Concealed – Revealed: Parashat Vayelekh/Shabat Shuvah/Yom Kippur

Parashat vayeilekh
Parashat Vayelekh/Shabat Shuvah/Yom Kippur

Deuteronomy 31:1-30 

Our very short Torah portion is read this year on the Shabbat between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur. This Shabbat is called Shabbat Shuvah – the Shabbat of Return (or Repentance). According to tradition, these words are spoken by Moses on the very day of his death. Although he has been speaking to the Israelites for many days, with his words comprising the entire book of Deuteronomy, he senses the urgency of these last moments and makes an extra effort to attend to every detail necessary to insure that Israel will be able to continue without him.

A number of issues are uppermost in his mind. One is the issue of leadership. Joshua is reaffirmed as Moses’s successor. He will deal with their national needs as they enter their new land. But another, primary concern is insuring the connection between Israel and God. Moses has been the link holding these two covenantal partners together. What will take his place after he dies?

Moses’ answer is to write down the Torah in a scroll. This scroll is an addition to God’s gift of the two Tablets of the Law, ensconced in the ark. Now Moses adds, at God’s behest, a humanly created document, a scroll of the Torah, placing it beside God’s Tablets.

Unlike the heavy, rigid stones given by God, the scroll is flexible. And, unlike the stone Tablets, it contains a text that cannot be apprehended all at once, as the Ten Commandments could be, incised, as they were, on the face of the stone. No, the Torah text, in scroll format, can only be seen a little at a time. As one proceeds to read the text one must uncover more text, previously invisible, and one must roll up the text already read, covering it over.
Moses’ Torah is thus a moving document that reveals itself and conceals itself continuously. We may now understand how Moses sees how this Torah scroll will help us in the future. He warns that, if we abandon God, God’s Face will be hidden from us. (Deut. 31:18) How, then, will we be able to find God again? The next verse explains: “Now, write for yourselves this song (= this Torah) and teach it to the Children of Israel, putting it in their mouths, so that this Torah will be a witness for Me among the Children of Israel.” (v. 19)

The Torah scroll is our instrument for return. If we learn to read her words, we will be able to find the Hidden, Hiding God precisely in the Torah scroll, a scroll that hides and reveals its text as we proceed to read from it. The Torah scroll will be a concrete witness for God’s Presence, sometimes hidden and then rediscovered. In this world our discoveries of God’s Presence are never static or permanent. But the Torah scroll tells us that God’s hiddenness does not have to be permanent, either. We need but to continue peering into the scroll and continue rolling it toward new discoveries.

May we all be written in the Scroll of Life!
Rabbi David Greenstein

 


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image:  “Tree in a Foggy Jungle © Babak Farrokh adapted and used with permission via Creative Commons License.

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