Ziv Parashat Vayaylech

The Lord your God Himself crosses over before you

This parasha - the shortest parasha in the Torah - poses difficulties immediately, with its first word (in the Hebrew text). The literal translation of the first verse is “and he [i.e. Moses] went and spoke these words to all Israel” (Deuteronomy 31:1). The question that all commentators addressed here is: where did Moses go from and where to? in the previous parachot Moses was clearly standing before all the people and speaking to them, commanding them all and admonishing them - why did he now have to “go” in order to speak to them? The Targum (translation) attributed to Jonathan Ben-Uziel says that he went to a “house of learning” - i.e. to speak to the people in a setting of teaching rather than commandment and reproach. Other commentators explain that at the end of his life, Moses - the most humble man on earth (Numbers 12:3) - went personally to speak with each one of the people of Israel. Rather than having them come and gather again around him, he went to them and said his goodbyes to each one of them. Still others, such as the book of the Zohar (illumination), explains “to go” as an allegory for the setting sun. Moses was like the sun which illuminated the people of Israel through the giving of the Torah and events such as have never been seen in the world before or since. Now, at the twilight of his life, the light that was his was setting (“going away”) and Joshua, together with any leader of Israel who is faithful to the law of Moses, is likened to the moon - who shall reflect this light.

Another interpretation is that this “going” is the fulfillment of the commandment Moses received at his second ascent of Mount Sinai: “Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them” (Deuteronomy 10:11) and indeed he continues with an explanation of both why he cannot govern them in their entry to the promised land, and that it is Joshua to whom the final fulfillment of this commandment will be entrusted: “I am one hundred and twenty years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. The Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan.’ The Lord your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations before you, so that you shall dispossess them, and Joshua will go over at your head, has the Lord has spoken” (Deuteronomy 31:2–3). With Moses’ final words he teaches us the humility, wisdom and faithfulness that characterizes true leaders. He takes as much care of the people at the time of his death as he did throughout his entire life. Shabbat Shalom.