“And This is The Blessing.”
It’s a Jewish tradition to read the parashah verses for Yom Kippur but we decided in our community to read Parashat Vezot Habrachah. Again, according to tradition, it is usually read on Simchat Torah, an added holiday celebrated this year on October 25th.
With Vezot Habrachah we close the books of the Torah but sadly, it remains for the most part a hidden story, since only a few dedicate any time to reading it or learning from it. This would be like leaving out the last chapter of a book without finding out how it ends. While it is true that the Torah is not a novel or a book of fiction, it is important for us to read both the beginning and the end.
Vezot Habrachah recites the blessings that the tribes of Israel (except Simeon) received before Moshe’s death. Later, it tells us how this great prophet, teacher and guide of ours died. The Torah exalts our leader Moshe, letting us know that there was never anyone like him nor will there ever be anyone like the man who spoke to the Eternal face to face, and to whom God granted the ability to perform, before a multitude of witnesses, feats that had never been nor will ever be seen again in the future. Before his death, the Torah details his successor, establishing Yehoshua, Joshua as the new leader who would lead Israel into the Promised Land. It also tells us that God fulfilled His promise to Moshe that he would see the land before he died.
I want to move away from the simple reading of this parashah and draw a personal conclusion about the books of the Torah. I believe that its central theme is how much God loves mankind. The first book, Bereshit begins with the story of creation and the Torah ends with the closing of a creation, with the death of Moshe. It seems that at the beginning of His creation, God was weaving the appropriate habitation where the human being could live and develop. How much love is that…creating the entire universe so that a living being could appreciate it and enjoy it! We read that once the basic conditions of life were set in place, such as time, the sun, the location of the planets, water, oxygen, and the food chain (in the form of plants and animals), only then did God form man. This man was born in a garden where he could thrive, feed himself, reproduce and live in full consciousness. Even so, without needing anything else, God granted him the greatest gift of all: Free Will.
At that moment, God decided that it was not good for man to be alone, as a single entity, so He created another gift – socialization, beginning with the relationship with Chava (Eve) and then extending it to the family.
Everything seemed perfect until man made the wrong decision when he decided to supplant God. Do you remember the phrase: “You will be like God and you will not die?” We usually blame them for being deceived by the serpent, but I think that the serpent only expressed to them what they already thought and desired, and they used this phrase as the springboard to commit this grave error.
Despite everything, God forgave them and covered their nakedness. However, later we read that this decision brought unending consequences for the human race. Today man can no longer see God as clearly as the first man Adam and his wife, Eve. From then on, they would have to seek God because they would develop in a world (Olam) in which God was apparently hidden.
As a consequence of not seeking a relationship with the Eternal, spirituality in mankind would be reduced while his animal instinct would increase, causing the first murder, problems in the family, slavery, idolatry, sexual debauchery, power, denial of the very existence of God, and man supplanting God.
We then read that man practiced so much evil that God decided to eradicate the human race by sending a flood. But again, God displayed His love, causing humanity to be reborn through the sons of Noah; however, corruption was already inherent in man, and again, he returned to his pre-flood state, until one of Shem’s descendants, Abram was appointed to approach God. This man broke the mold as he believed in an unseen and formless God.
Abram set out on a nomadic journey that took him to the land of Canaan, a land in which its inhabitants had reached such a level of corruption that God decided to banish them and give the land to Abraham’s descendants. In this process, God tested this man; after granting him a son in his old age, God asked Abraham to offer him up as a sacrifice. Against all logic, this man obeyed and God granted him a covenant, sealed by the Brit Milah, the covenant of circumcision and promised that this land would belong to his descendants. Abraham died and his descendants, Isaac and Jacob followed Abraham’s belief that there is only one God.
Despite living a nomadic life and going through many trials, God allowed Jacob’s sons to go down to Egypt and settle there. Once they were well established in that land, to the point of one of their own becoming a viceroy of the most powerful government of that day, God allowed the Egyptian ruler to rise to humble them. Pharoah tried to assimilate them into Egyptian customs and soon they ended up as his slaves. Out of this slavery, a new nation was born – Israel.
As we know, the prerequisite of every birth is pain, and indeed this nation suffered greatly. In the end, Pharaoh succumbed to God who then took Israel out of Egypt. Once in the desert, God returned their Free Will and they became free once again. But free for what?
Again, God showed them His love by raising up a leader, Moshe to whom He revealed the Torah. Moshe decided not to keep the Torah for himself, but to communicate it to humanity by making it public, and its message is simple: God wants to reconnect with man, but to reconnect we need to live in a manner that is presentable before Him, but how?
By following and obeying the Eternal’s Commandments which were revealed on his mountain and set down within the books of the Torah. Now God was at Mount Sinai and it was there that the people shouted out in one accord: “We will do and we will obey.” However, man constantly fails and this unique nation, due to its poor decisions, delayed its arrival to the Promised Land for forty years.
God continued to show His love, because from all previous accounts and many more, we read about a relationship where the “God of Beginning Again” continually manifests Himself, and when man humbles himself and acknowledges his mistakes by doing teshuvah, i.e., returning to God, God is always willing to forgive him, God covers their mistakes, and reestablishes their relationship by showing mankind His love and kindness. That is why it says in Devarim 7:9 “Therefore you shall know that Adonai your God is the true and faithful God, who keeps covenant and shows mercy and love to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
This physical life is governed by a law: The law of the cycle. From the moment we enter the “Chronos”, time is established for all mortals, and the Torah wants to make it clear that Moshe was not exceptional since it is mentioned twice in this portion that he dies like all other human beings. This established the standard we can all access if we live spiritually as we are taught.
So the initial chaos of Bereshit ends with death, we might say with the end of human life. But even so, after death, there is hope, hope that the next generation will represent us as Joshua did, and that they would see things that we never saw; that they would live experiences with Divinity that we did not live, and that the legacy that God has given us will continue, and the mark that we leave on this world will live on at the moment of our death. In the end, the serpent did not lie when he said, “You will not die,” because life does go on and continues, it is only that the soul transforms.
And this is what Yom Kippur is all about – the hope that when man approaches God, when he finally decides to humble himself and maintain a correct attitude, when he confesses his wrongdoings, God shows him His Love by granting him the possibility of reconnecting with Him, and of transcending the mundane.
So, why does Moshe speak of one blessing and then continue to develop many blessings? Because this is the blessing of the Eternal – both He and His Words are our inheritance, our blessing. Our prophet Ezekiel in chapter 44 verse 29 referring to the cohanim, reproduces the words spoken to Aaron in Numbers 18 where it says: “This will be their portion, for I am their portion,” – the largest portion that a human being can receive is the Eternal. The psalmist understood this when he said: “Your testimonies are my eternal inheritance; they are the delight of my heart (119:111).”
I am amazed at the love of the Eternal, who at the end of the day turned chaos (Tohu Vavohu) into blessing (Brachah) for the human being! We are now in the significant times of the Moedim; it will be up to us to turn chaos into brachot, blessings. Israel is at this time, living in chaos, with wars in the south, north and east, and even with the west concerning the unacceptable actions of France. If Israel decides to reclaim her inheritance to God and His Torah, the Words of Eternal Life, surely peace will re-emerge and balance will return. My prayer for this Shabbat and this year is that God would grant us shalom, peace, and life and that we be inscribed in the Sefer haChaim, the Book of Life in the Hebrew year 5785, and that we can live with hope and many blessings in our homes.