Moses’ Death, God’s Breath
Rabbi Oren J. Hayon
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
“Ulysses,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Before the birth of virtually every significant male character in the Bible,
extraordinary tales are told about how he was brought into being. But in Moses’
case, the miracle-stories are told not about his birth but about his death. The
biblical scene recounting Moses’ death is remarkable in its dramatic potency, but
also because it delivers comfort and blessing along with its cargo of sorrow.
As he has done in the past (see, for example, Parashat Beshallach and Parashat
Ha’azinu), Moses responds to a climactic moment of emotional intensity by
reciting words of poetry. But the opening of the Torah’s final parashah reminds
us that this poem is not intended simply for aesthetic effect; it comes to deliver
blessing to the community of Israel. “This is the blessing,” the parashah begins,
“with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before he died.” (Deut.
33:1)
After this preface, Moses launches promptly into verse, describing God’s
powerful presence and gratefully extolling God’s love and care for Israel. But
after two verses, the poem’s voice shifts abruptly. In Deuteronomy 33:4, the
poem has changed. All at once, it becomes clear that Moses is no longer
speaking the words of his own poem – the Israelites are. Suddenly, the poem
has begun referring to Moses in the third person: “Moses charged us with the
Teaching as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.”
In that barely perceptible moment, Moses’ character has passed an invisible and
irreversible boundary. His identity as the political leader of a fractious and
ungrateful people has now been eclipsed by his identity as Moshe Rabbeinu –
the mythical and masterful teacher Moses. The Talmud, perhaps recognizing the
significance of this transformative stage in the development of Moses’ character,
teaches that this verse’s words are the first words a child should learn from the
Hebrew Bible.
As soon as a child knows how to speak, his parent must
teach him Torah. And what does “Torah” mean? Rav
Hamnunah said: The verse “Moses charged us with the
Teaching as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.”
Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 42a
Rav Hamnunah urges us to place Moses’ words in the mouths of even our
youngest children. Moses’ breath, in this way, becomes the breath of all
humanity; his words become our words. The shift of poetic voice in Deut. 33:4
lays bare the astonishing process of spiritual ventriloquism by which, each time
we open our mouths, we marvel to find Moses’ words tumbling out.
Salman Rushdie has written, with no small measure of delight, that “the human
being is a storytelling animal…the only creature on Earth that tells itself stories in
order to understand what sort of creature it is.” [The Best American Short Stories,
edited by Salman Rushdie. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008; p. xvi.] Proudest,
perhaps, among the “storytelling animals,” we Jews delight in weaving identity
out of storytelling. Jewish self, story, and blessing are braided into a glittering
Möbius strip, endlessly twining.
When, at last, Moses dies, his soul departs “al pi ADONAI,” literally, “by God’s
mouth.” Mouth to mouth, the breath of Moses is drawn in and subsumed into the
breath of God. God tenderly inhales Moses’ final breath and then pauses. As we
begin our cyclical reading of Torah once more, God exhales, filling Adam’s
nostrils and giving life to all creation.
Moses is never referred to as a “prophet” in the Torah, except in this parashah
(Deut. 34:10). His prophecy is confirmed and made real only once we know that
Moses’ breath will flow forever through the lungs and lips of Israel. His words
awe and inspire us because of their power and insight, but also because we
share his breath. This, then, is the wondrous way in which we find consolation
after Moses’ death. He dies again every year, but year by year, his words open
still wider to us with ever-deepening weight and wisdom.

What we hear inside a seashell is not the ocean. Instead, we are hearing the
ambient hum of all life around us, funneled inward by the shell and mingling in a
glorious tumult. Even the rush of our own blood singing in its course, salty, fierce
and alive, joins in the frothy susurrus. A thousand tiny thunderclaps roar together
and remind us of the waves that carried the shell to our hand. The awareness
that we are alive, that we yet breathe, reminds us that we are all propelled by the
Source-of-All that surges insistently within.
We are small, but Moses’ breath is in us. And so, like Tennyson’s Ulysses, aged
but untamed, we are driven forward by what pulses steadily inside us.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, –
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
That which we are, we are. We are Israel: explorers, pilgrims, wanderers all. We
steel our navigators’ hearts and set ourselves anew to the work of our people.
A year’s reading from the Torah is now complete. We pronounce together, with
humility and hope, the ancient mantra of fulfillment and renewed determination:
Chazak, chazak, ve-nitchazek.
Let us be strong, and let us strengthen one another, in unending journeys
through Torah – striving, seeking, finding. And let us accompany each other ever
forward, our sails and our songs filled with the breath of God.