VEZOT HABRACHA
Vezot Habracha, This is the Blessing, is the final parsha of Devarim and the final parsha of the five books of Moses as we currently have them. Covering chapters 33 and 34, it basically consists of Moses’ blessing of the twelve tribes in Chapter 33 and of his death in Chapter 34.
Jacob’s blessings of his sons who are the founding mythic ancestors of the twelve tribes in Genesis 49 is the obvious point of comparison. I tried to make a chart comparing the two sets of blessings, but it wasn’t going to be helpful. Moses’ comments are all gentle and approving, but the deathbed comments about the tribes in Genesis 49 contain both condemnations and praise. To take a simple example, in both sets of blessings Reuven’s diminishment as the first born has to be accounted for. In our parsha, it says merely “let Reuven live and not die, but his men will be few in number.” (33:6). Genesis 49 reads “Reuven, you are my first born, my power and the beginning of my might, preeminent in bearing and preeminent in strength. Unstable as water, you’ll not be preeminent, for you ascended your father’s bed, then you defiled, going up to my couch.” (Genesis 49:3-4). Ouch, not what you want to hear from your father on his deathbed. As you might not recall, Reuven slept with Bilhah (Genesis 35:22). Bilhah was a concubine or secondary wife of Jacob’s and Rachel’s handmaid.
The blessings serve to reinforce the place of the tribes, both geographically and in terms of their roles in the polity of ancient Israel. If we could trace our ancestry to a particular tribe and identify with that tribe, the descriptions would be something to work with and reclaim, perhaps. But other than Levites, tribal identification has been basically lost (I don’t know anyone who says they are a Benjamite, for instance).
Chapter 34 is twelve short verses. Moses climbs up Mount Nebo from whence he can see all the land that the tribes will settle in all four directions. Moses dies there and is buried. He “was a hundred and twenty years old at his death. His eye was not dim and his vitality had not fled.” (34:7). This is the origin of the phrase ad meah esrim, [you should live] until 120. The people mourn him for 30 days and Joshua becomes the leader.
I want to offer four themes for consideration on this final parsha.
Parental blessings/death lodge
Structure of Mourning
Thoughts about Moses as a whole
Gratitude
I understand that the blessings in both Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 are meant more as justifications for tribal positions, rather than actual comments that a parent might make on his or her deathbed. Isaac’s blessings of his sons in Genesis Chapter 27 when Jacob steals the blessing is also a statement about the tribes more than the individual sons. (By the way, the blessing Isaac offers Esau about Esau’s serving Jacob (27:40) turns out not to be true.)
Yet parental blessings can be a really powerful practice to get complete with your parents and/or to consider your heritage. I have done something called a death lodge multiple times in my life. This practice, the idea of which is taken from Native American influence and which I learned from the lineage of Lost Borders in California, is to imagine that you are on your deathbed, but like Moses, are vital enough to go off into the wilderness and have enough strength to speak to everyone who comes and visits. You invite whoever wants to show up and have a final conversation with them. It is important to do this in a reasonably remote place if you can. There’s something quieting about a remote place, you don’t want to get interrupted and you want to be able to scream or cry or dance without considering what someone else might think.
Sit down on a rock or a stump, take a few minutes to breath and invite final conversations with the people who mean the most to you. What do you want to say to them? What do they want to say to you? What do you want to hear from them?
“And the children of Israel mourned Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days. And the days of weeping, the mourning of Moses, ended.” (34:8) Jewish mourning has a certain rhythm, though of course the rhythm is just a guide, not something that our emotions necessarily follow. There’s the most intense 7 days of shiva, right after the death and burial when we feel like we’ve been run over and we can’t conceive of the world without that person in it. Then there’s the 30 days that are provided their justification from this verse in our parsha when we still weep. Then there’s the next 10 months when we dust ourselves off, resume some form of our previous life but still mourn, reciting Kaddish every day until, hopefully, the soul of the deceased has completed its journey and is where it is supposed to be. Mourning and Mitzvah by Rabbi Anne Brenner is a great sourcebook here.
One core difference between typical Jewish practice and our parsha is that the mourners are all of Israel, rather than the immediate family. I don’t know of any other person for whom there was, in effect, a shloshim (30 days) period for non family members, but this could just be ignorance on my part. I am very curious about how Hasidic communities mourn the death of their rebbes. If anyone has good resources on this, I would love to learn more.
I want to commend to you two other writers on grief, mourning and praise. One is Martin Prechtel and his book The Smell of Rain on Dust, a short and wonderful book that argues for the sacredness of both and the link between them. The other is Francis Weller’s fabulous The Wild Edge of Sorrow which presents a compelling view of the importance of us feeling our grief if we are to heal ourselves and the world.
This is an invitation to reflect on your experience as a mourner. What structures worked, what didn’t, what is still left over? Is there anyone who isn’t in your immediate family who has touched you so deeply that you have mourned them, like the children of Israel mourned Moses in the plains of Moab?
We have now read the entire story/myth of Moses’ life and death, from a baby lovingly placed in a crate and floated on the Nile, to his death on Mount Nebo. I’m not going to try to summarize his life. Our text summarizes him as follows in the last verses of the Torah: “And a prophet did not rise again like Moses, whom YHVH knew face to face with all the signs and wonders that YHVH sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharoah and to all his servants and to all his land, and with all the strong hand and with all the great fear that Moses made before the eyes of Israel.” (34:10-12)
What stories or parts of Moses’ life seem particularly meaningful? How do you see him? A unique prophet? The lawgiver of Israel? A man who can have visions of YHVH unlike anyone else? A man pushed into a leadership role for which he was ill suited? A man whose sons oddly have no place in the text?
Gratitude is a core practice in Judaism. In our morning blessings we give praise for being able to stand up (Modeh Ani), for our community (Mah Tovu) for having bodies that work (Asher Yatzar), for various wonderful attributes of life (Birkot Hashachar) and for our souls (Elohai—technically not part of the morning blessings). I incorporate these prayers into my morning practice and add my gratitude to the more than human world. I am grateful for all my teachers and ancestors without whom none of this writing could have happened in any form. I am grateful for the millions of beings who die every day that I may live. We are all angels of death to the web of life. I am grateful for the material comfort in my life that affords me the time to dwell with these questions. I am grateful to my readers, because a teacher without students is just a person babbling. I am grateful. I am blessed.
Do you have a gratitude practice? What is included in it? Does the practice, if any, connect with your ancestors? What about the more than human world? If not, I’d highly encourage you to develop one. I started years ago with a 5 minute recital of 4 blessings while I waited for the kids to wake up after the first time I told them to get up for school. It’s expanded since then.
QUESTIONS
Sit down on a rock or a stump, take a few minutes to breath and invite final conversations with the people who mean the most to you. What do you want to say to them? What do they want to say to you? What do you want to hear from them?
This is an invitation to reflect on your experience as a mourner. What structures worked, what didn’t, what is still left over? Is there anyone who isn’t in your immediate family who has touched you so deeply that you have mourned them, like the children of Israel mourned Moses in the plains of Moab?
What stories or parts of Moses’ life seem particularly meaningful? How do you see him? A unique prophet? The lawgiver of Israel? A man who can have visions of YHVH unlike anyone else? A man pushed into a leadership role for which he was ill suited? A man whose sons oddly have no place in the text?
Do you have a gratitude practice? What is included in it? Does the practice, if any, connect with your ancestors? What about the more than human world?
