VaEtchanan: Until His Final Breath

Photo Credit: flickr.com/photos/maltin75/6278446183

“Observe God’s laws and commandments, which I enjoin upon you this day, that it may go well with you and your children after you, and that you may long remain in the land that the LORD your God is assigning to you for all time.(Dev. 40:40)

Then Moses set aside three cities on the east side of the Jordan to which a manslayer could escape, one who unwittingly slew a fellow man without having been his enemy in the past; he could flee to one of these cities and live.” (Dev. 4:41-42)

While reading this week’s Torah portion, VaEtchanan, I was struck by the “white space” in between verses 40 and 41. It seemed as though the Torah simply dropped one subject and picked up another with no segue. But since I know there’s a reason for every stroke and blank space in the Torah text, I knew there had to be some sort of connection.

Checking our commentators, in this case Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Sforno, proved me right. They see Moses showing the Israelites that he was willing to practice what he was preaching; in this case, fulfilling a mitzvah. And not just any mitzvah, but a very important one, because the Torah makes a distinction between a person who murders and one who accidentally takes a life, and wants to protect the latter from revenge by the victim’s family. These cities of refuge, one in each tribal area, would provide a safe haven for such a person, at least until the Kohen Gadol, the high priest, dies. That’s a discussion for another time!

We know from the opening verses of this portion that Moses knows he won’t enter the Land of Israel, and that the end of his life is drawing near. As Sforno comments, “though about to depart the earth, [Moses] wanted to perform at least this commandment, the observance of which is linked to the land of Israel.”

Performing mitzvot–whether you consider it following God’s commandments or “doing good deeds”–is something each of us can do at all times in our lives, pretty much up until the end. Moses could easily have left the task of setting these cities aside for Joshua and the Israelites who enter the land, but he chose to do it himself.

As it says in Pirkei Avot, “Rabbi Tarfon said: the day is short, and the work is plentiful… and the reward is great…” May we be blessed with the ability to perform mitzvot and gemilut hasadim–acts of loving kindness–as long as we have the breath of life within us.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Sermons

Moses & Yitro At The Mountain
Moses & Yitro At The Mountain

Yitro, this week’s Torah reading, is famous for containing the Aseret haDibrot, commonly translated as “The Ten Commandments.” There’s no question that a law code is necessary for a community to be cohesive, to have a set of principles to guide them, and to create a...

Chayeh Sarah-What We Learn From Abraham
Chayeh Sarah-What We Learn From Abraham

Va y’hihu chayay Sarah may-ah shanah v’esrim shanah v’sheva shanah shnay chayay Sarah And the years of Sarah’s life were 100 years and twenty years and 7 years, the years of Sarah’s life. This week’s Torah reading is Chaye Sarah, the life of Sarah. However, it begins...

Artificial and Real Intelligence: Rosh Hashanah 5784
Artificial and Real Intelligence: Rosh Hashanah 5784

Shalom, dear congregants, As we gather on this auspicious occasion of Rosh Hashanah, we celebrate not only the Jewish New Year but also what is often referred to as the “Birthday of the world.” The concept of creation holds a profound place in our faith, and today,...

Latest Midrash HaZak

Chukat: The Red Heifer and Our Stuff, Rabbi Andra Greenwald
Chukat: The Red Heifer and Our Stuff, Rabbi Andra Greenwald

Photo Credit: Rennett Stowe on Flickr Chukat: The Red Heifer and Our Stuff Rabbi Andra Greenwald Is it sacrilegious to feel that some pieces of the Torah just don’t make sense? In parshat Chukat, the Law of the Red Heifer presents us with one of the statutes for which...

Devarim: The Power of Retelling, Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman
Devarim: The Power of Retelling, Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman

Image from Medfield, MA public library, wallaceshealy-com-OPvCP3-clipart The Power of Retelling Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak to a university class about being one of the first generation of women and queer rabbis. At these kinds of...

Mattot: What Words Can Create, Ilene Winn-Lederer
Mattot: What Words Can Create, Ilene Winn-Lederer

Illustration ©2009-Ilene Winn-Lederer Mattot: What Words Can Create Ilene Winn-Lederer Although I grew up with a strong Jewish identity, I did not experience a traditional Jewish education and came to Torah in my late teens through influential involvement with a...

Latest Personal Blogs

Blessing My Bended Knees-A Poem
Blessing My Bended Knees-A Poem

This past week, I participated in a Ritualwell class with Alden Solovy on "Writing From One Word of Torah." I distilled 3 stream-of-consciousness prompts on the word "Baruch/Berekh," the root of which can mean "blessing' and "knee, into this poem. Blessing my bended...

The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives
The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives

Photo: publicdomainpictures.net The Eshet Hayil In Our Lives An email from My Jewish Learning about “A Woman of Valor” prompted me to pivot the next evening’s planned adult learning session to looking at these 22 verses from Mishlei, the Book of Proverbs. These verses...

Live Long and Prosper?
Live Long and Prosper?

By Oklahoma Heritage Association, Gaylord-Pickens Museum - Author, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25656727 Live Long and Prosper? January 5, 2022 began the third year of the seven and a half-year cycle of Daf Yomi, the practice of...

Pin It on Pinterest