V'Zot HaBerachah

In Israel, they're the same day.

It gets a bit confusing, but we read typically the very end, so we read V'zot HaBracha, read up to the end, and then in many synagogues, including this one, we unroll the scroll, the whole Sefer Torah, and re-roll it the other direction, and then start reading B'reishit.

And there's become all sorts of customs that have developed around Simchat Torah.

Custom, one of them is calling up someone for the special honor of reading the last bit of the Torah, the Chatan or Kalat Torah, and the first bit of Breshit, the Chatan or Kalat Breshit.

But I, I wanna do a little bit more today.

I wanna g-get into Vezot Habrachah.

But two, uh, two more, two more points.

First of all, why is it die like Aharon died? And that's what it's like.

...it's not explicit about Miriam's because it would have been a lack of, um, modesty if it says that Miriam died thing.

Okay.

Uh, finally, how does this lead into Parashat Vezot Habrachah? This is the final thing.

Well, let's read the next pasuk of Vezot Habrachah and you'll see.

We are in the second to last Torah portion.

V'zot HaBracha is the last Torah portion.

But because we don't read it until Simchat Torah, it's not a Shabbat assignment.

It is the Simchat Torah assignment for reading.

This is a big one because, of course, this Shabbat is the last portion that will be read on a Shabbat.

The last portion of Zot HaBracha is read, of course, on Simchas Torah.

So this is a big one, everybody.

Let's get going.

It is such a profound scenario.

I mean, we're looking specifically at the biblical portions of Ha'azinu and V'Zot HaBerachah in Deuteronomy, but...

And this is the fun part, we are pairing the raw text with centuries of classical commentary.

Right, the heavy hitters.

That makes so much sense because as long as Moses is in the room, he pulls all the gravity, but that blazing sun is about to set.

Which brings us to the final hours.

Following the song, Moses gives his final individual blessings to the tribes in the portion of V'Zot HaBerachah.

The final goodbyes.

Ha'aretz asher anoten libnei Yisrael, to the land that I'm going to give bnei Yisrael.

Now, important to note, if we read this as a parasha and we're done, we don't think about it, and every year it's several weeks till we get to the next parasha because we go through all of Sukkot and then only at the end we get Simchat Torah and read Vezot HaBracha.

We don't pay attention to how this is juxtaposed to the next chapter.

Even if we read it directly and not stopping for a couple of weeks at this point, we also don't see the juxtaposition so clearly because all of chapter 33, the next perek, is Moshe's blessing to bnei Yisrael, which of course the sequence of that is somewhat difficult.

However, one thing is fairly clear, and that is that perek lamedet dalet, the 12 verses that end the Torah, pick up from this point, which means you really have to read a single narrative from lamedet bet mem chet, chapter 32, verse 48.

These five verses, along with the 12 verses in chapter 34, as one narrative that of course is interrupted with chapter 33, and that's the narrative of the death of Moshe.

It really begins here and it's picked up there, which I'm sure will be interpreted in a beautiful fashion in the Vezot HaBracha podcast series.

And I just want to again give my appreciation and thanks to the Orthodox Union and specifically to Rabbi Abramowitz for giving me the opportunity to study many parashot with you through this wonderful medium.