From Infinity to Eternity

From Infinity to Eternity
D’var Torah for Nitzavim/Vayelech
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman


A double portion—Nitzavim/Vayelech (Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30)—closes our Torah readings for this year. This powerful, last message that Moses delivers to the Israelites right before they enter the Promised Land is written in simple and direct fashion. God’s words shouldn’t be hard to understand. “No,” says Moses. “The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it” (Deut. 30:14). Though many lessons can be learned from these two portions, this time I want to focus on a Hebrew word: Vayelech (“he went”), the title of the second half of the week’s reading. The complete verse (chapter 31, verse 1) reads: “Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.”

Vayelech reminds us of another going, nearly five books earlier. “Lech l’cha,” God’s command to Abram, was to “go forth to a land which I will show you” (Gen. 12:1). Two going-forth’s, one at the beginning of our story, one at the end—or really yet another beginning.

Abram (he hasn’t yet received from God the additional “ha”) is told to “go forth”—but without any specific direction. God will let him know when he gets there. We can just imagine the old man getting up one day and saying to Sarai, “Wife, pack up the tents. We’re moving.” Perhaps because he has always been a wanderer, Sarai doesn’t ask why, where to or how far. She trusts his sense of direction: it hasn’t failed them yet. Abram, however, has no idea. He trusts God and just goes forward in the direction his heart tells him. The goal, he knows, would reveal itself in due time.

Moses, however, is altogether another story. When Moses goes forth, he does so with a specific purpose in his heart: to speak God’s words to the Israelites. He knows exactly where he is going and what he is going to do once he gets there. It’s a short line between two points, one from which he will not meander. Not for him the ambling about that Abraham liked to do. Moses is out of time now—he knows he has but a few short days left to live.

Though the Torah’s stories span many generations—400 years’ worth—it really is the journey of just one human life. Like Abram, we begin with little or no knowledge. But faith and trust lead us on. Trusting our sense of awe, we follow the road we believe in. The variables of life take each of us on a distinct and unique path. We meander, taking time to experience the moment and to ponder the meaning of our existence in it. Sometimes we lose our way or find that it is blocked, fenced off. Yet somehow, a roadmap always appears—all we have to do is open our eyes and we see it. And so, having made the journey, we reach a point where we know we are supposed to be. Suddenly it becomes clear why we did what we did. A purpose emerges. Unexpectedly, we also find that we have very little time left to do what we know we must now do.

Abraham and Moses are the bookends that define the arch of every human life. We begin by asking and learning; we end by teaching and explaining.

The irony here is that Abraham had the rest of his life before him when he heard God’s word telling him to go forth. But where was Moses going to? Ostensibly, to his death.

Yet his death is not the end. From that point on, Moses would live on in us and through us. Having told us God’s words, having commanded us to write them on stone, to recite them publicly at least once every seven years, to teach them diligently to our children, to sing them on special occasions—he made sure these words would live on and reverberate through the millennia.

How well Moses succeeded is clear. We are still reading these same words, writing them down and teaching them to our children. Better than once in seven years, we read (actually chant) the Torah in an annual cycle, making sure its words are inscribed in our souls, incised in our hearts.

Infinity turned into Eternity as Moses completes Abraham’s journey, as he goes forth to deliver God’s message to the people. That done, he will now turn around, climb the mountain one last time, and become part of the eternal enigma we call God.

Now it’s our turn to go forth, set out on a new beginning and find our own path. A new year begins.


©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman