Vayelech: Ethical Will
What can a person approaching the end of life convey to those about to embark on their adventure?
Can they accept encouragement from a man denied entry into the Promised Land? How should they handle the threat of exile and suffering embodied in a song that they will carry with them from now on?
We are coming to the end of the Torah. This week's parsha, Vayelech, the third from the last, forms a complementary match, with the third parsha: Lech Lecha. In Lech Lecha, Abraham, our founder, is instructed to go and explore the land that will be granted to his offspring. He is to leave is ancestral home and follow a set of, yet to specified, instructions. This leads him to a land that his (not yet born) offspring will inherit. The mission is obscure, but the action is definitive
In Vayelech, Moshe goes...The text does not specify where he is coming from or where he is going. (In talmudic hermeneutics such a hanging word is meant for interpretation rather than translation). In contrast to Abraham, there is ambiguity about how and where Moshe was raised. He was raised as a prince in the palace of the Pharoah, and he knew he was the son of slave Hebrews. He has no attachment to his homeland. He had long been an exile and an immigrant.
We are soon told where Moshe is going and where he is not going. Moshe is going to die and he is not going to enter the promised land. Moshe tells the people who are about to enter the land explored by father Abraham to be brave and fearless. He tells them to keep the commandments. He knows that violation and exile are inevitable. There is a song that they will carry and it will be testimony.
To what does the song testify? To the predictability of the future: the inevitable exile that follows from the unavoidable transgression? We keep this song as justification for the recurring defeats and persecutions that its people, our people, have suffered. We, Gd and Gd's people, turn to this song of foretelling to keep faith in each other. The song says: I told you so. Is that a comfort? Actually it is. Because it ends with the redemption and re-ascendance of the people ( but that will need to wait for next week).
This week we deal with the inevitable, the statistically predicted, the deathbed declaration ( and death is the most reliable prophecy). The message is: continue. Terrible things will happen - but do not despair. Leaders will change, do not rebel. The ancient tradition will stop making sense; keep it anyway. It works.
And so my grandson ( Yisroel Arye ( Srulik), Theodore Irwin, Teddy) was circumcised on his eighth day.
In Vayelech, Moshe goes...The text does not specify where he is coming from or where he is going. (In talmudic hermeneutics such a hanging word is meant for interpretation rather than translation). In contrast to Abraham, there is ambiguity about how and where Moshe was raised. He was raised as a prince in the palace of the Pharoah, and he knew he was the son of slave Hebrews. He has no attachment to his homeland. He had long been an exile and an immigrant.
We are soon told where Moshe is going and where he is not going. Moshe is going to die and he is not going to enter the promised land. Moshe tells the people who are about to enter the land explored by father Abraham to be brave and fearless. He tells them to keep the commandments. He knows that violation and exile are inevitable. There is a song that they will carry and it will be testimony.
To what does the song testify? To the predictability of the future: the inevitable exile that follows from the unavoidable transgression? We keep this song as justification for the recurring defeats and persecutions that its people, our people, have suffered. We, Gd and Gd's people, turn to this song of foretelling to keep faith in each other. The song says: I told you so. Is that a comfort? Actually it is. Because it ends with the redemption and re-ascendance of the people ( but that will need to wait for next week).
This week we deal with the inevitable, the statistically predicted, the deathbed declaration ( and death is the most reliable prophecy). The message is: continue. Terrible things will happen - but do not despair. Leaders will change, do not rebel. The ancient tradition will stop making sense; keep it anyway. It works.
And so my grandson ( Yisroel Arye ( Srulik), Theodore Irwin, Teddy) was circumcised on his eighth day.
posted by Sheldon Goldberg at 11:16 AM
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