The Torah really does not have a beginning and an ending. Today (Sunday) is the end of Succot, and on its heals is Simchat Torah which means, “Happiness of Torah.” On Simchat Torah we finish reading the Torah, and start again to read the Torah. We also dance with the Torah and celebrate simultaneous endings and beginnings. If there was only one thing to learn from the Torah, then this cycle would be a circle. However, when you read the Torah, you are supposed to read is with new eyes, as if you have never seen it before. What this does is open it up for new meanings and stretches the circle into a spiral. With this in mind let us see what this parsha (weekly Torah portion) has in it.
The parsha is called vZot haBracha which means, “This is the blessing.” The parsha is quite simple. Moshe (Moses) blesses the people in very poetic language, first blessing people as a whole, and then blessing the individual tribes. After that haShem (god) takes Moshe up to the peak of a mountain and shows him the land promised the ancestors, and then Moshe dies. The people mourn for 30 days and Yehosua (Joshua) takes over leadership of the people. We end with a nice epitaph for Moshe, and then we start with “In the beginning…” which is the beginning of Genesis (or Breisheit in Hebrew).
As I contemplated this, two things came to me. The first is the way that Moshe begins his blessing to the people. Devarim (Deuteronomy) verse 3 of chapter 33 reads: “Even he cherished other nations, all his sacred ones are in your hands and they were among your feet and will carry your words.” What I want to focus on is the first part of the verse. All people are cherished by haShem. This is an important thing to realize as we go thru our lives and bump up against people of different races and cultures. Their ways might be different, but god loves them, and they are holy in their own way!
The other thing that I found interesting is that Moshe has seen the new world that we are about to enter. This year, a lot of my commentaries have related how the Torah teaches us how to grow and become the people we are meant to be. Moshe has been our midwife in this process of personal growth. We are just finishing 3 weeks of telling haShem the world we want (Rosh haShanah), seeing where we are lacking and asking haShem to help us overcome these deficiencies (Yom Kippor), and then trusting that haShem will give us what we need by sitting for a week in a flimsy structure with a roof full of holes (a succah) where we are required only to eat, sleep, and by happy (Succot). Now, as we finish this process, a process that, when it is over, makes me confused over whether a “normal/mundane” day is mundane or whether an “special” day like shabbat or a yom tov (literally means good day, commonly used to mean a holy day) is normal and the “mundane” day is the unusual one. Our world has been turned upside down and created anew, much like how one must feel at the time of their birth. Yes, if we have been feeling the world pressuring us over the last 3 weeks, it is because there is a new birth going on, starting just before Rosh haShanah with the anniversary of creation, thru this week where we read about this creation. Try not to stress over these labor pains, because the world coming into being around you, the world you have worked hard this year to have, is now coming into being, and it is an exciting, whole, new world, full of life, joy, and wonder! Enjoy this new baby and “see” you in a week, bizrat haShem (with god’s help),
Shavuah tov/have a good week,
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.