Synagogue Sermon
A Heroic Life - editor's title (1954)
Despite the gaiety and joy which attaches to this Shmini-Atzeret-Simchat Torah period, the pathetic figure of Moses dominates the theme of this holiday. In Zot Haberachah, the last sidra of the Torah which we read during this holiday, we meet up with Moses as he prepares to die. And Moses, despite the loftiness of his prophecy, the heights of his spirit and the nobleness of his whole life, is essentially a warm and profoundly human being. He wanted to live. He found it difficult to reconcile himself with God’s notice that he would die here, overlooking the Land of Israel, and that he would not live to set foot in it. And how he begged God for just a bit more, for just that bit of nachas to be able to feel this Promised Land under the soles of his feet! If not alive, let them take my ashes there. If not as leader, let me enter as an ordinary Jew. And God says, No, my son, veshamah lo ta’avor, you cannot enter it, neither as leader, nor alive, nor even dead (Sifri, Yalkut Shimoni). And then the pathos and beauty of this scene are made even greater as our rabbis picture Moses, acting under Divine command, writing the last words of the Torah, and writing – not with ink but with his own tears – the words vayamat sham Mosheh, “And Moses died there,” there, on the eastern bank of the Jordan, and buried there, there on the eastern bank of the Jordan, and not in the beloved, Promised Land.Now our rabbis, when reading and studying this portion which we have just described, made some very interesting remarks which are somewhat astonishing. Darash Reb Samlai: Torah techilatah gemillat chasadim vesofah gemillat chasadim. Techilatah, dikhtiv ‘vayaas Hashem Elokim laadam ule’ishto ktonet or vayalbishem’; vesofah, dikhtiv ‘vayikbor oto bagai’ (Sotah 14a). The Torah begins with an act of kindness and charity on the part of God and ends with the same. The beginning act of Divine generosity is where God makes clothing for Adam and Eve, and dresses them, after their sin. And the final…
