The contrast between the beginning of sefer Breisheet and its ending could not be more stark. The Torah opens with life yet closes with death. Turning chaos into beauty, rivers and seas, birds and fish, flora and fauna, animals and humans and the Garden of Eden. It was good, it was good and it was very good.
Yet 50 chapters later, the very last verse of sefer Breisheet reads, “And Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old. And they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt”. The vastness of space has been reduced to a narrow coffin. The very last word, Mitzrayim, Egypt, comes from the root tzar, narrow. Egypt may be many times larger than G-d’s chosen land, but Egypt was a restrictive, confining place. No slave ever escaped from Egypt, our Sages teach and its “moral” ways were best left in Egypt.
Tellingly, the last word of the fifth and final book of the Torah, Devarim, is Yisrael, representing the opposite of Egypt. While Egypt was known as a corrupt society[1], Yisrael comes from the root yashar to be straight, honest to a fault.
While the Torah itself, in parshat Vzot Habracha, ends with the death of Moshe there is no comparing the deaths of Yosef and Moshe. Moshe’s death was followed by the entry of the Jewish people into the Land of Israel. Yosef’s death was followed by slavery, persecution and the death of the first born. This sad state of affairs began with the death of Yaakov. As Rashi notes, “When Jacob departed this life their eyes became dim and their hearts troubled because of the misery of the bondage which they then began to impose upon them”.
The Torah ends with Moshe’s blessing of the 12 tribes[2] and sefer Breisheet ends with Yaakov’s “blessings” of the 12 tribes[3]. Yet here too there is no comparing Yaakov’s and Moshe’s final words.
Moshe actually offers words of blessings to each of the tribes, whereas Yaakov offers what at best could be called a description of the strength of each tribe, not hesitating to point out their weaknesses and faults. He offers not so much a blessing but words of rebuke and chastisement[4].
Moshe does the same – but not on his “deathbed”. “These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan; in the wilderness, in the Arabah, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zahab” (Devarim 1:1).
It is hard to imagine a more confusing description of a geographical location. That, as Rashi explains, is because it is no such thing. Rather, “because these are words of reproof and he is enumerating here all the places where they provoked G-d to anger, therefore he suppresses all mention of the matters in which they sinned and refers to them only by a mere allusion contained in the names of these places, out of love for Israel.” As Rashi goes on to explain, Moshe rebuked the people towards the end of his life. This, Rashi explains he learned from Yaakov, who rebuked his children samuch lemitah, soon before he died[5]. Only at that point is rebuke likely to be effective[6]. Doing so any sooner will likely be less effective and may push one’s children away,
Yet unlike Yaakov who first blessed his grandchildren and then rebuked his children, Moshe actually rebuked his children a few weeks before he died. When he was actually about to die he then blessed his children. Yaakov goes from blessing to rebuke, whereas Moshe moves from rebuke to blessing.
For Yaakov, the Bnei Yisrael are his children. For Moshe, Bnei Yisrael are the tribes of Israel. Individuals are worthy of rebuke. But for the nation of Israel the bottom line must be one of blessings. Individuals sin and the Jewish people also need collective repentance. But such pales in comparison to the tremendous merit, and hence blessings, all – and I mean all – who identify as Jews are worthy. To do so despite the great moral demands placed upon us, the temptations of assimilation, the persecutions, pogroms, the Holocaust and resurgent anti-Semitism makes the Jewish people worthy of much blessings[7]. May G-d bestow them upon His beloved people.
[1] The Torah’s admonition to have honest weights is juxtaposed to the phrase “I am the Lord who took you out of the land of Egypt” (Vayikra 19:36) to which Rashi comments, “for this purpose.” We were taken out of Egypt so that we would have honest weights, something sadly unheard of in Egypt.
[2] Actually, he only blessed 11. Angry at Shimon for sexual impropriety with the daughters of Moav, he had nothing good to say to them. Yet in contradistinction to Yaakov, he did not rebuke them either, he just ignored them, not wanting to mar the blessings as a whole.
[3] Actually, he blessed 14 “children” as he blessed Yosef’s children, Ephraim and Menashe separately. There are however only 12 blessings as both Shimon and Levi and Ephraim received combined blessings.
[4] I find it noteworthy that Moshe uses the word bracha, blessings (or some cognate of the word) four times and Yedid, friend, twice with neither word appearing in Yaakov’s charge to his children. He does use the word bracha – three times but only in the context of his prior blessing of Ephraim, Menashe and Yosef. Yosef is thus “blessed” twice one together with his children and once with his brothers.
[5] Yaakov is the first person who is recorded as getting sick. This, our Sages explain, was a fulfilment of the wish of Yaakov, thereby allowing one to better prepare for death – which would include rebuking one’s children.
[6] The Sifri (Devarim 2:4) notes “because of four things a man should rebuke another only close to his death: So that he not need to rebuke him repeatedly, so that his friend [the rebuked) not see him and be embarrassed, so that he (the rebuker) not bear a grudge in his heart (for his rebuke not being heeded), and so that they should depart in peace for [proper] rebuke leads to peace.
[7] I have often quipped that the Jewish people prove the truth of “survival of the fittest”. That after 4,000 years there are but 15 million Jews in the world attests to the greatness of those who are proud to identify as Jews. While persecution has taken a huge toll it does not fully account for the extremely low number of Jews today. It takes much effort to remain a Jew and those who do are both blessed and deserving of greater blessings.
