How do you say goodbye when you already know how the story ends?
Moses has one day remaining. Since Nitzavim-Vayelech falls on the last Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, the text positions him exactly there: a hundred and twenty years old, told he will not enter, and watching the people whom he had carried through the desert stand at the edge of a land which he will only be able to see from a mountain. We have all seen something similar when someone we loved was coming to the end; there is a sudden flash of clarity just at that moment, the fog lifting briefly so that the person we knew can make one more visit. They don’t usually make speeches; instead they concentrate on what is truly important to them: they enquire about the grandchild, resolve what remains unresolved, say the name that needed to be said, and then the opportunity closes once again. Even though Moses remains as clear-sighted as ever, he too has this same kind of opportunity, and he makes use of it in the same way.
After finishing the Torah, Moses gives it to the Levites; then he calls Joshua before the entire nation and gives him two words in place of a eulogy: chazak v’ematz, be strong and resolute. Furthermore, in the phrase which names the parashah, vayelech Moshe, instead of the people coming to him he goes out to them. The rabbis interpret this verb literally and state that Moses spent his final day walking from tent to tent so that nobody would have to go to him to say goodbye.
This is not a farewell speech; it’s a man refusing to allow his goodbyes to become just another item that people have to collect.
Earlier in the parshah, Moses had already told them what he wanted them to retain after his death. He did not want them to have a system of judges or a war strategy for Canaan; instead, he told them that it is already in their mouths and in their hearts, something they do not need to obtain from heaven or fetch across the sea. Last week’s portion explained why that closeness took so long, 40 years: the people were shaped into a state of readiness through hunger and their experiences wandering in the Midbar, rather than being ready from the start. At this point, the distance is finally short enough. Moses is not leaving them a locked box; he is telling them that the key is close by.
He also instructs them to choose life so that both they and their children may live; that seems confident. But what comes next is not. God clearly tells Moses that the people will break their faith, follow other gods, and suffer as a result, and orders Moses to compose a song to serve as a witness on the day this occurs. It is strange to leave a nation behind, not with a promise that they will remain faithful but with a poem already ready for the time when they do not.
I do not believe that Moses is contradicting himself; in my view he is achieving something more difficult than simply showing confidence. Earlier there is a promise that when they are scattered and eventually come back, God will gather them once again, even from the most distant places. Moses is not making provision only for success; he is preparing for both failure and a return, since after forty years’ experience he has realized that a people worthy of being led are never found solely in the good times or only in the bad. Leadership must have a plan for both situations, and so he leaves them one.
I think about my own version of that afternoon more than I say aloud. What did I actually teach the people who came through my door? What survives me that isn’t a title or a building? Moses left no army or institution bearing his name. Simply a scroll. A name spoken twice to steady a nervous successor. A day spent walking tent to tent instead of waiting to be visited.
What is written on your scroll? And who is going to need you to go to them before the day is up?
Shabbat Shalom.