34א וַיַּעַל מֹשֶׁה מֵעַרְבֹת מוֹאָב, אֶל-הַר נְבוֹ, רֹאשׁ הַפִּסְגָּה, אֲשֶׁר עַל-פְּנֵי יְרֵחוֹ; וַיַּרְאֵהוּ יְהוָה אֶת-כָּל-הָאָרֶץ אֶת-הַגִּלְעָד, עַד-דָּן.
34ד וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֵלָיו, זֹאת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב
לֵאמֹר, לְזַרְעֲךָ, אֶתְּנֶנָּה; הֶרְאִיתִיךָ בְעֵינֶיךָ, וְשָׁמָּה לֹא תַעֲבֹר.
4 And the LORD said to him [Moshe]: 'This is the land which
I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying: I will give it to your
seed; I have caused you to see it with your
own eyes, but you shall not cross over [to the land]
Simchat Torah, 5775 Nava Tehillah, Jerusalem
We stood in a large circle. The Torah was completely unrolled and each of
us, using a tallit or some other material as a buffer between our fingers and
the parchment, held the Torah from the top.
Without looking and without touching the Torah, we each reached over the
top of the part we were holding and pointed to a pasuk. One of the several Torah scholars present
came, read the pasuk each one of us had pointed to, translated it and gave us a
blessing for the year based on the pasuk.
My heart sank when “my” scholar, Julie, read the pasuk to
which I had (by chance?!) pointed. It was Dueteronomy 34:4, written and
translated above. I could tell that she
really wanted to find a blessing in those words. There was a slight strain in her face as she
processed the words. Perhaps I was projecting but it seemed to me that she was hoping
to turn them into a blessing for me. And all the while I’m thinking: These lines
about the end of Moses’ life, about our (indirect) reminder of his lack of
patience, when he hit the rock in order to get water out of it rather than
spoke to it as God had commanded. Moshe would lead the people to the land that
God had promised their ancestors…but he would not enter it. He saw it.
He knew God would fulfill God’s promise to the people. But even after 40 years of leading them, of
putting up with their complaints, of finding solutions to their problems, of
the ramifications of the Golden Calf, Moshe would see the promised land, but he
would not cross over into it. Was this to
be my blessing? My promised land is the
rabbinate. In many significant ways,
having lived my life for 60 years was the beginning of my preparation for this
goal. I’ve learned through five years of
rabbinical school and survived cancer in the process. I struggled with my “not so young” and now
compromised by chemotherapy, brain. Despite
that Moses knew long before he was at the precipice of entering Canaan, that he would not enter, he must have
felt profoundly sad and disappointed.
Could Julie find a blessing for me in Moshe’s having spent his entire
life leading the people to the precipice of Canaan, which he would only see
it? She tried. She blessed me with the ability to see, to look
at and be aware of everything that was around me, like Moshe was. Her blessing included that I should be humble
like Moses, that I should have perseverance and the ability to look north and
south, east and west to see and to appreciate the beauty of all of God’s
creation. But I did not feel I had
received a blessing. That I would have
any connection to Moshe’s “coming up short” felt more like a curse. Taking my blessing of seeing, I was
determined to find my as yet uncovered blessing, in Deuteronomy 34:4; that I
would be like Moses, humble, compassionate and caring. Maybe, like Moshe, I would be blessed with a
long life, one in which neither my vision (both literal and otherwise) nor my
physical strength, would diminish.
Maybe, though falling short of my promised land, I would know God,
perhaps not face to face, but as more than an acquaintance. Maybe I would be aware of God as more of a
constant presence in my life-and that would suffice. Even thinking those thoughts however, left me
feeling anxious. Why couldn’t I both
reach my “promised land” and as part of that journey, have evolved in my
partnership with God?
When I shared my experience with my beloved husband, it did
not surprise me that he had a different and much more hopeful, understanding of
the blessing intended for me from this pasuk.
In addition to having led the people to the land of Canaan, Moshe was a
teacher of B’nai Yisrael. He was a
transmitter of Torah from God to the generation that entered the promised-land. With patience, constant reminders, occasional
reprimands and repetition, Moshe taught Torah to the people-God’s people. The blessing in Deuteronomy 34:4, my
connection to it, is not, as I had imagined, in a literal interpretation of the
situation in which Moshe found himself, but in the way he had led his life, in
his love of God and Torah, in his compassion and his teaching and in the trust
and respect and love that B’nai Yisrael had for him-and do to this day. וְלֹא-קָם נָבִיא עוֹד בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל, כְּמֹשֶׁה, אֲשֶׁר יְדָעוֹ יְהוָה, פָּנִים אֶל-פָּנִים; There has never
arisen another prophet in Israel, like Moshe-that he knew God, face to
face. Deut. 34:10
Moshe received Torah from God but he did not keep it only
for himself. He spent his life giving
it, teaching and sharing it with B’nai Yisrael. For every teaching of
Torah that came from God to Moshe, at least one flowed out. Moshe received and he gave in equal
measure. The Torah lives because it is
shared, taught to each subsequent generation.
My teacher Rabbi Or Rose teaches about parsha ve-zot ha-Berakhah:
“We are told that we are all Moses’s disciples; he is the da’at, the mind or
awareness of Israel, and that passes on to us through the chain of
tradition. But we also know that da’at
has to be renewed in each generation.”[1]
So, here is take 2 of my blessing based on Deuteronomy 34:4:
May I be blessed to receive Torah from many different people and equally as blessed to be able to share it, to give it and teach it. May I “be faithful to my teachers”[2] and at the same time understand my students, whether formal or simply as I walk through life, so that I can speak Torah in a way that each one can understand and embrace. May I help those with whom I engage, see within themselves that spark of God that I see in each one of them. And may I feel gratitude for the many gifts I have been blessed with during the years of my life. May I embrace with wisdom and compassion the role that God has intended for me; a blessing in itself since I feel keenly aware of what my purpose is on earth. May I create students of Torah knowingly and unknowingly. And my I become the best partner with the creator of all life that I can be.
