52: Vayeilech
Welcome to TLDR Torah: a synopsis of the weekly parsha based on Robert Alter’s translation, plus a question to spur your Shabbat dinner (or any!) conversation.
Parsha Vayeilech (Deuteronomy 31:1-30)
TLDR:
At 120 years old, Moses publicly announces that he won’t take the Israelites into the land of Canaan. No other leader comes close to him by age.
Instead, Joshua, with God’s support, will lead the way.
Moses writes down this book (referring to Deuteronomy), hands it to the priests for safekeeping, and directs the people to read it aloud every 7 years during Sukkot.
God beckons Moses and Joshua to the Tabernacle, and God confers leadership authority to Joshua (previously, only Moses — not God — handed the reigns to Joshua in public. Should the sequence here have been reversed?)
Rather than giving an inspirational leadership chat, God tells Moses that the people will do bad things in the future, so bad things will happen to them.
And how will this prediction be memorialized? By song. God tells Moses to write the song down so it can be a “witness against the Israelites.” As you will see, God is about to give a lesson in mnemonics.
Moses writes the song down, tells Joshua to be strong, and then gives the book he writes (which includes the song? it’s unclear) to the Priests.
Even now, Moses uses the opportunity to accuse the people of doing something shady: “while I am still alive with you today you have have rebelled against the Lord.” There’s an element of a love-hate relationship between Moses and the people; they were the source of his greatest accomplishments and failures.
Moses recites the song, which you’ll have to wait for next week…
Question:
Technical question: why is the Torah read during Sukkot of all holidays?
Would you rather: choose an option - (1) you read a 1,200 page book every year in ~1 day (2) you read 23 pages (1/52) of the book every week for a year?
Actual question: if there’s even a slight chance (say 1%) of a group of people acting badly, then purely by the law of large numbers they will eventually be bad for a period of time. So God’s predication that they will “be bad” isn’t that bold of a prediction to make, nor should it affront conceptions of free choice. But knowing that (and clearly the Israelites knew of God’s predictions; they sing about it!), how would you think it changes current behavior? Does it increase or decrease the likelihood of the prediction coming to fruition?