1.
We haven't even had time to bid farewell to our sukkahs and Simchat Torah is already upon us. It is difficult to find a parallel to Simchat Torah in other cultures. It is not just a religious holiday, but a holiday in honor of the intellect, the very act of studying, the Torah, and everything that derives from it: customs and Halacha, constitution and law, morality and philosophy, history and culture, and more. The joy in the Book determines our relationship to it, even before we engage in studying it. In the thousands of years we have existed as a people, we have built on the foundation of the Torah a tremendous textual and intellectual skyscraper, the likes of which no nation has bequeathed its descendants. Each generation donated a room or a whole floor and populated it with books and ideas. And every one of us can, if we so wish, visit every floor of this magnificent building and draw from the fountain of generations.
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As ambassador to Italy, I used to visit the various synagogues in Rome regularly. As is the custom of the exiles, in Italy Simchat Torah is celebrated as a two-day holiday. On the first day, the holiday is celebrated as written in the Torah: "On the eighth day (of Sukkot) you shall have a gathering..." But it is only on the second day of Simchat Torah that they would finish the annual Torah reading cycle as in Israel. My children had remained in Israel and the coronavirus was in full swing. On the eve of the holiday, I called home and asked my daughter Darya, who, at the time was eight-and-a-half years old, if she would like to join me for the end of the Torah cycle.
Video: Thousands attend Sukkot 'Priestly Blessings' at Jerusalem's Western Wall / Credit: Reuters
2.
She replied enthusiastically that she would love to and together we read the verses of Torah portion and I explained to her the meaning of words that were difficult for her to understand. For children, there is no essential difference between the linguistic registers; the only difference is that one is vernacular and the other is literary. We noticed in the last chapter of the Torah that the important thing for Moses before his death was to see the Land to which he had led his people but would not enter. "Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land …. And the Lord said to him, 'This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will assign it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there." How sad it is that Moses did not enter the Land he dreamed of, how sad it is for a leader not to complete his mission. But how important it is to learn from them that it is not our duty to finish the work, but neither are we at liberty to neglect it, because each generation carries, in its own way, the march of existence of the People.
"So, Moses the servant of the Lord died there… and [the Lord] buried… and no one knows his burial place to this day." So, do you understand, my child, what grace was bestowed upon us when Moses' grave was hidden from us? Otherwise, we would have become a religion based around a holy tomb and the People would have made pilgrimage to Moses' tomb; with time his stature would have grown until he had transcended mere flesh and blood. But the Torah of Moses is greater than Mosemessenger the idea is greater than the man who was its messengers and therefore it is eternal.
"Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the Israelites heeded him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses." Despite the pain, Moses made sure he had a successor, and that the People of Israel would accept Joshua son of Nun as their leader. Moses laid his hands upon Joshua; in other words, he entrusted Joshua with his authority. A people accustomed from its very dawn to a leader who took care of them like a father would feel orphaned in his passing and therefore it is important to make sure there is a worthy successor.
3.
These are the last verses of the Torah: "Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom the Lord singled out, face to face, for the various signs and portents that the Lord sent him to display in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, and for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel." And then spontaneously we both said to each other over the phone "Hazak, hazak, ve-nithazek" [a Hebrew phrase meaning "be strong, be strong and may we be strengthened" that is said on completion of each of the Five Books of Moses).
The prophecy of Moses is different from the other prophecies. The image employed in the Torah is that of a close and intimate relationship between Moses and his God (the Sages and commentators expanded, but right now I am studying this with my daughter). What was special about Moses, was it the signs and wonders shown against Egypt and Pharaoh? All right. I suggested reading Rashi's final commentary on the Torah: "Before the eyes of all of Israel – This refers to the fact that his heart inspired him to shatter the Tablets before their eyes, as it is said, '(Thereupon I gripped the two Tablets and flung them away with both my hands) And I broke them before your eyes.' (In other words, this was a spontaneous act by Moses), and the opinion of the Holy One, blessed be He, regarding this action agreed with his opinion, as it is stated that God said of the Tablets, "Which you have broken," [which implies] "May your strength be fitting [well done!] because you have broken them."
The final thing that Rashi wanted to stress at the end of the Torah was the act of breaking the Tablets after seeing the golden calf. Moses was also an educator. He understood that if he gave the people the Tablets despite what they had done, they may have replaced the golden calf and worshiped the tablets because they were the work of God. By breaking them, he taught the people that it is not the physical tablets that matter – important as they may be – but the words and ideas engraved upon the Tablets. As with the story of the burial of Moses, it is not man who matters, and certainly not the stones of the Tablets, but ideas that transcend time and remain even after a person dies and the stones have crumbled.
4.
And then we read from Genesis and rushed on to the Haphtarah. Dad, what's a haphtarah? When a person dies, we say he has passed on and we bid him farewell. When we finish reading from the Torah portion, we bid it farewell by reading a similar portion from the Prophets known as the Haftarah [which comes from the same Hebrew root as niftar – deceased]. "After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, God said to Joshua son of Nun… 'My servant Moses is dead. Prepare to cross the Jordan, together with alltheses People, into the Land that I am giving to the Israelites. Every spot on which your foot treads I give to you, as I promised Moses…As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and resolute."
Joshua steps into big shoes, so God strengthens him and instills in him confidence that he will succeed in the great task of bringing the People into the Land and establishing a kingdom there. You see, my daughter, even great people need reinforcement and encouragement, even a mighty sea needs strong rocks to crash on.
5.
Then my daughter Darya remembered that while she was still in kindergarten, when we read the weekly Torah portion together, she asked when we would study the book of Joshua, and maybe it was time because she was very curious to get to know the man who replaced Moses. So, we decided to study the whole book. The next day she called me in Rome and said she had eaten too many potatoes and wasn't feeling well; perhaps, she asked, we could read the second chapter of the Book of Joshua together, until her stomach settled. And so, thanks to the potatoes, we learned the chapter about the spies, about Rahab in Jericho, and the scarlet cord in her window. Darya read aloud the last verse of the chapter: "And they said to Joshua: 'God has delivered the whole land into our power; in fact, all the inhabitants of the land are quaking before us'."
And this conversation with my daughter was far dearer and precious to me than any conversation with the country's nobles and its great leaders: A father and his daughter studying Torah, he in Rome, and she in Rehovot, Israel, oblivious to the bustle of the world knocking at their door.
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