Moses’ Life and Death and Life

In the Jewish tradition, every moment is understood and derives its meaning from history and hopes for the future, all under the sight of an Eternal. We can call this vision “Jewish Integrated Time”.

In Deuteronomy, the moments involve Moses’ imminent death, his final speech to his people. In it, he reflects on the covenant with the forefathers to the Captivity in Egypt, the revelation at Sinai, the wandering in the desert. All of this preparation for another crossing of water; just as the transition from Captivity into the Wilderness was over Red Sea (Exodus 14), so the transition from Wandering into Home is the crossing of the Jordan river. The past has defined the character of the Israelites, their spiritual connection with the Creator, their right to the holy land, their commitment to make it a holy place in which the struggle and its moral lessons are always remembered and practiced. Every human being is mortal, but is part of a chain of ancestry that begins with Adam – and the thread that begins with Abraham. Moses’ life is coming to an end, but it is an integral, always-to-be-remembered part of the life of his people.

In Deuteronomy, Moses looks ahead to life of the Israelites after their return to Israel (Deuteronomy 28-30). They will have to slowly battle to possess the land. There will come times when they become smug and entitled; when they forget that it is God who brought them out of captivity, through the Wilderness and across the Jordan, God who watched over them in battle, God who made Israel a land of plenty. They will forget their covenantal gratitude and mission, and fall into idolatry and evil. They will then be invaded, conquered and displaced by foreign adversaries. But God will never forget them entirely. After they repent, the Israelites will always return.

The story of the past, present and future is recorded in the books of the Jewish people.  Different passages in the accounts  speak to each other. The covenant with Abraham is the beginning of a story; it includes a forewarning that there will be a descent into Egypt but a later redemption into the promised land (Genesis 15:13-14). The story of the Redemption recalls that the Eternal is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:6).

Along the way, different accounts often reflect on the same episode. The differences in the stories challenge the reader to pay close attention. In Deuteronomy, the Ten Commandments are phrased slightly different in places than in Exodus (Deuteronomy 5:6-21; Exodus 20:1).The Deuteronomy version emphasizes that servants and animals must also be allowed to rest on the Sabbath (Deuteronomy 5:12-15); at Sinai, God revealed a code for conduct among the Israelites and among all humankind in which it commands justice for all. The Israelites must never forget their own oppression in Egypt, what it was like to be a stranger in a strange land (Deuteronomy 5:15).

In this week’s chapter, Parashat Va’etchanan (וָאֶתְחַנַּן), we receive a different account thani in Numbers about why Moses will not be allowed to enter the promised land. In Numbers, Miriam has died, there is a water shortage. God tells Moses to gather his staff, assemble his people and speak to a rock in order to obtain the water. Moses calls the people rebels and strikes the rock. The water emerges. God tells Moses that because of his lack of trust in the sanctity of God, Moses will not enter the promised land (Numbers 20:1-13).

Why does Moses call the people rebels?  Moses had been subjected, from the start of his career, to the bickering among his people, of challenges to his authority from rivals, jealousy from his own brother and sister, and wild descents into idolatry like the Golden Calf episode while Moses was up on Sinai receiving the Torah (Exodus 32).

In the Numbers account of the incident at the Rock,  Moses says nothing after God pronounces his doom – just as Aaron said nothing when God smote two of his sons for bringing strange fire to the Tabernacle (Leviticus 10:1-3). Instead, Moses goes on with the business of planning for the settlement of the Holy Land.

In Deuteronomy, Moses is speaking, and takes a moment to look back on the episode. In his account, the “Lord was wrathful with me on your account” (Deuteronomy 3:26). Moses still largely  blames the people. But the people had assembled as instructed at Meribah. They had been complaining about the water shortage, but engaged in no evident  misconduct at the Rock itself. Moses was apparently still angry at their most recent expression  of their own lack of faith that God would see them safely to the promised land. Perhaps his anger more largely  reflected forty years and more of dealing with Israel’s fractiousness and faithlessness – between times of magnificent faith, such as accepting the revelation at Sinai.

In recounting the Meribah, Moses is not quoting directly from God; he is providing Moses’ own recollection and understanding of the event. In the Deutronomy version, Moses did ask God to be permitted, despite the striking of the stone, to enter and see the promised land (Deuteronomy 3:23-28). God tells him to speak no more of it. If Moses did speak with God to ask a favour for himself, it would be a rare inversion of events. Most of the time, Moses is pleading with God to spare the Israelites; God at one point says he is inclined to destroy the people and start a new nation with Moses (Exodus 32:10; Numbers 14:12).

Notice that when he tells the people that he is doomed to die this side of the Jordan, the people say nothing. They do not plead to God to relent in favour of Moses. Why not? God ordered Moses not to speak again of Moses’ wish to cross the river. He did not tell the people from speaking up on Moses’ behalf. Perhaps the people did not wish to interrupt Moses while he was speaking. Perhaps a people who were used to having a supreme prophet and political leader could not think of taking their own initiative in addressing God. Perhaps the people are so used to thinking of Moses as their leader, and blessed with a unique communion with God, that they experienced no empathy with the fact that he is a human being facing his own imminent  mortality,. When Moses is taken, it is with no congregation around him, no friends, no family (Deuteronomy 34:1-8).

The Torah is not always teaching us general lessons. It is fraught with meaning at many levels. The stories would not be as riveting and memorable if they were solely didactic. The death of Moses is poignant at the human level; the people he led to freedom will live on, but he must experience the fate of all humankind starting with Adam. No matter how much power or esteem or wealth we have, in the end, we face eternity as a frail human being.

The storytelling of the bible did not end with the Five Books. It continued in the rest of the Torah, especially with recounts of Moses leading the people from captivity. In the Midrashic tradition, Rabbis would create their own stories on top of the biblical stories. Their imagination built upon the sacred text. Midrashic accounts of Moses often depict him as all by himself at the end. Some of them show him arguing once again with God – this time on his own behalf, against his doom.

The midrash Petirat Moshe completes the retreat from Moses …from his leadership of the People, from the prospect of entering the promised land…and finally from his body. But that is not the end. In Deuteronomy, Moses imagines the fate of the thousandth generation after the re-entry into Israel. He thinks of posterity, of the endurance of anything about him, as the continuing life and prosperity and spiritual purity of his people, generation from generation. But the Midrash Petirat Moshe turns to the ultimate in the internal drift of the story. An angel comes to relieve Moses’ soul from his body. His soul does not disappear. It is the irreducible essence of Moses. The body was merely lent for 120 years as its house…and now…at physical death…Moses’ soul ascends into the kingdom of the Eternal.

The vision of Jewish Integrated Time is realized for Moses. He activated the covenant that began with the forefathers, with its promise of both descent into Egypt and return. He led his people from Egypt across the Red Sea through all the way stations of the Torah. He prophesied their worldly fate – including eras of backsliding and punishment at the hands of outsiders – but eventual repentance, forgiveness and return. He conveyed the revelations from God that would guide the Jewish people through all their time on earth. And now, in the end, the invisible, irreducible, most internal part of Moses – is liberated to commune with the Eternal who created time rather than dwelling within it.

Hebrew original (from Midrash Petirat Moshe):
אָמַר לָהּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, נְשָׁמָה, צְאִי אַל תְּאַחֲרִי וַאֲנִי מַעֲלֶה אוֹתָךְ לִשְׁמֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם הָעֶלְיוֹנִים, וַאֲנִי מוֹשִׁיבֵךְ תַּחַת כִּסֵּא כְבוֹדִי אֵצֶל כְּרוּבִים וּשְׂרָפִים וּגְדוּדִים. אָמְרָה לְפָנָיו, רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, יוֹדַעַת אֲנִי שֶׁאַתָּה אֱלֹהַּ כָּל הָרוּחוֹת וְכָל הַנְּפָשׁוֹת, וּשְׁתֵּי רוּחוֹת בְּיָדְךָ, אַחַת לִיטֹּל וְאַחַת לְהַחֲזִיר, רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, אַתָּה בְּרָאתַנִי, אַתָּה יְצַרְתַּנִי, וְנָתַתָּ לִי גּוּפוֹ שֶׁל מֹשֶׁה מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה, עַכְשָׁיו יֵשׁ גּוּף טָהוֹר בָּעוֹלָם מִגּוּפוֹ שֶׁל מֹשֶׁה? בְּבַקָּשָׁה מִמְּךָ, תַּנִּיחֵנִי בְּגוּפוֹ שֶׁל מֹשֶׁה. בְּאוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה נְשָׁקוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא וְנָטַל נִשְׁמָתוֹ בִּנְשִׁיקַת פֶּה.

English translation:
The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her, “Soul, go out, do not delay, and I will raise you to the highest heavens, and I will seat you under the throne of My glory next to the Cherubim and Seraphim and hosts.” She said before Him, “Master of the world, I know that You are the God of all spirits and all souls, and two spirits are in Your hand, one to take and one to return. Master of the world, You created me, You formed me, and You gave me the body of Moses for one hundred and twenty years. Now, is there a body purer in the world than the body of Moses? Please, leave me in the body of Moses.” At that time, the Holy One, blessed be He, kissed him and took his soul with a kiss of the mouth.