What is a blessing you could use today?
Beyond being cliched auto-pilot expressions - the blessings we choose to share with each other carry the potential power of bringing out the best in us. Even a quick ‘bless you’ to a sneezing stranger can bestow not just a sincere wish for health but also break ice and reveal intimacy, deepen connections. Blessings are most often at the most potent when they occur at the thresholds of our lives.
Moses, one chapter away from the last breath, knows that it’s time to deliver, and perhaps receive, one big final blessing.
What is the meaning of this final overture? Who and what exactly does he choose to bless?
וְזֹ֣את הַבְּרָכָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר בֵּרַ֥ךְ מֹשֶׁ֛ה אִ֥ישׁ הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל לִפְנֵ֖י מוֹתֽוֹ׃
This is the blessing with which Moses, a man of God, bade the Israelites farewell before he died.
It is understood that the words ‘this blessing’ refers to the what follows next - the continued content of this chapter, with poetic, seemingly coded blessings for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, one by one.
The Hebrew noun ‘B’racha’ - ‘blessing’, echoes the Arabic ‘Baraka’, and this word does not appear that often through Torah in its noun form - only found on the two thresholds - the beginning and the end of the story.
It’s almost as though the blessing appears at the two sides of the doorway leading us into and out of the five books, a Mezuza, echoing the promise made by Moses just four chapters ago:
בָּר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בְּבֹאֶ֑ךָ וּבָר֥וּךְ אַתָּ֖ה בְּצֵאתֶֽךָ:
Blessed are you in your comings, and blessed shall you be in your goings.
Deut 28:6
The first appearance of the word B’eracha is in Genesis 12:2: The Great father of the nation, Abraham, gets going on the journey that will become the Hebrew people’s destiny, heading to an unknown land. The divine promise that makes him feel safe as he begins to walk is “you shall be a blessing (וֶהְיֵה בְּרָכָה).”
Dr.Adriane Leveen echoes the Hasidic teachings on this verse, and writes about Mixed Blessings, the complexity that blessings can carry, and how important this idea is in the Torah:
“God relies on humans to bring blessing into the world…
..Yet humans, and even blessings, are often sources of anguish and strife. So it is in the next story in which ‘blessing’ appears—that of Jacob and Esau.
Jacob takes the blessing meant for Esau and engenders resentment in his brother (Gen 27: 12-41). The tension, long-boiling between the brothers, explodes once Isaac prepares to bless only one of his sons. Thus does the story problematize an exclusive blessing given at the expense of another. Many years later, Jacob offers Esau a blessing that leads to reconciliation (Gen 33:11). Blessings are most efficacious when extended to others.”
The binary blessings of Genesis play out in subtle and no so subtle ways that prioritize one brother/heir over the other - Cain/Abel, Isaac/Ishmael - all the way to Joseph and his brothers. This is even played out, on some level, with Moses and Aaron - and the various leadership styles and invitations that they represent. Some Jewish traditions and historical eras preferred Aaron’s blessing - the temple based priestly practice of sacrifices as a way to live a life of sacred communal truth. Others, preferring Moses - would focus more on the books, the words, the Torah that will guide us wherever we are, regardless of centralized rituals. The two forms are not always in harmony, with conflicts and tensions between these religious models still very much alive for us today. Whoever wrote the Book of Words is keenly aware of these tensions and chooses to bring the blessing through the last words of the Man of Words.
Towards the end, before his speech is done, and his last exhale, Moses imagines a blessing that echoes back to the beginning and extends the blessing to everyone - beyond binaries. Perhaps it’s his wish, or those who wrote this book with his voice in their head, for the people to live on safe and sound, responding to conflicts with a sense that transcends strife, with abundance and generous love?
Dr Leveen wrote:
“Genesis has taught that ‘blessing’ works best, without unintended grievances, if extended to others. In Deuteronomy, Moses expands ‘blessing’ to include all of Jacob’s sons, the tribes of Israel.
The next step would be to spread these blessings beyond the people of Israel. How much all the peoples of the earth need such blessings is beyond dispute. Blessings and curses remain ours to choose and reject. Both are actualized through people, God’s agents in the world.”
So what’s the blessing that you need today? And who can you bless as this week begins ? To whom will you extend a blessing as we mark this threshold in Torah and our private journeys, made more aware perhaps of others in our lives, coming or going, who could benefit from the blessing of a sincere B’racha?
Tomorrow!
Ready for Joshua? On 10/25 we bury Moses, close the Torah, cross the Jordan River into Canaan along with Joshua, entering ‘Prophets’ - the second section of the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Joshua is 24 chapters long and I invite you for a one-month journey of politics and myth, power and conquest, then and now. What’s at stake when land becomes a homeland?
Tomorrow, 10/24 1pm ET I will be joined by Dr. Rachel Havrelock, author of The Joshua Generation and Rabbi David Kline, to get ready for the Journey with Joshua.
Join us to get ready on this free 60 min. Zoom conversation:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85448738911?pwd=dmRIRndNNDhjaXZsVjh5K3dSYUdLQT09
Meeting ID: 854 4873 8911
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections: Join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible, with daily reflections, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. January 2022-July 2025
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