Even if you can’t have it, you should still want it.

That line may sound like the opposite of the 10th commandment,“lo tachmod,” that warns against desiring or coveting that which belongs to others. Lo tachmod, however, applies to things that are not meant for us. That which ought to be ours we must covet and desire and never stop yearning for. In fact, we use the descriptive of “desire” positively in describing Eretz Yisrael as eretz chemdah, the land of our desire.

This idea can help us understand something very puzzling.In the opening of our parsha, Moshe pleads with Hashem to be allowed to cross over the Jordan and see Eretz Yisrael. While his plea to enter the land is rejected, Hashem instructs him to climb to a vantage point from which he will be able to see the land from a distance. What would be accomplished by seeing the land, especially when we consider the Talmud’s understanding (Sotah 14a) of what Moshe really wanted?

“Rabbi Simlai taught: For what reason did Moses our teacher greatly desire to enter Eretz Yisrael? Did he need to eat its produce or satisfy himself from its goodness? Rather, this is what Moses said: Many mitzvot were commanded to the Jewish people, and some of them can be fulfilled only in Eretz Yisrael. I wish to enter the land in order that they can all be fulfilled by me.”

Which mitzvot would Moshe fulfill by seeing the land from a distance?

Here we may again invert the usually negative trait of desire. When the Torah (Bamidbar 15:39) warns us against straying after our heart and our eyes, our Sages (see Rashi there) explained the sequence of sin: “The eye sees, the heart desires, and the body acts.” In much the same way, Moshe was told to climb the mountain so that his eyes’ seeing the land would grow his heart’s desire for its mitzvos, and while his body would not be allowed to follow through and act upon it, the desire itself matters, as the Talmud teaches elsewhere (Kiddushin 40a):

The Holy One, Blessed be He, links a good thought to an action… Rav Asi said: Even if a person intended to perform a mitzvah but due to circumstances beyond his control he did not perform it, the verse ascribes him credit as if he performed the mitzvah.

We are defined by what we yearn for. When we are preoccupied with material desires for things that we are not meant to have, we miss out on what our lives are supposed to be. When we instead yearn for higher and greater things, that becomes who we are.

This understanding helps us see why every Shabbos Nachamu we read this story of Hashem’s rejection of Moshe’s pleas to enter the land. Moshe was not rejected; he was redirected to nurture his desire for the land that he could not have then. That is what we must do as well. Lacking the beit hamikdash, we can nevertheless connect to it by gazing at it and yearning for it, just as our Sages (Taanis 30b) taught, “One who mourns over Yerushalayim merits and sees its joy.”

Sensitive Jews everywhere are preoccupied by the painful divisions amongst Jews. Some would say that until these issues are resolved, peaceful brotherhood is out of reach. Even if for the moment they are correct, we must never stop desiring peace and looking at each other with Ahavat Yisrael. Peace, quiet and an embrace may be for now elusive, but it must always be our driving aspiration. Even if we can’t have it, we must still want it—desperately.

Rabbi Moshe Hauer is executive vice president of the Orthodox Union (OU), the nation’s largest
Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization.