The Last Walk

My husband baked twenty-four loaves of challah for Rosh Hashanah. Two dozen.

Our kitchen looked like a bakery that had lost control of its inventory. Round challot for the new year — some plain, some with raisins — stacked on every available surface, wrapped in paper bags, cooling on racks.

The thing about our challah is that people have opinions about it. Strong opinions. The kind of opinions that make someone at the Rosh Hashanah dinner say, with complete seriousness, that she was packing two extra loaves in her carry-on for her family in Cincinnati.

Homemade. Kosher. Braided by hand in our kitchen.

Apparently this is better than what most people are used to, and once you've had it, store-bought is a hard sell. I can't say we disagree.

I watched the loaves go out the door — to friends, to the people at the dinners we we attended — and I kept thinking about a verse from this week's parsha.

Parashat Vayeilech is the shortest portion in the Torah. Thirty verses. It covers the last day of Moshe's life, and the first word tells you everything: vayeilech — and he went. On his last day, the leader does not summon the people. He goes to them.

וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֛ר אֶת־הַדְּבָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

Moses went and spoke these things to all Israel.

Devarim 31:1

He is a hundred and twenty years old. He knows he will not cross the Jordan. God has told him as much. And his response — on the last day, knowing what he knows — is to walk to the people and speak to them.

He does not retreat. He does not grieve in private, or at least the text doesn't record it. He goes.

What does he say when he gets there? Two things. First: I am old, and I cannot lead you anymore. Second: be strong.

חִזְק֣וּ וְאִמְצ֔וּ אַל־תִּֽירְא֥וּ וְאַל־תַּעַרְצ֖וּ מִפְּנֵיהֶ֑ם כִּ֣י ׀ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ ה֚וּא הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ עִמָּ֔ךְ לֹ֥א יַרְפְּךָ֖ וְלֹ֥א יַעַזְבֶֽךָּ׃ {ס}        

Be strong and resolute; be not in fear or in dread of them, for it is indeed the ETERNAL your God who marches with you—who will not fail you or forsake you.

Devarim 31:6

Chizku v'imtzu. Be strong and resolute. He says it to the people in verse 6. He says it again to Joshua in verse 7. God says it to Joshua in verse 23. Three times in thirty verses. The parsha has one message and it means it.

This is Shabbat Shuva — the Shabbat of Return, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We stood for judgment. We will stand again.

The days between are supposed to be for teshuvah — turning, examining, repairing. It is a strange week. You have just heard the shofar with all those piercing blasts meant to wake something up in you, and then the ordinary world returns and you have to take out the recycling and answer emails. The urgency of the shofar fades before the kitchen is clean.

Vayeilech lands on this Shabbat and it fits perfectly, because the parsha is also about what comes after. Moshe is done leading. The wilderness is nearly done. The Jordan is right there.

And what Moshe does — with his last breath of authority — is hand the Torah to the Levites, charge Joshua publicly, and give one of the most extraordinary commandments in the entire text: Hakhel.

הַקְהֵ֣ל אֶת־הָעָ֗ם הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֤ים וְהַנָּשִׁים֙ וְהַטַּ֔ף וְגֵרְךָ֖ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בִּשְׁעָרֶ֑יךָ לְמַ֨עַן יִשְׁמְע֜וּ וּלְמַ֣עַן יִלְמְד֗וּ וְיָֽרְאוּ֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֔ם וְשָׁמְר֣וּ לַעֲשׂ֔וֹת אֶת־כׇּל־דִּבְרֵ֖י הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּֽאת׃

Gather the people—men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and so learn to revere the ETERNAL your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching.

Devarim 31:12

Gather the people. All of them. The men, the women, the children, and — right there in the verse — the ger, the stranger in your gates. Everyone hears the Torah read aloud, every seven years, at Sukkot. No one is excluded. No one has to earn their way in. You show up, you hear the words.

I think about that verse when I think about the challah going out the door. Twenty-four loaves, braided and baked and given away. Some went to people who have been keeping Rosh Hashanah their entire lives. Some went, apparently, to Cincinnati.

The week before Rosh Hashanah, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics released its annual population report.

A hundred and seventy-nine thousand babies were born in the past year.

And — here's the number that stops you — ninety-one percent of Israelis report being satisfied with their lives.

In a country that has been at war for nearly two years. In a country where the hostages are still being held. Ninety-one percent.

Chizku v'imtzu, said three times in a single parsha, lived out by a population that refuses to stop building, baking, birthing, and showing up to shul.

That is what Moshe is doing on his last day. He is not mourning. He is walking toward the people and telling them what matters: you will be strong, you will gather, you will teach your children, and God goes with you. The Jordan is there. Cross it.

Shabbat Shuva asks us to return.

Vayeilech shows us how: by going forward.

Moshe's last walk is not a retreat. It is a handoff. The Torah goes into the ark. The song goes into the mouths of the people. The leader who will not cross the river makes sure that everyone who will is ready.

Shabbat shalom.

— Uriel ben Avraham