ViZoth Habracha: What blessing?

There is no Shabbath for the last parsha of the Torah. This section is read on Simchath Torah and immediately followed by beginning the cycle again at Genesis. The Torah cannot end, it can only begin again. 

Much of the parsha is written in poetic allusion. The tribal benedictions are all nearly opaque. Clear messages of praise, blame, bequest and rejection would be too harsh and could have terrible consequences. Tribes could become disaffected.  The nation could fall apart.  Keeping the statements vague allows room for interpretation. It could maintain the aspects of reward for loyalty to the tribe, and perhaps a message of focus on areas that have been problematic for that tribe, without generating a sense of rejection or rebellion. 

Before the individual tribes are singled out, there is a brief allusion to the assemblage of the newly liberated nation at Mount Sinai, ending in the people recognizing the reign of Gd as king after they received the Torah as  their legacy.  This Torah is the actual bracha. 

Bracha is translated as blessing. I do not  have a visceral understanding  of blessing. It has an aspect of  something special, not shared by everyone.  Chazal interpret the references ( in the second verse)  to Seir (assigned home of Esau) and Paran  (Ishmael) as  references to the rejection by these cousins of the Torah, bolstering the exclusive nature of the blessing. 

There is another meaning to bracha;  When the branch of a tree or vine is planted in the earth; and the branch  takes root  and becomes an independent entity, that is the agricultural meaning of bracha.  That is a bracha that I can understand.   When some good aspect of our genes and our heritage blossoms in our children, we are blessed. 

Thus, the Torah, the root of the blessing, is replanted annually, The Torah is the bracha

Ha'azinu: Dimensions

How many  are the conflicting axes of  truths?

This parsha is a poem ( followed by a coda describing the death of Moshe, the author). The previous parsha says that the motivation for the poem is so that Israel, the keepers of the poem, remember.  The poem assures that they remember What are they supposed to remember?

וְ֠הָיָה כִּֽי־תִמְצֶ֨אןָ אֹת֜וֹ רָע֣וֹת רַבּוֹת֮ וְצָרוֹת֒ וְ֠עָנְתָה הַשִּׁירָ֨ה הַזֹּ֤את לְפָנָיו֙ לְעֵ֔ד כִּ֛י לֹ֥א תִשָּׁכַ֖ח מִפִּ֣י זַרְע֑וֹ כִּ֧י יָדַ֣עְתִּי אֶת־יִצְר֗וֹ אֲשֶׁ֨ר ה֤וּא עֹשֶׂה֙ הַיּ֔וֹם בְּטֶ֣רֶם אֲבִיאֶ֔נּוּ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבָּֽעְתִּי׃

and the many evils and troubles befall them—then this poem shall confront them as a witness, since it will never be lost from the mouth of their offspring. For I know what plans they are devising even now, before I bring them into the land that I promised on oath.

I am paid to make difficult, potentially life and death decisions.  I think about ways to optimize those decisions, how to make them better. It occurred to me that  in medicine, and perhaps in almost all professions, principles that are not understood are memorized. 

That raises the question: What is understanding?  I think that understanding is fitting ideas and observations into an overarching framework.  It supposes that there are more fundamental, basic principles - like the logic, arithmetic- that cannot be violated.  These can be used to organize observations into proposed laws.  All subsequent observations must be consistent with previous laws and principles. QED

Unfortunately, the models change.  Even the principles of Euclid, certainly the theories of Aristotle and Newton, lose their power under certain circumstances.  They , thereby, lose the crown of Truth.

Even the deepest understanding can be wrong ( although it can be very satisfying) 

Memory assigns  truth to a proposition.  Certainly, in our age of litigation and neuroscience, we recognize (understand?)  that memory is subject to many defects.  It is not a reliable way to retrieve facts ( unless you are talking about computer memory). 

Memory also carries emotional content. Much of the pleasure of  literature comes from the return of the previous scene or statement. It is memory that gives meaning and, more importantly a sense of satisfaction, to the allusions that occur in poems like Ha'azinu. As we ask our ancestors  and elders about the division of nations (Deut 32:7,8) they tell us our narrative.  We see the danger of memory, how the emotional appeal  of memory can reframe the facts into a narrative.

The nihilist can reject it all, both understanding and memory.  I accept the models and memories transmitted to me and try to make sense of it all.  It is an aesthetic, emotional thing.

Vayelech: Entropy

Vayelech: Entropy

Vayelech deals with the inevitable.  Moshe is about to die. He is to  write  a poem predicting catastrophe  and redemption.  After his death ( an inevitable loss)  Israel will  rebel and punishments will rain down upon them.  This has  all  been validated.  The prediction was true. 

This science of  predicting loss is modern and important.  It is the essence of the  second law of thermodynamics.  Some of the  energy invested in any change  is always, irretrievably, lost to entropy, randomness On the level of quantum mechanics, it means that particles/energies are distributed  in their most probable   manner. Every system will degrade to its most probable state  over time  In the end, everything is reduced to a random distribution,, a bell curve. .  In the end, the most likely distribution is...most likely (by far), it is what will happen 

This predicts that every person will die ( there are far more ways to be dead than alive, hence death is more probable).  If it can be applied to history, it predicts rebellion (staying the same is unlikely, unless the energy barrier to change is prohibitive) and it predicts destruction (disorder is generally a maximum entropy state, the state of greatest disorder). 

From this knowledge of eventual decline, we can gather strength.  The time limit of our lives, the finite span of our constructions and institutions, motivates prompt action.  We have what we have and our recognition of the inevitable does not relieve us of our obligations  The big picture is Gd's business, we make do with what we have. May entropy destroy evil and leave the good to flourish.

Nitzavim: The Secret

Nitzavim: The Secret

This parsha, like the one before, has a blessing for the obedient and a curse for the rebellious.  This time, a secret keeps popping up.  

Clandestine idolatry will not be tolerated. The occult  co-belief, along with its private thoughts of benefit from it, is  a crime that brings exile. The corruption of the faith creates divisions among the people.  The internal strife of disunity invites invaders that can pit one faction against another, even before the social media. 

There is power in the secret. Which atomic nucleus will decay, who will get sick, the size of the hidden treasure, how Google places search results... to know these secrets can bestow the informed with wealth and power. These are not t the off-limits secrets. 

We live in a statistical world. The behavior and outcome of large collections, of repeated trials are within our ken.  But the behavior of the individual is too erratic and unpredictable for science.  That personal variation is the realm of the most esoteric art: retail. 

The parsha is talking about the most mysterious enigma: Gd.  Gd is the most powerful secret in the uni-verse - by definition.Gd is to be accepted, not explored.  The fatal failure of faith is an attribution of the power to other esoteric forces, and the diminished attribution to the Divine Unity. 

My mother told me: You don't have to understand your wife, you just have to love her.  Choosing what you do not understand - that is choosing life.