My father did not die by a kiss from above (bi-neshikah). The final image we have of Moses as he ascends Mount Nebo to die alone is of a man whose eyes “were undimmed” and whose “vigor was unabated.” (Deuteronomy 34:7). It was God’s will that his life end at this point, and the Rabbis read the phrase “al pi ha-shem” not metaphorically as “at the command of God” but literally as “by God’s mouth,” that is by a kiss. The term neshikah came to mean a death without suffering. My father’s end was painful and unheroic. He withdrew emotionally before he died physically. But time rights the balance. His life is what I remember.

The link to Moses for me is the manner in which my father lived. He too was “a servant of God” (Deut. 34:5). In an age when industry and bureaucracy and ideology magnified the horrors that humans could inflict upon each other, Judaism was the ballast of his life and the rabbinate a calling. His deep faith brought comfort to many a jettisoned soul. Neither despair nor skepticism could undermine his love for “the teaching (Torah) which Moses had charged us with, the heritage of the congregation of Jacob” (Deut. 33:4). I have no idea if this verse with its ringing affirmation of pride and ownership was the first my father learned on the lap of his father, as parents are instructed to do by the Rabbis (BT Sukkah 42a), but he surely lived as if it were the Archimedean point from which he moved the world around him.

Rabbinic imagination embellishes the austerity of the Torah’s final chapter. Moses died atop Mount Nebo unaccompanied. Who, then interred him? The verb “and he buried him” (34:6) is tantalizingly vague. Ibn Ezra, rationalist to the core, follows the view that Moses entered a cave to await his death, that is, he buried himself. Rashi, more mystically inclined, prefers the view that it was none other than God who buried Moses. The basis for this extravagant claim is the Rabbis’ conviction that human affairs are governed by the moral principle of measure for measure. God’s act of kindness came to reward Moses for a comparable good deed. Before the hurried departure of the Israelites from Egypt, Moses had tarried to exhume the bones of Joseph for reburial in Canaan. Ego did not stay his hand from performing an act of compassion beneath his dignity. Thus Moses, who though outranked by no one had deigned to disinter Joseph, merited the attendance of God at his own death (Mishnah Sotah 1:9).

God’s act of unsolicited kindness toward Moses prompts another midrash to observe that the Torah closes with the same generosity of spirit with which it opened. Whereas God intervenes at the end to prevent the corpse of Moses from being desecrated by the offspring of nature, at the beginning of the human odyssey, God clothed Adam and Eve with skin garments before expelling them from the garden in Eden (Genesis 3:21). That narrative wraparound highlights the paramount importance of spontaneous deeds of unalloyed goodness (gemilut hasadim). For humans to become God-like means to ennoble their behavior toward others. Ultimately, Judaism comes down to elevating the quality of our interpersonal relations.

In truth, however, the closing narrative of the Torah needs no midrashic embellishment. The plain meaning of the text pulsates with meaning. The Torah chooses to end soberly rather than triumphantly. Not only does Moses die short of completing the task that absorbed the last forty years of his life, but his people remain in exile. Were we authoring the final episode, we would most likely have finished with the conquest of Canaan. God poignantly grants Moses no more than an unobstructed view of the sweeping vista that will become the homeland of the people he forged into a nation. But reality has a way of tarnishing our dreams. As history would show, to conquer is easier than to govern. The prophets are a constant reminder of how rarely the political and religious institutions of ancient Israel realized the vision that gave them birth.

The greatest of these iconoclasts was Moses. Yet posterity is denied any knowledge of his burial place. His words and deeds are his only tombstone. The Torah regards magic as anathema because it compromises the sovereignty of God. Earlier Moses had admonished: “Let no one be found among you who consigns his son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, or sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead” (Deut. 18:10-11). The unadorned choreography of his death conforms to this admonition. Our veneration of Moses is not to express itself in pilgrimages or necromancy but in conducting our lives in accord with his injunctions. As long as our consciousness is home to his words and deeds, Moses lives on beyond the grave.

The publication and distribution of Dr. Schorsch’s commentary on Shmini Atzeret – Simhat Torah are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z”l) Hassenfeld.

The Talmud has singled out one of its verses to be the first specimen of Torah which parents are to teach their young children. After they acquire the capacity to speak, a process which imbues me with awe every time I witness it, we are instructed to introduce them to the Hebrew language by having them learn the following verse: “Moses charged us with the Torah as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob (Deut. 33:4).” Long before our children start their formal education, we are obliged to give them a sense of place. As Jews, our lives are shaped by Torah. The triad of God, Torah and the people Israel is an inseparable and indestructible unity. The compression of the verse has a creedal force that will take a lifetime to unpack (B.T. Sukkah, 42a).

The ritual statement of this unity is the festival of Simhat Torah. There is to be no interruption in our public reading of Torah, because it is the link that joins God and Israel. Torah is the medium through which Jews experience the reality of God as well as express it. Torah is the form and content, language and substance of our religious being. Its centrality in the synagogue service merely reflects its seminal role as the infinitely expanding curriculum of daily study.

The key to this expansion is both intellectual and psychological. In the oft-repeated affirmation of our faith, the Shema, we are first admonished to love God with all our heart and then advised to meditate on just how we might do that: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day (Deut. 6:5-6).” Rebi, the editor of the Mishnah, interprets the second verse as guiding us on how to fulfill the first. By persistent study of Torah (“take to heart these instructions”), we shall come to understand God more profoundly and wish to cleave to God more intensely. The specificity of Torah helps to concretize our inarticulate love (Sifre, ed. by Finkelstein p. 59).

Yet another rabbinic comment focuses on the present tense of the verb, “which I charge you this day.” That immediacy suggests that, “we are not to regard the Torah as an old statute to which no one pays attention any more, but rather like a new one that everyone is eager to read (Sifre, p. 59).” Each time we take up the Torah should be like the first, full of novelty and discovery.

And that is indeed the case if we only allow our growth and maturation since the last time to detect what we were incapable of seeing before. The lens through which we look at Torah is always being modified by experience. The great German philosopher Hegel stated this deep truth in a striking way: “The absolute idea may be compared to the old man, who utters the same religious doctrines as the child, but for whom they signify his entire life. The child in contrast may understand the religious content. But all of life and the whole world still exist outside it.” Thus the creed with which we began, “Moses charged us with the Torah . . .” contains the same words for toddler and grandparent alike, yet the meaning they carry for each could not be more different.

A poignant episode in the life of Kafka recasts that phenomenon in narrative form. On his last visit to Berlin before his death from tuberculosis, Kafka happened upon a little girl crying inconsolably in the park he frequented. When he asked her why all the tears, she confided that she had lost her favorite doll. Kafka tried to comfort her. The doll was not lost at all. It had merely taken a trip and he had in fact run into it not long before. He was quite sure the doll would soon return. The next day Kafka brought the little girl a letter from her doll full of descriptions and anecdotes. And each day thereafter, he produced another letter for his newfound friend. On his last day in Berlin, Kafka came to the park once again. This time however, he brought a doll with him which he tenderly presented to her. But she was not to be consoled. The doll did not resemble the one she loved so dearly. “Of course, it’s your doll,” Kafka insisted. “The long journey and many experiences have merely changed the way she looks.”

For millennia Jews have pored over the same sacred canon. But history has recorded its effects in their understanding of its words. Alongside the Written Torah of Moses, unfolded and accumulated the Oral Torah of Israel, befitting the settings and sensibilities, the dilemmas and disputes of generations of Jewish interpreters, who coupled ingenuity with reverence and freedom with fidelity. As experience proliferated layers upon layers of meaning, the underlying sacred text remained immutable, effectively yielding a canon without closure, ever open to new readings. The concept of a dual Torah spawned a discourse over the ages that embraces both continuity and change.

Thus Simhat Torah, which is the latest of the traditional Jewish holidays (not found in either the Tanakh or the Talmud), celebrates a religious culture founded on the plasticity of the written word. The Torah we are about to begin anew is not exactly the one we have just finished, because in the intervening year we ourselves have changed.

Shabbat shalom ve-hag sameah,

Ismar Schorsch

The publication and distribution of Dr. Schorsch’s commentary on Simhat Torah 5765 are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z”l) Hassenfeld.

Joshua 1:1-18

¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ attendant: 

² “My servant Moses is dead. Prepare to cross the Jordan, together with all this people, into the land that I am giving to the Israelites. ³ Every spot on which your foot treads I give to you, as I promised Moses. ⁴ Your territory shall extend from the wilderness and the Lebanon to the Great River, the River Euphrates [on the east]–the whole Hittite country–and up to the Mediterranean Sea on the west. ⁵ No one shall be able to resist you as long as you live. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

⁶ “Be strong and resolute, for you shall apportion to this people the land that I swore to their fathers to assign to them. ⁷ But you must be very strong and resolute to observe faithfully all the Teaching that My servant Moses enjoined upon you. Do not deviate from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ Let not this Book of the Teaching cease from your lips, but recite it day and night, so that you may observe faithfully all that is written in it. Only then will you prosper in your undertakings and only then will you be successful.

⁹ “I charge you: Be strong and resolute; do not be terrified or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” 

Sepharadim end here

¹⁰ Joshua thereupon gave orders to the officials of the people: ¹¹ “Go through the camp and charge the people thus: Get provisions ready, for in three days’ time you are to cross the Jordan, in order to enter and possess the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession.”

¹² Then Joshua said to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, ¹³ “Remember what Moses the servant of the Lord enjoined upon you, when he said: ‘The Lord your God is granting you a haven; He has assigned this territory to you.’ ¹⁴ Let your wives, children, and livestock remain in the land that Moses assigned to you on this side of the Jordan; but every one of your fighting men shall go across armed in the van of your kinsmen. And you shall assist them ¹⁵ until the Lord has given your kinsmen a haven, such as you have, and they too have gained possession of the land that the Lord your God has assigned to them. Then you may return to the land on the east side of the Jordan, which Moses the servant of the Lord assigned to you as your possession, and you may possess it.”

¹⁶ They answered Joshua, “We will do everything you have commanded us and we will go wherever you send us. ¹⁷ We will obey you just as we obeyed Moses; let but the Lord your God be with you as He was with Moses! ¹⁸ Any man who flouts your commands and does not obey every order you give him shall be put to death. Only be strong and resolute!”

Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
No part of this text can be reproduced or forwarded without written permission.
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Deuteronomy 33:1 – 34:12

Chapter 33

¹ This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, bade the Israelites farewell before he died. ² He said:

The Lord came from Sinai;
He shone upon them from Seir;
He appeared from Mount Paran,
And approached from Ribeboth-kodesh,
Lightning flashing at them from His right.
³ Lover, indeed, of the people,
Their hallowed are all in Your hand.
They followed in Your steps,
Accepting Your pronouncements,
⁴ When Moses charged us with the Teaching
As the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.
⁵ Then He became King in Jeshurun,
When the heads of the people assembled,
The tribes of Israel together.

6 May Reuben live and not die,
Though few be his numbers.

⁷ And this he said of Judah:

Hear, O Lord the voice of Judah
And restore him to his people.
Though his own hands strive for him,
Help him against his foes.

⁸ And of Levi he said:

Let Your Thummim and Urim
Be with Your faithful one,
Whom You tested at Massah,
Challenged at the waters of Meribah;
⁹ Who said of his father and mother,
“I consider them not.”
His brothers he disregarded,
Ignored his own children.
Your precepts alone they observed,
And kept Your covenant.
¹⁰ They shall teach Your laws to Jacob
And Your instructions to Israel.
They shall offer You incense to savor
And whole-offerings on Your altar.
¹¹ Bless, O Lord, his substance,
And favor his undertakings.
Smite the loins of his foes;
Let his enemies rise no more.

¹² Of Benjamin he said:

Beloved of the Lord,
He rests securely beside Him;
Ever does He protect him,
As he rests between His shoulders.

¹³ And of Joseph he said:

Blessed of the Lord be his land
With the bounty of dew from heaven,
And of the deep that couches below;
¹⁴ With the bounteous yield of the sun,
And the bounteous crop of the moons;
¹⁵ With the best from the ancient mountains,
And the bounty of hills immemorial;
¹⁶ With the bounty of earth and its fullness,
And the favor of the Presence in the Bush.
May these rest on the head of Joseph,
On the crown of the elect of his brothers.
¹⁷ Like a firstling bull in his majesty,
He has horns like the horns of the wild-ox;
With them he gores the peoples,
The ends of the earth one and all.
These are the myriads of Ephraim,
Those are the thousands of Manasseh.

¹⁸ And of Zebulun he said:

Rejoice, O Zebulun, on your journeys,
And Issachar, in your tents.
¹⁹ They invite their kin to the mountain,
Where they offer sacrifices of success.
For they draw from the riches of the sea
And the hidden hoards of the sand.

²⁰ And of Gad he said:

Blessed be He who enlarges Gad!
Poised is he like a lion
To tear off arm and scalp.
²¹ He chose for himself the best,
For there is the portion of the revered chieftain,
Where the heads of the people come.
He executed the Lord’s judgments
And His decisions for Israel.

²² And of Dan he said:

Dan is a lion’s whelp
That leaps forth from Bashan.

²³ And of Naphtali he said:

O Naphtali, sated with favor
And full of the Lord’s blessing,
Take possession on the west and south.

²⁴ And of Asher he said:
Most blessed of sons be Asher;
May he be the favorite of his brothers,
May he dip his foot in oil.
²⁵ May your doorbolts be iron and copper,
And your security last all your days.

²⁶ O Jeshurun, there is none like God,
Riding through the heavens to help you,
Through the skies in His majesty.
²⁷ The ancient God is a refuge,
A support are the arms everlasting.
He drove out the enemy before you
By His command: Destroy!
²⁸ Thus Israel dwells in safety,
Untroubled is Jacob’s abode,
In a land of grain and wine,
Under heavens dripping dew.
²⁹ O happy Israel! Who is like you,
A people delivered by the Lord,
Your protecting Shield, your Sword triumphant!
Your enemies shall come cringing before you,
And you shall tread on their backs.

Chapter 34
¹ Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan; ² all Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; the whole land of Judah as far as the Western Sea; ³ the Negeb; and the Plain — the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees — as far as Zoar. ⁴And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ‘I will assign it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there.”

⁵ So Moses the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the Lord. ⁶ He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, near Beth-peor; and no one knows his burial place to this day. ⁷ Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated. ⁸ And the Israelites bewailed Moses in the steppes of Moab for thirty days.

The period of wailing and mourning for Moses came to an end. ⁹ Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the Israelites heeded him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹⁰ Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses — whom the Lord singled out, face to face, 11 for the various signs and portents that the Lord sent him to display in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, ¹² and for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel.

Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
No part of this text can be reproduced or forwarded without written permission.
Please visit the for more fine books of Jewish literature and tradition.