Hello and welcome to the end…or is it really the beginning?

I’m not really sure. Last Shabbat was the Shabbat of Succot and we read a special parsha (Torah portion). Then on Thursday in Israel (or Friday if you are outside of Israel) we read the final parsha of the Torah and also the beginning of the first parsha. Then, this coming Shabbat we will read the first parsha in its entirety.

The end result of all this is that the Torah really has no end and no beginning. In fact, it is not even linear (linear meaning that things happen in their correct order and time moves in even measure). But, then, this IS the way of the Hebrews (Eevreet in Hebrew, whose root meaning is to cross over something including boundaries).

For example, our tradition says that there is always twelve hours between sunrise and sunset. What this means is that an hour during the winter is shorter than an hour during the summer. From this example, you can see that time, for us, is not linear; and neither is our Torah which has no beginning and no end.

This final parsha is called V’zot haBracha which means, “And this is the blessing,” and the first verse of our parsha begins: “And this is the blessing that Moshe (Moses), the man of god/powers blessed the children of Yisrael before he died.” Almost this whole parsha is the blessing. It starts out as a general blessing telling us of our place in the world, and then goes into particular blessings for each tribe.

Reuven is first and is told he will live and not die. Yehuda (Judah) follows and then comes Levi. Next is Benyamin (Benjamin). I am not going to go into a lot of detail because I would just be copying the parsha. If you want the particulars, I suggest you read it yourselves. 🙂 For Benyamin, we are told he will live securely. After Benyamin, we have Yoseph who is blessed with land that produces. Next up is Zevulun who will be happy with his travels, and Yissacar who will stay in his tents. Gad is a fighter and also a lawmaker. Dan is a fighter as well. Naphtali is satisfied with what he has. Asher is next and blessed with sons and is favored by his brothers and dips his feet in oil and has iron and copper. Moshe continues with his blessing by saying how there is none like our god and that the god of ancient times is a refuge.

At last Moshe finishes and up he goes to the top of Mount N’vo where god shows him the land that is being given to the children of Yisrael and then Moshe dies. The people wept for Moshe for thirty days, until the days of mourning were completed, and then we read in the next verse that Y’hoshua (Joshua) was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moshe had laid his hands on him, and the children of Yisrael listened to Y’hoshua. The parsha ends by telling us that no other prophet arose in Yisrael like Moshe.

If you have enjoyed the story up to this point, might I suggest jumping into the next book of the Tenach (bible) which is called Y’hoshua? I might, I might. In it are some great stories as the children of Yisrael acquire the land. It is a good read and I strongly suggest reading it. And if you have thoughts, comments, or questions, please contact me here.

I haven’t said much about the parsha itself. So let’s see what I have to say, shall we? One thing that really stands out to me about the parsha is the parallel between it (which is the last parsha of D’varim or Deuteronomy) and the last parsha of Breisheit (Genesis).

If you recall, or will see in a few months, 🙂 Breisheit ends with Yaakov (Jacob) blessing his children and dying and then getting buried in the land. Here we have Moshe blessing the tribes and dying too.

Three things are different. One is that he does not bless Shimon. The second thing is that he does not enter the land. The third thing is that Moshe can see – even better than the average person, while Yaakov is blind. There is a lot to say here. Let’s see what I can cover in a short time.

Let’s take a closer look at these three differences. Moshe can see and Yaakov cannot, Moshe does not bless Shimon, and Yaakov is buried in the land while Moshe never gets in, even after he dies. All of these things are related actually.

Yaakov cannot see, but Moshe can. The question is what is it that Moshe sees that Yaakov cannot? If you recall/will see, before Yaakov blesses his sons, he blesses Yoseph’s (Joseph) sons. At that time he puts his right hand on the head of the younger son. Yoseph tries to correct this because the first born should have the blessing of the right hand. However, Yaakov stops Yoseph, telling him he knows what he is doing. From this, we see that Yaakov does have some sort of vision – enough to recognize the two boys anyway.

I heard somewhere (I wish I could remember the source – if someone out there knows please email me), that Yaakov’s blindness, like his father Yitzhak’s (Isaac), was a blindness to the negatives of a person. Hence, it was only when Yaakov was blind to the negatives in his children that he was able to open his heart completely and bless them. This is why he was able to bless all of them, even Levi and Shimon, who destroyed the town of Schem.

Moshe, on the other hand, can see the negatives. He sees that the tribe of Levi has done t’shuva (atonement) for Levi’s anger, and so Moshe blesses them. However, Moshe does not see that Shimon has done so, and because he can see the negativity in Shimon, Moshe cannot open his heart in love to bless Shimon. This is why Shimon is the only tribe not blessed by Moshe.

Now we come to the question of why Moshe is not allowed into the land. I think the answer to this is that for us to truly be on the land, we need to love each other completely and blindly, just like Yaakov did. Since Moshe couldn’t, he could not come into the land.

In our tradition, we are told that the reason for the destruction of the second temple was because of base-less hatred amongst ourselves. This implies that haShem (god), and perhaps the land itself cannot tolerate a family/people that does not love each member.

This does not mean condoning, or turning a blind eye to any and all evil acts. Yaakov certainly did not that (just look at how he “blesses” Levi and Shimon). What it means is loving each other and recognizing that we are not our actions. It means loving each other despite our actions. If we can do this, we will be very close to bringing back the temple.

We have looked at the differences. What about the similarities? What is the connection?

Yaakov’s blessings represents going into the womb. We entered Egypt and the blessing were just before Egypt becomes a crucible for us. Moshe’s blessings are when we come out of the womb and into a new land as a new people.

Yaakov’s blessing our conception, what we are given. Moshe’s blessing is a blessing of what we have done with what we are given.

I imagine if we looked carefully at Moshe’s blessings, we would see all the possible ways of dealing with what one is given. From fixing bad traits (as Levi did), to continuing down the road of those traits (Shimon), and everything in between.

So what you have is the blessing of the father and the blessing of the midwife – blessings from the two helpers at the start of two journeys. You know, seeing this as a spiral and as non-linear, I can know longer discern which is the father and which is the midwife, which is the time of conception and which is the time of birth…

If you want to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.

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.