And this is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, bestowed upon the Children of Israel before his death. He said: Hashem came from Sinai – having shone forth to them from Seir, having appeared from Mount Paran, and then approached with some of the holy myriads – from His right hand He presented the fiery Torah to them. Indeed, You loved the tribes grately, all its holy ones were in Your hands; for the planted themselves at Your feet, bearing [the yoke] of Your utterances: “The Torah that Moses commanded us is the heritage of the Congregation of Jacob.” –Deuteronomy 33:1-4
The Rambam writes: “Moshe ordained that on every festival, the Jews should read [a portion of the Torah which reflects] its content.” He continues by listing the passages read on different festivals, and concludes that on Simchas Torah, we read Zos HaBerachah. This implies that the reading of Zos HaBerachah on Simchas Torah shares a connection with the holiday itself; it is not read at that time merely because it is customary to conclude the yearly cycle of Torah readings on that festival.
-Rabbi Eli Touger
In the Garden of Torah
“A Fountain of Blessing”
V’zos Haberachah
Chabad.org
The final portion of Deuteronomy is always read on Simchat Torah, the “Rejoicing of the Torah”, as one Torah cycle ends and another begins. It is a reminder that all things end and yet all things are new. The gift of God’s Torah to the Jews is celebrated with much laughter and dancing. In the synagogue, all of the Torah scrolls are removed from the ark and everyone carries them and dances and sings and cheers in joyous appreciation of God’s goodness. Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah also formally end the Jewish holiday season and, the following Shabbat, the reset button is pushed and Parashoat B’resheet starts another cycle of reading.
Yet in the midst of tremendous victory, Rabbi Touger chooses to remind his readers of one of Israel’s greatest tragedies.
In this context, however, a difficulty arises: Rashi explains that the final phrase of the Torah, l’einei kol Yisrael, “before the eyes of the entire Jewish people,” refers to the breaking of the tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Our Sages attach great importance to conclusions, explaining that they summarize the content of all the preceding concepts. Why then does the conclusion of the entire Torah and in particular, the conclusion of the reading V’Zos HaBerachah mention a subject which seemingly reflects the disgrace of the Jewish people, for the tablets were broken because of the nation’s sin in worshipping the Golden Calf.
However, to understand why such a time of shame should be introduced into the culmination of a season of celebration, we have to go back into the symbolism for both Sukkot and for Simchat Torah:
What is the inner content of Simchas Torah? When contrasting the sacrificial offerings brought during Sukkos to those brought on Simchas Torah, our Sages explain that the 70 bulls offered on Sukkos refer to the 70 nations of the world. The one bull offered on Simchas Torah refers to the Jewish people, the “one nation.”
Simchas Torah is a day when “Israel and the King are all alone.” This is a time when the essential bond between G-d and the Jewish people is expressed in joyous celebration. This concept is reflected in the name of the Torah reading, V’Zos HaBerachah, lit. “This is the blessing,” and its content, which focuses entirely on the blessings given the Jewish people, and the praise of their uniqueness.
That Sukkot includes the nations and not just the Jews is perfectly understandable, given Zechariah 14:16-19, when all the survivors of the war against Israel from among the Gentile nations will be commanded to send representatives to Jerusalem for Sukkot and pay homage to the King in Messianic days. For a Gentile such as myself to celebrate Sukkot now is something of a taste of things to come. But there is something else.
If Sukkot is an invitation for everyone to join God and God’s chosen people, Simchat Torah is a time when, according to Rabbi Touger, the nations are “included out”. This rather punctuates the fact that the Torah was given just to Israel and that the special holiday of honoring the giving of the Torah at Sinai is just between God and His One Nation: the Jews. While God is the Father and Creator of the people of the world, it’s as if the Father wants to have a special day with only His first born. It is also a time when, remembering the Golden Calf, God consoles His special son and brings His son back from his past shame and returns the son to God’s love.
This also explains why Moses broke the first set of tablets, out of God’s great love for Israel:
To explain: When describing the reason for the breaking of the tablets, Rashi states:
To express with an analogy: A king journeyed to a distant country, leaving his betrothed with maids. Because of the depravity of the maids, the reputation of the intended also became tarnished. The bridesman took the initiative and ripped up the wedding contract, saying: “If the king will order to kill her, I will protest, saying that she was not yet his wife.”
The king is the Holy One, blessed be He; the maids, the mixed multitude [of converts who joined the Jews after the Exodus]. The bridesman is Moshe, and the betrothed…, the Jewish people.
Rashi’s intent is to explain that Moshe broke the Tablets to protect the Jewish people from G-d’s wrath. Here we see the unique importance of the Jewish nation. The Torah is G-d’s “delight, frolicking before Him at all times.” And within the Torah, the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were engraved were “the work of G-d… and the writing of G-d,” given to Moshe by G-d Himself. And yet when the future of the Jewish people was at stake, Moshe was willing to break the tablets without hesitation.
Why did Moshe take such a step? Because there is nothing not even the Torah which G-d cherishes more than a Jew.
For a Jew, this makes perfect sense, but for a Christian it is confusing. This is especially true in light of the explanation that the Golden Calf incident is attributed largely to the Gentile “converts” to Judaism, casting Gentiles in an untrustworthy light. But if a Jew considers himself God’s first born, a Christian acknowledges the first born of the Creator as ultimately expressed in the person of Jesus Christ:
About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three sukkot – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.)
While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen. –Luke 9:28-36
What this all means, I don’t exactly know. I do know that the Jewish people have always been special to God and they always will be special, even above all the other people of the earth and yes, even above Christianity, those of us among the nations who have chosen to be disciples of the Master.
Even Paul went first to the Jews and only afterward to the Gentiles (Romans 1:16; Romans 2:10), though he was specifically sent as an emissary to the nations. This should be a message for those Christians who tend to get a little full of themselves contemplating the idea that somehow the church has replaced Israel, while ignoring Paul’s warning in Romans 11:24. Indeed, all of Israel will be saved (Romans 11:26).
But while we continue to eat and fellowship and enjoy Shemini Atzeret, this “extra” day of Sukkot, we are about to be escorted out of the hall and politely asked to leave the party, for Simchat Torah is a private affair between the Jews and God. The last day of the great celebration is limited to a very special people who have, above all the nations, endured extreme hardship and suffering for the sake of keeping God’s Torah and His Shabbat when the rest of the world was wallowing in pools of pagan savagery.
How then can the rest of us, though we know God is right, console ourselves as we stand on the outside of God’s special and unique love, looking in? How can we watch the dancing around the synagogue with the Torah while we sit alone in the dark? Only by remembering this and knowing that we are not completely rejected because of God’s love for the Jews.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. –John 3:16
There are many kinds of barriers: Those from within and those from without. Barriers between people. Barriers that prevent you from doing good things.
Barriers of your own mind and your own hesitations. There are the barriers that exist simply because you are a limited being.
Joy breaks through all barriers.
-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Joy Unleashed”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org
Someday, we will be asked to dance as well.
Morning Meditations 
Shalom James,
We have been grafted in, i don’t necessarily believe that we cannot rejoice with G-d’s righteous Standards on this beautiful day. Tho i would say that we do it in a holy and careful and respectful manner. Israel is supposed to be a light unto the naions, this light (the Torah) which is supposed to bring us to the belief in the One True G-d (the G-d of Israel)!
Hi Rey,
We need to be kind of careful how we use the concept of being “grafted in”. In its worst incarnation, Romans 11 has been used to justify a virtual melding between Gentile Christians and Jews who are Messianic (or even Jews who aren’t) so that Judaism as a distinct entity all but vanishes. I don’t think being “grafted in” entitles us to the identical benefits granted to the Children of Israel under the Mosaic covenant, otherwise, we’d be Jews. Somewhere in there, a difference is built in and, to the degree that these sorts of discussions are ongoing in Christianity and the Messianic community, I don’t think we know how to resolve them adequately.
If we are “one new man” under the Messianic covenant, but the Mosaic and probably Abrahamic covenants continue to grant distinctions to the Jews, how does that work? I don’t know, but my reflex is to back off until I can understand things better, rather than assume that being “grafted in” entitles me to more than God intends.
Put another way, if God wants me to dance on Simchat Torah, I’d like an invitation.
James,
I understand where you are coming from, and i respect your opinion. Surely G-d’s plan of giving His Holy and Righteous standards were not for Israel alone? Once again i believe Israel is supposed to be a light unto the nations, and this light is the Torah. I don’t believe that all Gentiles have to convert to have part in the Covenant but they certainly will not be able to participate in certain aspects of the Covenant without a proper conversion… like eating the Pesach lamb etc etc. But i also don’t believe that if a Gentile wants to crossover and convert to Judaism that it is a bad thing….. if it’s in his or her heart than i believe it’s ok. I don’t believe it’s for everybody but for some this will be the case. Conversion does not give someone a higher status than a righteous Gentile who is a servant of the Most High, just as a Jewish person is not different from a Gentile who is in the Covenant. Circumcison is nothing and unsircumcision is nothnig, what matters is keeping the Commandments of G-d! Now i am not saying that circumcision doesn’t not matter for the Almighty Commanded it so it does matter, but what i am saying that being a Jew or a Gentile (within the Covenant) of HaShem is nothing….. He is not a respecter of persons.
I don’t believe that all Gentiles have to convert to have part in the Covenant but they certainly will not be able to participate in certain aspects of the Covenant without a proper conversion… like eating the Pesach lamb etc etc. But i also don’t believe that if a Gentile wants to crossover and convert to Judaism that it is a bad thing.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, but there’s a huge cost if you must do so by denying Jesus as the Messiah. Of course, you aren’t a Jew unless you do convert and I don’t believe that Gentiles are part of the Mosaic covenant, even believers (and the whole “one law for the native and alien” doesn’t hold water). Jesus died for the whole world and so that we who are of the nations could have a relationship with God under the Messianic covenant. Certainly there is some “overlap” between covenants but they do not have equal requirements nor confer equal statuses. While Christians are not inferior to Jews spiritually, that doesn’t mean we’re not different. Women aren’t inferior to men spiritually, but we certainly do have differences.
This could probably stray into the One Law vs. Bilateral Ecclesiology argument, but there are a million of those conversations in the blogosphere already and we don’t need another one. My personal decision is to self-identify as a Gentile Christian man who is married to a Jewish woman and to try and negotiate my relationship with God and other people from that framework. I can’t speak for anyone else. Other people are going to make other decisions. By writing what I do in this blog, I’m trying the best I can to take responsibility for my decisions.
James,
Once again i respect your opinion and i also agree that there is enough of this type of debate going around. My last comment is to the fact that the Messianic Covenant is in Jer.31:31 which Moshiach brings, this Covenant is with Israel also. So where are the righteous Gentiles in this Covenant??? The Covenants build one on top of another….. but i will stop i will say no more.
Shalom James!
Reading this a day later….
You are right, there are endless discussions about this and everyone has to ‘work’ this out with ‘fear and trembling’ for themselves.
one thing: perhaps sometimes we blend together Millenial promises with the Eternal realm promises as defined in Revelation 22. In the Millenial Kingdom there will be marriage, so male and female differences, Jewish and Gentile differences will still remain.
but in the Eternal Realm, there will be no distinctions of male and female because Jesus Himself said there will be no marriage. Death and sin will be really really gone, and even reproductive cycles in our time now and in the Millenial Kingdom involve blood and death, and those things will remain…for a time of 1000 years.
In the Eternal Realm, with no male and female differences, I do not think it is a reach to say the same will be true for Jew and Gentile because then all nations will be bringing their gifts to our King/LORD and such outward differences will be gone.
Scripture is not always clear as to how our minds can understand things that involve Time esp. future time. …God’s time is not ours. we can be confused, and we must never make authoritative statements about these things to the point where we end up saying we are now teachers looking for disciples, but He does allow our minds to think things through and respectfully surmise…..
Hi, Louise.
Beyond what I think of as the end of history, what you call the “Millenial Kingdom”, we don’t have a lot of information so pretty much anything’s possible. I’m not really concerned all that much with that may or may not be going on then because there’s not a lot I can do about it here and now and by then, it’s all a “done deal” anyway.
I’m more addressing relationships as they exist today and the direction in which humanity seems to be heading. Judaism and Christianity have different traditions for understanding Creation, the relative importance of Jews and Gentiles to God, and our responsibilities to Him and to each other. While I don’t doubt that it will all work out in the end, since I live in the present, that’s what I’m trying to figure out.
Someday, we’ll all “dance” together, but what should we be shooting for in the meantime?
Hello, James
Thank you for responding. Always appreciated.
In our home we have a plaque that is a quote from a Hebrew scholar unnamed, it says: ‘Know from where you come, Know where you are going, and Know to Whom you will give an account at the end of your life.”
Without Revelation, Genesis does not make sense. Without Isaiah 66 a lot of things in Scripture do not make sense.
When my husband and I were raising our six children, we never could have taught them that only present relationships mattered. They had to think like human beings, not like other types of creatures incapable of wondering about where things were going, or where they came from.
Is it not true that the future does matter? I do not think i am alone in thinking that the implications for what lies beyond the grave for each of us individually as well as the creation cosmically do matter…..
I was raised by a Jewish-born mother (second generation German) who married a Gentile Catholic immigrant from Germany, my dad. They were kind and good parents. My dad abandoned his religious tradition when he came to U.S.and he and my mother agreed to never discuss religion or politics. Period. And they didn’t.
Having been raised in a secular environment, there were a lot of mistakes and angst before God in His Grace loved me before I loved Him, and finally when i repented, and had enough faith the size of a mustard seed, filled me beyond expectation with His love. But He also made me hungry to know where i was going not just individually, but where sore humanity would end up, how wounds and wars and disease and injustice would finally be healed. And, unless Christians who loved Him and who also were concerned enough about me to witness to me did not also give me answers that were deep and full of future implications, a lot of current relationships would not make sense. One example, i know Christians who divorce quite easily because the grass is not green enough on their side of the fence, but truly, if they believed the future God mentions in Scripture, and also believed God with all their hearts that He will make all things right in the end, then they would have different outlooks now.
I guess, James, i am trying to say that relationships are not enough without future thinking. the Scriptures are full of future thinking. I am not sure i understand what you mean when you say, ‘what I call the Millenial Kingdom”. the concept is not of my own invention…. it was a great joy to me when i finally started to study Scriptures for myself and discovered things like Revelation 20 and how it ties in with Isaiah 66, etc.etc. etc.
In many churches we Christians are not given that type of teaching, and i thank God that He has ”Jewish-roots” kind of teachers to start us on this part of the journey, knowing more about the Living God and then, secondarily, ourselves and our neighbors and how we can give them hope even if things are not going well for them now.
we are admonished to fill our lamps with oil now because we know the bridegroom has promised to come, and indeed to contemplate the World to COME is a joy for humans and i think a necessity.
Does this make sense?
this is really and truly the end of the discussion for me but if you want to answer, i always read what you write with great interest.
Shalom, have a blessed Shabbat.
I guess, James, i am trying to say that relationships are not enough without future thinking. the Scriptures are full of future thinking. I am not sure i understand what you mean when you say, ‘what I call the Millenial Kingdom”. the concept is not of my own invention…. it was a great joy to me when i finally started to study Scriptures for myself and discovered things like Revelation 20 and how it ties in with Isaiah 66, etc.etc. etc.
Poor choice of words on my part. I wasn’t doubting a time beyond all time. I was just commenting on the “label” (a rose by any other name, so to speak).
I also am not denying that future and that there is a goal we must always keep an eye on, but we all still live in the present and must do as God wills in the here and now. It’s not just knowing whom we will face at the final judgment but to know before whom we stand every time we pray. I don’t worry so much about the future because there’s so much to do as a person of faith right now.
Also, as a Christian married to a Jewish spouse, I am acutely aware of the gulf that stands between the two faiths. Supposedly the Messianic movement acts as a sort of joining point between the two traditions, incorporating elements of both, but that’s not how my life is led. I suppose in all of these blogs, part of what I’m always addressing is being intermarried and living daily with the dissonance that exists between Christian and Jew. It’s a lot of what drives me to study Judaism as a lens by which to examine my own faith. I’m looking for those points of intersection. I think there are plenty of them available, but being able to access them in a practical, lived way isn’t that easy.
I suppose if my wife and I were completely alike in terms of our faith, I wouldn’t have this drive to find answers to the questions I’m perpetually asking, but such is not the case. I can have all of the future thinking in the world, but the people I love; my wife and my children, who are all Jewish, live here in the present.