By Rabbi Abraham Unger, Ph.D.
Executive Director
This Week’s Torah Portion
We Need One Another
On the last day of Moses’ life, he has one final message. The whole people is gathered, across the generations. All are included, from the laborers to the tribal heads. No Israelite is absent. The covenant – the one from Sinai that established the Law – is renewed, but this time, with a new dimension. That revelation at Sinai bound each individual to the Torah. This gathering, as Moses takes in his final breaths, binds each individual to every other person assembled.
The Kli Yakar, a 16th century Rabbinic commentary, states that this new covenantal moment is about mutual responsibility. We watch each other, because we need each other.
The Kli Yakar suggests that we are all accountable to each other, and in holding each other accountable, we sustain a more ethical society. In exhorting us to stay close as a Jewish people, Moses is reminding us that community is a basic human need. Like a parent, Moses wants his sibling children to stay bound together as a family.
We are living in fractious times, even as a Jewish community. We are only human, and differences will arise. But the Torah is teaching us that we must always remember we stood at the foot of the mountain together, we received the Law together, and we promised to keep each other warm when the night seemed darkest.
Can you hear Moses’ final exhortation? He is calling to every member of the Jewish community, telling us we need to remember the mutuality of responsibility every child of Israel shares. I am connected to you, and you to me. Of all the lofty sermons Moses could have given on his last day, all he asked was that we remember how much we need each other.
Weekly Parenting Message from the Parsha
Moses the Grandfather
Books on child-rearing overwhelmingly stress the role of parents. That’s understandable. Parents bring their children into the world and typically raise them in their home. But, what of grandparents? We all have a sense of the importance of their role, but it is not so clearly defined.
In this week’s Parsha, the Torah gives shape to the role of the grandparent and the special relationship between grandchild and grandparent. On the last day of his life, Moses gathers the whole Jewish people to recommit themselves to the covenant. Curiously, the Torah mentions that small children were also included in this assembly, even those who, as Rashi implies, may not be developmentally able to recognize the significance of this event.
Moses here is doing what grandparents do. He is softly introducing the youngest child to something special that will make a lasting impression. Moses knows the toddler may not remember him or this event strongly, but an imprint will remain on the child’s soul.
Permit me an example. Theodor Herzl, who launched the Jewish people’s return to sovereignty in the Land of Israel, did not suddenly discover his Jewish commitment as an adult as most historians claim. He had a grandfather, who was a pious Jew brimming with conviction which he transmitted to young Theodor on his knee. Herzl’s grandfather was the gabbai, the lead officer, in the synagogue of Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, an early advocate for restoring Jewish independence in the Land of Israel.
Last month, the remains of Theodor Herzl’s grandparents were removed from Europe and buried in Israel. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog commented, “Dreams are not bequeathed in writing. They pass at the Shabbat table, they pass in the living room, they pass in the story a grandfather tells his grandson.” Moses invited the children to hear his retelling of the covenant because he knew that they will carry it forward. Grandparents provide our children with a compass as they navigate their world.