Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 21 Elul, 5783

Today’s double portion is a little sad.  It is a reminder that even though we are about to enter the promised land, Moses is leaving us, we will have a new leader Joshua, and – eventually? We are going to end up back in Egypt.

Greeeeeat.

And Hashem gives us hope. Don’t beat ourselves up for this cycle…in 5784, we will discover NEW egypts in our lives. And new opportunities for Hashem to free us.  In a sense – this is really a good thing right?  Knowing we are never going to be done. Knowing we will never be perfect and get it fully right?

I am sitting with this idea of just relaxing, being, and trusting Hashem.  Instead of dragging an anchor around with us – we can rest and trust Hashem’s guidance.  What do you think?

Here’s my commentary from a year ago:

Continued from my thoughts on 3 Tishri 5782…

Next, Moses calls Joshua to him. In front of all of Israel. Moses tells Joshua the exact same thing he told the people. God has Joshua and will take care of him.

Next, we read that Moses THEN writes the entire Torah. He recounts all five books and hands them to the priests. This is interesting because God gave the Torah to Israel (through Moses) on Shavuot (which we learned about this summer). But the entire Torah was written down here. Right before we enter the promised land.

Todays portion closes with this:

Moses commanded them, telling them at the end of seven years – in the year following the sabbatical year (which by the way; 5782 was a sabbatical year- so we probably should pay attention to what Moses is telling us). So over the next year…

Moses tells them;

At the end of seven years (in the year following) the sabbatical year, during the holiday on the Festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot) when all Israel comes to appear before God, your God, in the place that He will choose:

(The king) should read this Torah before all of Israel, in their ears.

Assemble the people-the men, the women, and the minors, and the convert in your cities-in order that they will hear, and in order that they will learn and fear God, your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this Torah. Their children, who do not understand, will hear and learn to fear God, your God, all the days that you live on the land, of which you are crossing the Jordan to take possession.

So; on Sukkot (which starts sundown on October 9th) we are called to read the Torah. To pay special attention. We should get spiritually ready for this. This is the end of the Torah cycle – the last day of Sukkot runs into Simchat Torah- when we roll back the scroll and start over back in Genesis; beginning again!

To close, the Chumash I am reading from has this spiritual vitamin:

The common denominator that binds all Jews together, and serves as the basis for Jewish survival, cannot be considered in terms of territory, language or other cultural and social factors, since all these have changed over the course of history. The only things that have not changed in Jewish life are Sabbath observance, kosher food, tefillin, and all the other commandments of the Torah, both the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The more your daily life and conduct adheres to this pattern of Jewish living, the more you are attached to the Jewish people.”

The question becomes – just how attached do we want to be to the Jewish people?

What are your thoughts?