Parashat V'zot Habracha - Insights and Questions
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Parashat V’zot Habracha is relatively short, but it is one of the most emotionally charged parashot in the Torah: blessing, farewell, a missed destination, continuity and the end of Moses, all within a few dozen verses.
The summary: Moses’ last act is to bless
Forty years of leadership come to their end. Moses knows that he is about to die. He will not enter the land to which he led an entire people. And what does he do in his last moments?
He does not complain. He does not talk about himself. He does not ask for a monument.
His last public act is to bless.
The parashah opens with the words:
“vezot haberachah asher berach moshe ish ha’Elohim et bnei Yisrael lifnei moto” (And this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death) (Deuteronomy 33:1).
Moses passes among the tribes of Israel and gives each one a blessing suited to its character, its role and its future. Reuben, Judah, Levi, Benjamin, Joseph, Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, Dan, Naphtali and Asher each receive words of their own.
And then comes a moment one can almost see before one’s eyes: Moses goes up to Mount Nebo. From there he sees the land to which he led Israel and which he himself will not enter.
“vayomer Adonai elav zot ha’aretz asher nishbati leAvraham leYitzchak uleYaakov lemor lezar’acha etnenah her’iticha ve’einecha veshamah lo ta’avor” (And God said to him: this is the land that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, saying, to your offspring I will give it; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there) (Deuteronomy 34:4).
And there ends the life of the man who led Israel in the exodus from Egypt and at the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, received the Torah and led a whole generation in the wilderness.
Five insights worth pausing on
1. Moses ends his life occupied with the future of others
This is perhaps the most powerful thing in the parashah.
Moses knows that he is not entering the land, but his blessings do not deal with his personal disappointment. They are addressed to the generation that will go on without him.
This is an idea and an interpretation drawn from the structure of the parashah: great leadership is measured not only by what you managed to achieve yourself, but also by what you managed to leave to others.
2. The Torah is defined here as the inheritance of a whole community
One of the central verses in the parashah is:
“torah tzivah lanu moshe morashah kehilat Ya’akov” (Moses commanded us a Torah, a heritage of the congregation of Jacob) (Deuteronomy 33:4).
Notice the word “heritage”.
An idea that can be learned from the verse: the Torah is not presented as the private possession of Moses, nor even as the possession of a chosen few. It is handed to the “congregation of Jacob”.
Moses leaves, the Torah remains.
3. There is one tribe that stands out precisely because it is missing
A very interesting fact in reading the chapter: Simeon does not receive here a separate blessing by name.
The text of the parashah does not explain explicitly why, and so every attempt to explain this absence already belongs to the world of interpretation. But the fact itself stands out strongly when one goes through tribe after tribe.
Sometimes it is precisely the name that is not said that makes the reader stop.
4. Moses reaches the land, but only with his eyes
This is perhaps one of the most painful moments in the Torah.
He stands on the mountain and sees the destination to which he led others, yet he knows that they will go on, and he will not.
Idea and homily: there are tasks that a person begins but is not meant to finish himself. Sometimes his success lies in the fact that someone else is able to continue from him.
And this is exactly what happens right after the death of Moses: Joshua is already ready to lead the people. The Torah stresses that he is full of the spirit of wisdom and that Moses laid his hands on him.
5. And perhaps the most surprising detail: the title the Torah chooses for Moses at the moment of his death is “servant of God”
At the moment of his death it is said:
“vayamat sham moshe eved Adonai be’eretz Moav al pi Adonai” (And Moses, the servant of God, died there in the land of Moab, at the word of God) (Deuteronomy 34:5).
After everything Moses did, the Torah calls him here simply “servant of God”.
And there is a deep idea here: perhaps the greatness of Moses lies not only in having led a whole people, performed signs or spoken with God, but in the fact that even at the end of the road he is still defined by his mission and not by his honor.
And the Torah itself gives him the eulogy than which there is none greater:
“velo kam navi od beYisrael kemoshe asher yeda’o Adonai panim el panim” (And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom God knew face to face) (Deuteronomy 34:10).
This is an idea and a homily, not a quotation from a source:
Moses does not merit entering the land, but he succeeds in bringing to its threshold a people that is able to continue without him. And this is perhaps one of the greatest forms of success for a leader.
There is something almost cinematic in this ending: the greatest man stands alone on the summit of the mountain, looking toward the future of which he will not be a part, and from that moment the future passes into the hands of the children of Israel.
The last words of the Torah: before the eyes of all Israel
At the end of V’zot Habracha the Torah concludes:
“ulchol hayad hachazakah ulchol hamora hagadol asher asah moshe le’einei kol Yisrael” (And for all the mighty hand and for all the great awe that Moses performed before the eyes of all Israel) (Deuteronomy 34:12).
The Torah has already mentioned the signs and the wonders, Egypt and the power of Moses. But what is hidden precisely in the very last words of the Torah, “le’einei kol Yisrael” (before the eyes of all Israel)?
The splitting of the Sea of Reeds? The ten plagues? The giving of the Torah? Forty years of leadership?
And then Rashi comes and drops a bombshell.
On the words “before the eyes of all Israel” he explains:
“that his heart moved him to break the tablets before their eyes” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 34:12).
That is, according to Rashi, the last event the Torah alludes to before it ends is the breaking of the tablets.
And this is even more astonishing, because the Gemara says that the Holy One, blessed be he, agreed with Moses, and Resh Lakish expounds:
“Well done that you broke them” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 87a).
From here on this is a homily and an idea, not a quotation from a source:
Perhaps the Torah wants to leave us precisely with this message:
The greatness of Moses was not only that he knew how to receive the tablets. His greatness was that he also knew when to break them.
Think about it.
The tablets on which the words of the covenant were written are in the hands of Moses. And yet, at the moment he understands that something deep has been broken in the covenant itself, he does not turn the holy stone into an end in itself.
And this is perhaps one of the great tests of a spiritual person: whether he is loyal only to the form, or whether he understands what the form comes to serve.
And here comes the most beautiful twist:
The Torah could have ended with words describing Moses holding the tablets.
Instead, according to Rashi’s commentary, it ends with the memory of Moses breaking them.
And why is this so powerful?
Because the tablets were broken, but the Torah was not broken.
Moses broke the stone, but kept the covenant.
And this, in my eyes, is an immense depth in Parashat V’zot Habracha: sometimes the thing that looks like the greatest break is precisely the act that allows the sacred story to continue.
And so there is almost a paradox here:
According to Rashi’s reading, the Torah ends with an allusion to breaking, but the story does not end in a break. We finish it and immediately begin it anew.
This is already a homiletic idea, but it is a beautiful one: in Judaism, a break does not have to be the end of the story. Sometimes it is precisely from the place where something was broken that the possibility begins of new tablets, of a new beginning and of a new “In the beginning”.
Questions on Parashat V’zot Habracha
- Why does the Torah choose to end the life of Moses precisely with a blessing for others, and not with a summary of his own achievements?
- Why is Simeon the only tribe that has no explicit and separate blessing in the blessing of Moses, and what can be learned precisely from this silence?
- Why is Moses called at the beginning of the parashah “the man of God”, while at the moment of his death the Torah calls him precisely “servant of God”? Is there a whole path of greatness here in two words?
- Why does the Torah tell that Moses saw the whole land a moment before his death? What is the point of showing a person the thing he will not be able to reach?
- Is the fact that Moses did not enter the land really a tragic ending, or is this perhaps exactly how the Torah defines the success of a leader?
- Why are the blessings of Moses to the tribes so different from one another? Is the Torah in fact teaching that not every person is meant to receive the same blessing?
- Why is the blessing of Judah so short compared to the blessing of Joseph, even though Judah is destined to be the tribe of kingship?
- What lies behind the mysterious blessing of Benjamin, which describes a special closeness between the tribe and the divine presence?
- Why is it Joseph who merits so overflowing a blessing of heavens, dew, the deep, sun, moon, mountains and earth? What is special in his figure that makes his blessing almost cosmic?
- What stands behind the fascinating pair Zebulun and Issachar, one “in your going out” and one “in your tents”, and is the Torah hinting here at two different kinds of success?
- Why does Levi, the tribe that did not receive an ordinary inheritance in the land, receive precisely a role tied to the teaching of Torah and to offerings? Does one who receives less property sometimes receive more of a mission?
- Why does the Torah use precisely the word “heritage” in relation to the Torah, and not simply “gift”, “wisdom” or “study”?
- Can the blessings of the tribes be read as a psychological map of the people of Israel, in which each tribe represents a different human strength?
- Why does Moses bless the tribes as a group precisely before his death? Could it be that his last message is that no tribe alone is the people of Israel?
- What is the meaning of the move in the parashah from individual blessings for each tribe to the overall declaration of Israel’s happiness? Does it teach that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?
- Why did the burial place of Moses remain unknown, and why is it precisely the greatest leader in the Torah who does not receive a famous grave site?
- What is more astonishing: that Moses died at the age of a hundred and twenty, or that the Torah stresses that his bodily strength did not fade until his death? And what does it seek to say by this?
- Why do the children of Israel weep for Moses thirty days, while the Torah moves on to Joshua almost at once? What does this teach about the way a people should cope with the loss of a leader?
- Why is Joshua described as one who was filled with the spirit of wisdom following the laying on of Moses’ hands? Is leadership in the Torah something that can be “passed on”?
- The Torah says that no prophet like Moses arose again, but right afterwards it stresses signs, wonders, a mighty hand and great awe. What really was the uniqueness of Moses: the miracles he performed or the bond he had with the Holy One, blessed be he?
- Why are the last words of the Torah tied to what Moses did “before the eyes of all Israel”, and what, according to the Sages and the commentators, is the surprising event hidden behind these words?
- Is there a deep connection between the verse at the beginning of the parashah that deals with the Torah we received from Moses and the end of the parashah in which Moses himself disappears, as if the Torah were saying: the person goes, but the Torah remains?
- Why does the Torah end with the death of Moses and not with the entry of Israel into the land? Could it be that the Torah wants to leave the reader precisely on the border, a moment before the dream is fulfilled?
- How can it be that the parashah of the death of Moses is called “And this is the blessing”? Can the farewell itself become a blessing?
- And the question that in my eyes can open an hour-long discussion: is the last message of the whole Torah that the greatest person is not the one who finishes everything himself, but the one who prepares others to continue after him?
Chazak chazak venitchazek (Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened)
Daily Aliyot
Parashat V'zot Habracha - First Aliyah
Moses opens his final blessing of Israel with the revelation of God from Sinai and with the Torah as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob, and only then turns to the blessings of Reuben and Judah: life and continuity for Reuben, a voice that is heard and help against his foes for Judah.
Parashat V'zot Habracha - Second Aliyah
The blessing of Levi places loyalty to the covenant before family ties and charges the tribe to teach Torah and to serve at the altar, and the blessing of Benjamin describes closeness, security and a constant divine presence.
Parashat V'zot Habracha - Third Aliyah
The blessing of Joseph gathers plenty from the heavens, the deep, the sun, the moon and the mountains onto the head of the one set apart from his brothers, and ends with the strength of an ox and the horns of a wild ox, divided between the myriads of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh.
Parashat V'zot Habracha - Fourth Aliyah
A shared blessing for Zebulun who goes out and Issachar who sits in his tents, plenty from the seas and from treasures hidden in the sand, and the blessing of Gad, which joins the might of a lion and the first portion of the land to the righteousness of God and his judgments with Israel.
Parashat V'zot Habracha - Fifth Aliyah
The blessings of Dan, Naphtali and Asher: the leap of a lion cub, contentment and an inheritance, oil and plenty alongside iron and copper, and in the last verse the gaze moves from the tribes to God, who has no equal and comes to the help of Jeshurun.
Parashat V'zot Habracha - Sixth Aliyah
The blessing of Moses closes with a picture of all Israel: God as a dwelling and a refuge whose arms support from beneath, a secure life in a land of grain, wine and dew, and the call Happy are you, Israel, a people saved by God.
Parashat V'zot Habracha - Seventh Aliyah
The last aliyah of the Torah: Moses sees the land from Mount Nebo and does not enter it, dies in the land of Moab with his burial place unknown, Joshua takes up the leadership, and the Torah sums up the uniqueness of Moses before the eyes of all Israel.