A Thought on Parshas Vzos Habracha

"...va'yamas sham Moshe eved HaShem...""...and HaShem's servant Moshe died there..." (34:5)

In all of the Torah with its many descriptions about Moshe, this is the only time where he is referred to as eved HaShem. It is intriguing that only upon his death does HaShem refer to him as His servant. Surely Moshe served HaShem while he was alive! How did he serve, or continue to serve, once he was no longer living?

Rabbeinu Bachya addresses this. He offers that great people draw close to HaShem during their entire life. Their work and reputations live on, even after they depart this life. They remain close to HaShem, closer than during the mortal phase of existence, once they have transcended to the realm of the spiritual and the numinous.

He notes that we find that the title "holy person" (kadosh) is also given after a person dies. The verse in Tehillim 16:3 refers to "the holy ones who are in the ground" about which the Midrash says that only with death does one cease their struggle with mortal conflicts and ascend to a higher existence. This is where their holiness will be demonstrated and will endure.

Rabbeinu Bachya closes with the interpretation that this is what we declare each time we recite the Kedushas HaShem section of the daily Amida: "Ata Kadosh, v'Shimcha Kadosh, u'kedoshim b'cal yom yehalelucha sela" - You are holy, and Your name is holy and holy ones praise You always and forever. The "holy ones" there do not refer to angels or celestial heavenly forces. The kedoshim are those whose souls are now elevated on High where their avoda is constant, enduring and eternal. Those of us down here may aim to be constant servants of HaShem but we are distracted by every stimulus and demand as well as by those diversions which we make for ourselves. It is a rare person who can be called a kadosh in this life. Still, if we aim to serve and if we value the concept of living as an eved HaShem, we place ourselves along the path of kedusha. Or, if we place ourselves out of the reach of our many distractions, this too can be a path toward kedusha.

This is the final sidra of the year and I am sending out these thoughts early since we will not be reading V'zos HaBracha on a Shabbos, and the next time we have a Shabbos parsha will be three weeks away when we begin Bereishis the day after Simchas Torah.

This marks my completion of the commentary of Rabbeinu Bachya on the Torah. I learned wonderful lessons through his insights and hope that you too have learned to appreciate this great Rishon. I will begin a new commentary with the onset of Bereishis with HaShem's blessing and help, and look forward to continue the learning and teaching of Torah each week.

Good Shabbos, good Yom Tov and good New Year. D Fox

A thought on Parshas Haazinu

"...al p'nei Yericho...tireh es ha'aretz..." "...facing Jericho...you will see the land..." (32:50,52)

I have often wondered why the Biblical town of Jericho is spelled two different ways in the Torah and in TaNaCh. Sometimes it is written with a tzeire vowel mark and pronounced Ye-ray-cho. No functional second yud is present with this spelling. Other times it is written with a functional second yud and with the chirik vowel mark, pronounced Ye-ree-cho.

Rabbeinu Bachya offers an insight: whenever the word is written in reference to Yehoshua, it is spelled and pronounced Yeraycho. Elsewhere, in the Torah, we also find the alternate form Yereecho. Rabbeinu Bachya explains that the Torah form is associated with the word yar'each (moon) and forms the term yar'each vov - this would mean "moon-like through the vav or through the sixth." This is an allusion to Moshe Rabbeinu's grasping two Divine features in the course of his communing with the Al-mighty. He grasped the moon-like feature of tifferes or heavenly splendor from Above, and he grasped the feature (the sixth Divine attribute) of kavod or glory. This meant that Moshe saw clearly and deeply.

In contrast, his disciple Yehoshua, as all of the nevi'im, grasped his prophetic visions in a lesser form of vividness than Moshe. He could sense a trace of the Above, alluded to in the word Yeraycho which comes from the word rayach which means a scent or a trace. His vision was rayach yud: a trace through the emanation of the tenth Divine feature, malchus, where he beheld something of the majesty of the Divine as compared with the splendor and glory which are (as we can try to understand at some level) stronger and clearer features of the Divine aura grasped only by Moshe.

At the end of the parsha, Moshe Rabbeinu is ordered to look towards the land. Rabbeinu Bachya notes that the verse does not use the usual expression eretz Kanan but simply eretz - the land. He explains that Moshe was able to see with more than the mortal eye alone. He was able to see with the higher consciousness of the soul. Therefore, he was able to see both the land of Kanan and Jerusalem of the Above - the higher realm which is the eternal eretz ha'chaim.

He closes by explaining that when we say zachrainu l'chaim v'kasveinu l'chaim - when we ask HaShem to remember us for life and inscribe us for life on Rosh HaShanna and on Yom Kippur, the intention is that we pray for HaShem to grant us mortal life in order that we earn acceptance into that higher realm of life, which is the eretz that Moshe Rabbeinu could perceive while everyone else looking could only see the lower land.

May each one of us be inscribed for life and for life as we pray this New Year ha'ba aleinu v'al kol Yisroel l'tova. Good Shabbos. D Fox

A thought on Parshios Nitzavim and Vayelch

"...divrei ha'shira...""...the words of this song..." (31:30)

The Torah alludes here to the Song of Ha'azinu which we will read next Shabbos. It is referred to as "the shira."

Have you ever noticed that we use both the words shir and shira in reference to song? In the Torah, the word shir occurs only once, and in TaNaCh seventy-six times. The word shira, on the other hand, occurs eight times in the Torah and five times in TaNaCh. It seems as if the more popular term is shira by Torah standard whereas shira is favored in the language of the Nevi'im.

What is the difference between a shir and a shira?

Rabbeinu Bachya offers a midrash to help us:

When a song is about the past, it is called a shira which is the feminine form of the word. When a song is forecasting a future time, it is called a shir which is the masculine form.

What does gender have to do with words which refer to song? What does time past or time to come have to do with gender?

Song is an exclamation of joy. This is why people break into song when they are happy. (Joy and happiness are those emotions we speak about when we use words like simcha.)

In the Holy Tongue, when we recall a happy time in the past, we need to use a feminine term because we acknowledge that past joy is like a woman: she can give birth over and again. So too is our historical happiness: it may be followed by harder times, then replaced with new and better days, only to be overshadowed by times of exile and suffering r'l. Memories of past joy are always in the galus to geula cycle, and geula has always been followed with galus. It is a recurrent cycle of exile to freedom to exile again. For such transitory happiness we can only sing shira. Just like a woman.

In the times to come b'ezras HaShem we will celebrate the geula sh'ain achar'eha galus: we will know the joy which will remain joyful, never to be replaced by sadness. It will be a time of birth that will never be followed by the suffering of rebirth. That is a song of shir. Just like a man, who cannot reproduce.

Sheer brilliance, that midrash.

May the close of 5767 bring an end to songs of the past and may 5768 herald our collective Shir Chadash. Good Shabbos. D Fox