On the Loss of a Leader | V'Zos HaBracha 5785

I don’t remember when I first learned that the Torah ends with Moshe's death. I wish I did. It’s such a haunting ending that we too often take for granted because we have become so familiar with it.

In Franz Kafka’s Diaries, his entry for October 19, 1921, reflects on the ending of the Torah:

He has scented Canaan all his life; that he should see the land only before his death is unbelievable. This final prospect can only have the purpose of representing how incomplete a moment human life is, incomplete because this sort of life could last forever and yet the result would again be nothing but a moment. It is not because his life was too short that Moses does not reach Canaan, but because it was a human life.

As I once wrote in an article entitled, Unfinished Endings, there is a lot of wisdom in Kafka’s reading:

In Kafka’s reading, the Torah’s ending reflects the larger reality of human life itself, which is “nothing but a moment,” an exercise in incompleteness. Our personal narratives don’t fit neatly into a box. They don’t have ribbons on top and rarely end with group hugs. Human life ends unrequited, ever yearning, ever hoping. As Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg writes in her magisterial biography of Moses: “Veiled and unveiled, he remains lodged in the Jewish imagination, where, in his uncompleted humanity, he comes to represent the yet-unattained but attainable messianic future.”  

The uniqueness of the ending of the Torah is not just about how it ends but how it was transmitted. Those final 8 verses which tell of the death of Moshe are subject to a dispute in the Talmud as to how they were written:

אָמַר מָר: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ כָּתַב סִפְרוֹ וּשְׁמוֹנָה פְּסוּקִים שֶׁבַּתּוֹרָה. תַּנְיָא כְּמַאן דְּאָמַר: שְׁמוֹנָה פְּסוּקִים שֶׁבַּתּוֹרָה יְהוֹשֻׁעַ כְּתָבָן. דְּתַנְיָא ״וַיָּמׇת שָׁם מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד ה׳״ – אֶפְשָׁר מֹשֶׁה מֵת, וְכָתַב: ״וַיָּמׇת שָׁם מֹשֶׁה״?! אֶלָּא עַד כָּאן כָּתַב מֹשֶׁה, מִכָּאן וְאֵילָךְ כָּתַב יְהוֹשֻׁעַ; דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי יְהוּדָה, וְאָמְרִי לַהּ רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה.

The Master said above that Joshua wrote his own book and eight verses of the Torah. The Gemara comments: This baraita is taught in accordance with the one who says that it was Joshua who wrote the last eight verses in the Torah. This point is subject to a tannaitic dispute, as it is taught in another baraita: “And Moses the servant of the Lord died there” (Deuteronomy 34:5); is it possible that after Moses died, he himself wrote “And Moses died there”? Rather, Moses wrote the entire Torah until this point, and Joshua wrote from this point forward; this is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. And some say that Rabbi Neḥemya stated this opinion.

אָמַר לוֹ רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן: אֶפְשָׁר סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה חָסֵר אוֹת אַחַת, וּכְתִיב: ״לָקֹחַ אֵת סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה הַזֶּה״?! אֶלָּא עַד כָּאן הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אוֹמֵר – וּמֹשֶׁה אוֹמֵר וְכוֹתֵב; מִכָּאן וְאֵילָךְ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אוֹמֵר – וּמֹשֶׁה כּוֹתֵב בְּדֶמַע, כְּמוֹ שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר לְהַלָּן: ״וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם בָּרוּךְ: מִפִּיו יִקְרָא אֵלַי אֵת כׇּל הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, וַאֲנִי כּוֹתֵב עַל הַסֵּפֶר בַּדְּיוֹ״.

Rabbi Shimon said to him: Is it possible that the Torah scroll was missing a single letter? But it is written: “Take this Torah scroll” (Deuteronomy 31:26), indicating that the Torah was complete as is and that nothing further would be added to it. Rather, until this point the Holy One, Blessed be He, dictated and Moses repeated after Him and wrote the text. From this point forward, with respect to Moses’ death, the Holy One, Blessed be He, dictated and Moses wrote with tears. The fact that the Torah was written by way of dictation can be seen later, as it is stated concerning the writing of the Prophets: “And Baruch said to them: He dictated all these words to me, and I wrote them with ink in the scroll” (Jeremiah 36:18).

Not only does the Torah end in such a sad way but there are actual Talmudic opinions that state Moshe did not even write the final eight verses! How could it be that our teacher Moshe was not given the privilege, at the very least, of completing his own book?!

Whichever opinion is accepted, the final eight verses of the Torah are endowed with a special halachic status, as explored in detail by Rabbi Daniel Z. Feldman in his article, “The Last Eight Pesukim in the Torah.” As opposed to the normal conventions of kriyas haTorah, the public Torah reading, the Talmud says that יָחִיד קוֹרֵא אוֹתָן—plainly, meaning an individual can read them. The exact meaning of this halacha is a widespread dispute among the commentators, carefully discussed and presented by Rabbi Feldman.

Still, we are left with the gnawing question of why the Torah ends so unconventionally. Would it not have been a greater honor for Moshe to be able to finish the Torah without any halachic questions or special status hovering over the ending?

To understand this, let’s explore some of the controversies that emerged in the wake of the passing of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik.

Read the rest on Substack, and listen to the full shiur above!