forever in the ashes of Tisha B’Av. The rhythm demands movement – from tzumu to tz’lu, from fast to prayer, from acknowledging what we have lost to working toward what we might yet gain. In Moses’ unfulfilled longing for the Promised Land, we find the template for maintaining hope in the face of disappointment, and in his prayer that begins with praise, we discover the pathway back to God’s presence even after the gates have been sealed.
Shira Schechter
Shira Schechter is the content editor for TheIsraelBible.com and Israel365 Publications. She earned master’s degrees in both Jewish Education and Bible from Yeshiva University. She taught the Hebrew Bible at a high school in New Jersey for eight years before making Aliyah with her family in 2013. Shira joined the Israel365 staff shortly after moving to Israel and contributed significantly to the development and publication of The Israel Bible.
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