HHMI Newsgroup Archives
From:
"Yeshivat Har Etzion's Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit
Midrash"
To:
yhe-intparsha@vbm-torah.org
Subject: INTPARSHA -52:
Parashat VeZot HaBerakha
Yeshivat Har Etzion
Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash
Introduction to Parashat HaShavua
Parashat VeZot HaBerakha
Following in God's Paths
By Rabbi Michael Hattin
Introduction
With Moshe's farewell blessing to the
People of Israel
completed, he reluctantly takes his leave
from them and
ascends Mount Nevo. Standing at its craggy summit, he looks
with longing eastwards,
towards the Promised Land.
Surveying the land from
afar, he breathes deeply,
contemplating his long life of devotion and loyalty
to his
people's needs and to his God's
expectations. Moshe's
intense contentment of having lived his life well
is also
tinged with sadness, for the objective of the
journey, the
entry and settlement of the New Land, is to
remain beyond
his grasp forever.
"God showed him the whole land,
from the Gilead to Dan. He showed him the land of Naphtali, the
land of Ephraim and Menasheh, and the whole land
of Yehuda, until the Western Sea. He
showed him also the dry, southern land, the Plain of the Valley of Yericho, from the City of Palms until Tsoar.
God said to him: "this
is the land that I swore unto Avraham, Yitzchak,
and Yaacov saying 'to
your descendents shall I give it.' I
have shown it to you with your own eyes, but over to there
you shall not go" (Devarim 34:1-4).
Moshe's Death
Having scanned the regions where
the tribes will soon
settle, from the fertile northern boundaries of Naphtali to
the parched southern reaches of Yehuda, and from the
sandy
shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the plains of
the winding Jordan River in the east, Moshe is now ready to
die.
"Moshe the servant of
God died there in the Land of Moav, by God's mouth. He
buried him in the valley in the Land of Moav opposite Beit
Pe'or, but no man knows the place of his grave until this
very day. Moshe was one hundred and twenty years
old at the time of his death, but his eye was not dimmed
nor was his natural vigor abated.(Devarim 34:5-6).
Moshe, God's loyal servant, secures that most sought
after
of deaths, a death unprecipitated by debilitating
illness,
unaccompanied by discomfort and suffering, and unburdened by
regret or misgivings. He dies by experiencing the so-called
'Divine Kiss,' by which the soul is gently and effortlessly
drawn out of the body as 'a hair is drawn out of a
bowl of
milk' (Talmud Bavli Berakhot 7b). Then, God buries him in a
secret place, for no prying eyes are to
intrude on that
breathless moment and no trespassers are to
later cheapen
it, by turning his grave into a garish shrine.
Burial as a Moral Act
Thus, the final events of the Torah describe the end of all mortals, for no man can escape the eventuality of death. No
other experience among all of life's other myriad events is
as fearfully assured or
as frustratingly obscured.
Significantly but not surprisingly, however, this account of
Moshe's mysterious demise and cryptic
burial serve the
Rabbis of the Talmud not as a source of mystical meditations
on the enigmatic aspects of dying and internment, but rather
as a rational and life-affirming lesson in ethical and moral
behavior.
"Said Rabbi Chama ben
Chanina: What is meant by the verse commanding us to
'walk after God your Lord' (Devarim 13:5)? Is it
then possible to walk after God's presence? Behold, the
verse states that God is 'a consuming fire' (Devarim 4:24)!
Rather, it means to follow the attributes of the Holy
One Blessed Be He. Just as He clothes the naked, as the
verse states: 'God the Lord made garments of hides
for the Adam and for his wife and He clothed them'
(Bereishit 3:21), so you too must therefore clothe the
naked. God visited the sick, as the verse states: 'God appeared
to Avraham in Elonei Mamre, as he was sitting at
the opening of the tent in the heat of the day'
(Bereishit 18:1), so you too must therefore
visit the sick. God comforted mourners as the verse states:
'After Avraham's death, God blessed his son Yitzchak' (Bereishit
25:11), so you too must therefore comfort
mourners. The Holy One Blessed Be He buried the dead, as the
verse states: 'He buried him in the valley in the
Land of Moav opposite Beit Pe'or' (Devarim 34:5), so you
too must therefore bury the dead" (Talmud Bavli Sota
14a).
Imitatio Dei
This celebrated Talmudic passage serves
as the central
source for one of Jewish tradition's most important
ideas.
The account begins with a question. The Torah in
a number
of places asks of us to walk after God and to
follow Him,
"follow after God your Lord and revere
Him; observe His
commandments, hearken to His voice, serve Him and hold fast
to Him" (Devarim 13:5). But how is one to
follow in the
ways of an Absolute Being, the fashioner of the
vast and
impenetrable cosmos, a superlative and supreme
entity too
transcendent to be comprehended by our mortal minds or to be
described by using our finite and inadequate
terms? How
indeed does one follow in the path of 'a Consuming Fire'?
The Talmud overcomes this
unsettling conceptual and
theological chasm that seemingly
separates us from the
Creator, by reformulating the matter into a
concrete and
comprehensible guiding principle: it is only
possible to
'follow' God by following the example that He
Himself has
set. Just as God clothed the naked,
visited the sick,
comforted the mourner, and buried the dead, so must
we do
likewise. By expressing the
idea of 'Imitatio Dei'
(imitating God), the Torah indicates
to us that God's
remoteness and otherworldliness need not be a barrier to our
experience of His presence. Nor are we in need of
esoteric
and abstruse specialized knowledge in order to
fulfill His
word. God's essence may remain forever beyond our
ken, but
He can still be found and
apprehended through acts of
kindness.
The Four Examples
Examining the matter further, we in fact ascertain that the
Talmudic passage is quite selective in its
examples, for
only four episodes are singled out for special mention. The
first concerns Adam and Eve, who abrogated God's command and
ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Having
thus secured the
self-awareness of physical
nakedness and belatedly
understood the implications of being distinct from all other
creatures, they attempt to conceal their vulnerability with
fig leaves, but God instead
fashions for them more
substantial garments to protect them.
The second example concerns the Patriarch Avraham,
who had
just fulfilled the commandment to be circumcised as a
sign
of the covenant between his
descendents and God. God
appears to the aged patient
as he uncomfortably sits
noontime at the entrance to his tent, attempting to
escape
the heat and lethargy of the
midday sun. Avraham is
invigorated by the visit and gladdened by the
tidings of
offspring that the Visitor bears.
The death of Yitzchak's mother had left a void in his
life
that remained unfilled until he takes the hand of
Rivka in
marriage. After the demise of his father some four
decades
later, Yitzchak mourns for his loss, and God
then blesses
him with words of comfort and strength.
Finally, in our parasha, Moshe's lifeless body is
laid to
rest by God Himself, Who lovingly inters him in his
hidden
tomb. Here, it should be noted, the recipient of the act of
kindness is not physically conscious or
capable of any
response whatsoever.
Common Denominators - 1) Universality
Why did the Talmud
choose to emphasize these four
expressions of Divine kindness as being
exemplary of the
ones that we should follow in our quest
to emulate God?
First of all, it will be noticed that these four things are
universal. All of us can relate
to the experience of
nakedness, all of us have felt the enfeebling
effects of
illness at some point during our lives, all of us sometimes
require comfort and solace from the buffeting winds of trial
and tragedy, and everyone experiences
death. In other
words, one of the cornerstones of true moral conduct is that
it is predicated upon being able to truly identify with the
plight of the injured or the
aggrieved. This empathy
becomes possible through the fact that we all share
in the
human condition, and can therefore understand someone else's
needs if we so choose.
2) Life Moments
Secondly, the four examples under discussion can be taken as
a very broad outline of the experiences of
a typicahuman
life. We enter the world naked and cold, and like the first
human beings are in immediate need of garments to alleviate
our discomfort. During the course of our
transient lives,
we often feel the weakening effects of sicknesses small and
great. We then require the direct loving care
of friends
and family, the medical advice of experts, and the
miracle
of medications to restore our health and
spirits. As we
acquire more life experiences, more friendships
and more
things, we also begin to experience the
distress of loss
with greater frequency - of possessions lost or
destroyed,
of precious people wrenched from us, and of dreams and hopes
that took flight with the wind. Finally, we
stand before
the menacing prospect of death
itself, a specter that
threatens to engulf our declining physicality and
grind it
into the dust. In the end, we are
powerless before its
ruthlessness, and like all those that came
before us, we
must submit to the cruel reality of its morbid grasp.
But, suggests the Talmud, the
very experiences that
sometimes seem to overwhelm our finitude, are the
keys to
our salvation. For within these
four things and other
experiences like them is the promise and potential of moral
and ethical conduct. These events provide the
possibility
of becoming connected not only with other people, but
also
with a God Who is caring, compassionate and concerned, a God
Who holds the promise of eternity in His embrace.
3) Vulnerability
Finally, we notice that not only are these four experiences
universal as well as typical nodes along the span of a human
life, but also that without exception they involve some sort
of vulnerability. The one who is naked is at a disadvantage
because he has no clothes to cover his body or
his shame.
The one who is ill cannot provide all of his
own physical
and emotional needs and may in fact be incapable of
taking
care of any of them. The mourner who is bowed by sadness or
tragedy needs a caring heart to share the
burden of his
sorrow and pain. The dead human being is, in a
manner of
speaking, the most 'needy' of all, for there is nothing that
he can do whatsoever to take care of himself or to alleviate
his plight.
By singling out these four, the Talmud again
indicates a
central idea of the Torah's vision of morality. Ethical and
moral conduct ought to be of course extended to all
people
without exception
and under most
circumstances.
Nevertheless, the truest test of a person's morality is not
to be gauged by how they treat their friends,
loved ones,
equals or superiors, but rather by how they treat those who
are clearly weaker than they are. Those who
cannot fight
back and who do not present a counter threat
can be (and
frequently are) conveniently ignored or brazenly exploited.
But, to behave morally and ethically with respect to them is
to truly follow in God's ways. After all,
as regards an
Absolute Being, are we not all at a
'disadvantage'? This
explains the Torah's oft-repeated directive to show special
deference to the 'convert, orphan and
widow,' for these
groups represent elements of society that
are typically
downtrodden, marginal,
friendless and economically
depressed.
Conclusion
Appropriately, the Talmudic passage adds a postscript to the
above: "Rabbi Simlai explains:
the Torah begins and
concludes with acts of loving-kindness. It begins
with God
clothing Adam and Eve in their nakedness, and concludes with
God interring Moshe at the Plains of Moav." In a
manner of
speaking, the primary thrust of the Torah's message is quite
honestly bracketed by these two events, for
they are the
story of humanity. Adam and Eve are the first humans
to be
given life, and God cares for Moshe at his
death, and in
between these two poles the drama of the
Torah's guiding
illumination unfolds. As we stand to conclude the
words of
the Torah and to immediately begin them anew, let us bear in
mind the precious lesson of 'gemillut chassadim,' the
acts
of loving kindness that make live
meaningful and human
existence heroic.
Shabbat Shalom
YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH
ALON SHEVUT, GUSH ETZION 90433
Copyright (c) 1999 Yeshivat Har Etzion
All Rights Reserved
***************************************************************
Return to
Newsgroup Archives Main Page
Return to our Main Webpage
©2011
Hebraic Heritage Ministries International. Designed by
Web Design by JB.