Dan Bethlehem – Year 11

An important part of this week’s parashah is God telling Moshe that he will see the land of Israel, but not be able to enter it and instead die alone on a mountain top. Many see this as a punishment that is extremely cruel and overbearing, as it denies Moses the fruit of his life’s work for a single slip-up.

However, looking at this from a different perspective can cause it to make a bit more sense. Moshe has constantly preached to the Jewish people about how one must listen to and revere God throughout their journey out of Egypt to the promised land. However, he contradicts these declarations on multiple occasions, whether that be his infamous act of “hitting the rock” or a number of other occasions in which he loses his patience and is overly angry with the people. Despite this, staying faithful to God is what the parashah is really about, speaking of how Ya’akov and his descendants strayed from God’s light and sacrificed to “strange gods”.

In considering Moshe’s ultimate fate, I believe these actions of Moshe and what he requires of the people are meant to ‘play off’ each other and better illuminate God’s actions. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, in addition to being partial to a dash of divine smiting, then listening to Him is probably a good idea. I believe that the biblical author has used this opportunity to demonstrate that even those who are most faithful to God can stray from his illuminated path and towards sin. Beyond this point, we can see that the deeper message is to listen to those close to us, and not act or speak harshly to them just because we are having a bad day or that we disagree with what they have done. If we do so, the consequences might be far greater than we would have thought.