Scrollers Preview - V'zot Ha-B'rachah

Shabbat Shalom everyone! Just a head’s up that if the weather is dry tomorrow morning, we will hold our Scrollers session in our beautiful Sukkah, in honor of the holiday. Also, I will begin our session with a quick conversation about this group hosting an Oneg Shabbat. The Membership committee is inviting various synagogue groups to take responsibility for hosting one Friday night Oneg during the year.

On the Shabbat during the intermediate days of Sukkot, we traditionally are supposed to read a passage from Exodus. Over the years I alternated between studying that passage and the final Parasha of the Torah, V’zot Ha-Brachah. This year I thought we would do V’Zot Ha-brachah. This final passage of the Torah does not have a Shabbat assigned to it. On Simchat Torah, we traditionally read it and then go back to Breishit, the beginning of the Torah. However, we don’t always have a chance to study it. We will also take a look at the Haftarah for Simchat Torah, which is the first part of the Book of Joshua.

With these readings, we complete the story and the life of Moses, with his final blessing of the tribes, his death and his burial.  And then, with the haftarah, we gain a sense of continuity, as the Israelites accepts Joshua as their new leader, and they prepare to finally cross the Jordan river into the Land of Israel.

After last week’s poem of Moses, which is full of warnings of the People’s future straying and punishment, we get some more poetry here. But this time, the poetry is full of hope and blessing for success and fertility and security in the land. We also have a chance to mourn Moses’ death, and to read about his burial.

As we read, I want us to think about our relationship to Moses, personally and communally. How would we want to remember him after his burial. How do we see him? At the end of his life, he blesses the tribes as a patriarch from Genesis would bless his own children. Do we see Moses as a parental figure? Or, is he something wholly other than that – a singular prophet – the only one who ever knew God face to face?