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Naomi Graetz

Reviewing a Difficult year: Sukkot and Simchat Torah

For me, last year ended on October 7th. I never thought that would be the case when I started writing my first blog in June 2022. By nature, I am somewhat pessimistic, as those of you who have been faithfully reading my blog know. But here and there had been rays of light, until last year. 2023-2024 has gone by so fast—most people I know have commented on this. Everyone except for those in captivity and their families who have spent an excruciatingly long year and have suffered every minute of each day. I am not looking forward to Simchat Torah, which is the yahrzeit for the more than 1200 children, women and men who were massacred by Hamas. Despite Yahya Sinwar’s death, a year after October 7th, I am not ready to rejoice and celebrate the holiday. There is still too much uncertainty and ill will out there.

Every year on Simchat Torah we finish reading the Five Books of the Torah and then begin at the beginning by reading about the creation of the world. Devarim (Deuteronomy) ends with Moses’s death when he is fully capable, both mentally and physically: “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated” (Deut 33:7). Genesis begins with the creation of the world, climaxed by humanity’s birth in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and the conclusion of Creation with the statement va-yechulu ha-shamayim ve-haretz ve-kal tzeva-am (Genesis 2:1-3) which we recite every Friday night at kiddush, the blessing over the wine. Last year many synagogues in Israel did not conclude the Five Books, nor did they begin reading breshit, as was the case in our synagogue in Omer. We were sitting in our shelters, under attack.

In the Hallel, which we recite every day during the holiday, there is a phrase which suddenly resonated with me: “The dead cannot praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence”–לא המתים יהללו יה ולא כל ירדי דומה . Since we usually sing these words from Psalm 115: 17 I never really pay attention to them. However, as has been the case with so many familiar prayers, this last year they have taken on new meanings. The words made me think of all of the dead and those who are isolated down in the tunnels in silence by themselves. I shared these thoughts in an impromptu sermon which triggered quite a discussion. We do not know where Moses is buried as is the case with many of our dead. Are they rotting in tunnels? Or have they been temporarily buried until they will be returned to us. And what of the condition of those who are still alive?

In Genesis the human race is created and placed in the paradise of Eden from which (spoiler alert) they will soon be kicked out for the sin of seeking knowledge. In addition to the Torah readings, there is a haftarah reading on Simchat Torah about Joshua, who will enter and conquer the land of Israel (more or less). We have a long and bitter history with this land and this year the Yizkor prayer, when we remember our dead will be unbearable. On Yom Kippur we read all 101 names of the kidnapped, many of whom are probably dead. One of the very meaningful customs on Simchat Torah is the blessing over the children when they are called up for a special aliyah:

The Messenger who has redeemed me (hamalach ha-goel oti) from all harm—Bless the lads. In them may my name be recalled, And the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, And may they be teeming multitudes upon the earth.”

We sing the haunting melody of hamalach ha-goel oti from Genesis 48:15 while all of the children are gathered under a huge tallit. Even that prayer takes on new meaning this year, when I think of all the babies and children who were killed and those who are now orphaned. Will this blessing help them? The holidays are not yet over. We are in the midst of a war. My daughter who is a pulpit rabbi in Haifa was in the synagogue’s miklat (shelter) for part of the Yom Kippur service. Nothing seems to have changed, but everything has. After the holidays, I go back to teaching (on Halloween no less). Beit Avichai is on vacation, so I can sleep in—but I miss my morning routine. Now we say modadim le-simchah instead of shabbat shalom and then soon we will have to remember to say shabbat shalom instead of hag sameach. Right before Succot I did the minimum in setting up our succah, because I was not in the mood to be happy and also we no longer entertain in it, like we used to. And Simchat Torah is going to be one big crying fest–mourning amidst the “joy” of dancing with the sifrei torah.

YOU SHALL NOT CROSS OVER THERE

Upon finishing the Torah reading for Deuteronomy in which Moses goes up to Mount Nebo, I note again and again (every year) how God is exceedingly cruel: He shows Moses the entire land of Israel in detail and even reminds him that this is the land in which He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and then adds, “I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there” (Deut. 34:4). In Hebrew it is very stark “ve-shama lo ta’avor!” It seems so cruel; years ago, when I finished reading, the rabbi said, don’t worry, he’ll be born again next year when we get to Shemot (Exodus). But this year is a real downer, because so many people did not survive the year and will not be born again. The fact is every time I read this, I think of the unfairness of God. There is even a mention of the mei merivah in the second Aliyah: “And of Levi he said: Let Your Thummim and Urim Be with Your faithful one, Whom You tested at Massah, Challenged at the waters of Meribah” (Deut 33:8). Is this a foreshadowing meant to justify God’s unfair treatment of his beloved Moshe, by reminding us of his original sin of hitting the rock rather than speaking to it?  So much of zot haberacha is unintelligible. One wonders why the redactors of the Torah inserted it here, except to remind us that we will inherit the land and of course the twelve tribes are mentioned in this portion.

If we look at the Shabbat Torah reading of the intermediate days (hol ha-moed) we see the jealous God – el kanah. Here too I wonder at the choice of this passage. True, at its end we are told to observe hag ha’asif, i.e. succot (Exodus 34:22-23). But most of the reading is about how God is enchanted with Moses, who finds favor with God. He speaks to Moses and reassures him of his specialness and will even allow him a glimpse of his back. A naïve reader, coming to the synagogue for the first time would find it discordant that this God who loves Moses so much on shabbat hol hamoed, kills him off two days later on Simchat Torah,  and then buries him in an unmarked grave. Chilling isn’t it, when we think about what happened last year on Simchat Torah.

Classical Commentators

I wondered if some of the classical commentators were uncomfortable with this as well. One of the questions they ask has to do with the repetition of shamah lo ta-avor since we already know that Moses won’t be going to the promised land.

The Italian biblical commentator, Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno (1475- 1549) addresses this:

שמה לא תעבור, so that by your crossing the river your blessing would not invalidate the decree issued by Me, that if the sins of the Jewish people were to reach a certain measure that they would be expelled from the land. [According to what the author explained on Deut.1,35-39 it was the fact that Moses was forbidden to cross the Jordan although personally not guilty of accepting the assessment of the 10 spies who counseled against trying to conquer the land, that preserved their chance to participate in the resurrection of the dead when the time would come for this. Our sages subscribe to the concept that whatever Moses did had enduring, eternal validity, provided it had been based on a valid premise. A blessing after setting foot in the Holy Land would have been of more enduring value than one pronounced when not on holy soil. Denying Moses the chance to pronounce his blessing while on holy soil, indirectly benefited the whole generation of the people who were adults at the time of the Exodus. It preserved their chance to participate in the resurrection, as did the fact that Moses was buried outside the Holy Land, and his appearance at the resurrection without the people whom he had shepherded for 40 years would be embarrassing for him. Ed.]

The Ashkenazi (Polish) exegete, Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (1785-1865), author of Haketav VehaKabbalah is one of the less apologetic commentators. It is clear from his opening statement that he is uncomfortable with God’s actions. He writes:

God forbid (challilah) that God meant to cause sorrow to the one who was faithful to him, by showing him the land that he had given his soul to, and to increase his heartache by saying that he was prevented from going there. It is usual to precede the major points by the minor ones, and to precede the negative which is the main thing by saying “you shall not go there”.  The word there (shamah) is the main [negative] thing. And the [minor, positive] intention is to show the details and the division of the land by tribes and all the things that will take place in the future. All the wonderful things that will happen to the nation until the end of days are beyond the capacity of the ordinary person to see in his physical life. One can also say that this phrase of ‘lo ta-avor’ is a “voluntary negation”, that is, you do not need to go there because you have already seen the land and the future [free translation and paraphrase].

Despite these lovely and interesting justifications for that one particular phrase, I have one more problem with the end of the Torah reading. The usual understanding of Moses’ state of mind when he died is how wonderful it is that at age a hundred and twenty years old, he saw clearly and was in full strength “his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated” (Deut 33:7). When someone dies, we usually compliment the person by saying, isn’t it wonderful that he had all his critical faculties before dying, that he was aware until the very last minute, that he was able to communicate with us and tell us his wishes and say goodbye. But I wonder. Surely, it is luckier for the person to be demented before she dies and to not understand that she is leaving the world, rather than to be told, that because of her sins, like the condemned person before her electrocution, she is going to die. Certainly, from the perspective of the living, it is wonderful that we have a chance to say goodbye and know that the person recognizes us. But I am not sure that if we reversed the situation, that the person who is dying sees it in the same way. I think we, the readers and commentators on the Torah “doth protest too much” in our positive spin of Moses’ death and non-entry into the land of Israel.

Since in the diaspora, many people are still observing the holiday, I wish you all a continued happy holiday–moadim le-simcha, chagim uz-manim le-sasson; to those of us in Israel, I wish us all a happier year than the last one.

 

About the Author
Naomi Graetz taught English at Ben Gurion University of the Negev for 35 years. She is the author of Unlocking the Garden: A Feminist Jewish Look at the Bible, Midrash and God; The Rabbi’s Wife Plays at Murder ; S/He Created Them: Feminist Retellings of Biblical Stories (Professional Press, 1993; second edition Gorgias Press, 2003), Silence is Deadly: Judaism Confronts Wifebeating and Forty Years of Being a Feminist Jew. Since Covid began, she has been teaching Bible and Modern Midrash from a feminist perspective on zoom. She began her weekly blog for TOI in June 2022. Her book on Wifebeating has been translated into Hebrew and is forthcoming with Carmel Press in 2025.
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