Parshat Vezot Habracha-The last eight verses

ה  וַיָּמָת שָׁם מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד-יְהוָה, בְּאֶרֶץ מוֹאָב--עַל-פִּי יְהוָה.

5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.

There is a famous anecdote about the English playwright, Oscar Wilde, who lived at the end of the 19th century. A rumor quickly spread throughout London that he had died. As a consequence, his obituary appeared in the London Times the next day. Since he was still alive, he wrote to the Times the following day, informing them that ‘the rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated’.

This compares to the situation in our parsha, where Moshe has died and yet the people still think he is with them. This expresses itself in the last 8 verses of the Bible, which are written by Moshe, even though it talks explicitly of his demise. The obvious question is how could he have written them if he was already dead, as stated in the verses? How do we understand the message of the last 8 pesukim?

Rashi comments on this enigma:

 AND MOSES DIED THERE — Is it possible that Moses, died, and then wrote: “And Moses died there”? But, thus far did Moses write, from here and onward Joshua wrote. Rabbi Meir said: But is it possible that the Book of the Torah would be lacking anything at all, and yet it would state before the account of Moses' death was written in it, (Deuteronomy 31:26) “Take this book of the Torah” -? Rather the Holy One, blessed be He, dictated this, and Moses wrote it in tears (Sifrei Devarim 357:28; Bava Batra 15a, Menachot 30a).

The Vilna Gaon explains the last comment of Rashi (bedemah), not as ‘tears’ but as ‘mixed’. This means that when Moshe received the Torah he received a stream of Hebrew letters which he divided into the words we have in our sefer Torah. However he also perceived the letters in different combinations which we are not aware of, and this is how Moshe wrote the last 8 verses, not as the words we have but as a stream of letters, which he understood differently to the way we do in our chumash.

I am going to extend the basic question a little by referring to the end of 2 other books of the Bible, also with the same ambiguity. The last verses in the book of Yehoshua describes his death and again could not have been written by Yehoshua.

וַיְהִ֗י אַֽחֲרֵי֙ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֔לֶּה וַיָּ֛מָת יְהוֹשֻׁ֥עַ בִּן־נ֖וּן עֶ֣בֶד יְהוָ֑ה בֶּן־מֵאָ֥ה וָעֶ֖שֶׂר שָׁנִֽים׃

After these events, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of one hundred and ten years.

A more extreme example is at the end of sefer Shmuel aleph. There we find that the sefer is named after Shmuel even though he dies in ch. 25 of sefer Shmuel aleph. The rest of the sefer (and sefer Shmuel Bet) was written down by the 2 prophets , Natan and Gad. Again the strange phenomenon of an author not completing his sefer and the question is, why?

The Abarbanel in his introduction to sefer Shmuel asks why the sefer is called after Shmuel, when, in reality, more of the sefer refers to Shaul (and sefer Shmuel Bet to David) than to Shmuel himself. He answers with a great insight. The name of the sefer is not necessarily about authorship but about influence. Even in the years after Shmuel died, his influence was still being felt in the Jewish world. He radically changed the future of the Jewish people by facilitating the kingship and also in his influence over Shaul and to a more limited extent over David. The question of the influence and legacy allows the sefer to be ascribed to Shmuel even if he did not write most of it.

I want to suggest the same answer for the end of the Torah and sefer Yehoshua. The influence of both men is still with us today. Even Yehoshua who is the ‘moon’ compared to the ‘sun’ of Moshe is still very much part of our current heritage, as he took us into Israel and established our eternal claim to the land. Even if these great leaders were not able to write the last verses of their books, their influence becomes the real message of the sefer. They are with us even when they are no longer in the living world. This symbolic message is seen by having pesukim at the end of each sefer being attributed to Moshe and Yehoshua, even after their physical deaths. The spiritual legacy lives on, as it does with Shmuel.

This teaches us an eternal value in Judaism. It is the legacy of our great leaders, in terms of their conduct and connection to God,  that sustains us in every generation and beyond. This is a fitting testament to the greatness of Moshe and Yehoshua and Shmuel Hanavi. ‘Charisma’ is never the everlasting legacy of a leader,but it is the enduring lessons conveyed by our leaders that have given them their eternal quality, to become true role models in everything we do as Jews.

Gemar Chatima Tova

Rabbi Ian Shaffer        Cherry Hill 5778