A human’s days are like those of grass;
they bloom like a flower of the field;
a wind passes by and it is no more
Enosh ke-khatzir yomav
Ke-tzitz ha-sadeh ken yazitz
Ki ruakh avrah bo, ve-eineinu
(Ps. 103:15-16)
My beloved grandfather Robert passed away nearly 20 years ago. Before the end of his life, he went through his address book, highlighting the people we should let know about his death. It was a poignant and thoughtful gesture, easing the burden on my father and ensuring that the necessary people would hear.
Last year, my parents arranged for my brothers and me to have Powers of Attorney for them: should my parents become unable to deal with their own affairs, we will have the legal right to do so on their behalf.
I am touched in both cases by the readiness to address death; to recognise, at a practical if not an emotional level, that life is finite. Not to despair, but to make preparations, helping life to go on without a descent into chaos, with opportunities for future joy and simchah.
I find myself thinking more about death. At the age of 37 I am over halfway to three-score years and ten, a human’s life-span as mentioned in Psalms. Nowadays I get to experience the joy of relationships that are decades old, seeing how my family and friends have grown over the years with all that life has brought them, for good or ill. I have some sense of the final destination towards which I am headed.
This week we read parashat Pinchas, and Moses is still in his prime. He organises a census of the people, and enacts the proto-feminist step of allowing the daughters of Zelophehad to inherit their father’s estate. He is the clear leader of the Israelite people, and it is three months before we will read about Moses’s death at Simchat Torah in October.
Yet, already this week, Moses starts to look ahead to his demise, and to plan for what comes afterwards. He has previously been told that he will not enter the Land of Canaan, after Gd told him to ask a rock for water but Moses hit it instead. In this week’s parashah, Gd actually shows Moses the land he will not enter: he looks down from the dry mountains of Moab, past the palm trees of the broad Jordan Valley, to the promised hills beyond.
Moses is spurred into action. Perhaps by the visceral experience of looking into Canaan, where the flock he has led will go without him. Perhaps by the questions of inter-generational inheritance raised by the daughters of Zelophehad? Either way, he faces the fact that his time as leader will end soon enough, and that someone else will have to pick up the baton. He asks Gd to choose someone else to lead the people into the Land of Israel. Gd tells Moses to appoint Joshua.
We see straightaway that Joshua will be a different leader. In the moment that Moses asks Gd to appoint someone, Moses addresses Gd as elokei ha-rukhot, Gd of the spirits. This name is echoed in the description of Joshua that follows immediately: ish asher ruakh-bo, a man with spirit within him. It is not an appellation used of Moses. And so, from the moment he is introduced, Joshua’s spirit is connected to God; he has his own unique character traits.
After the mourning following Moses’s death, Joshua takes on the leadership of the Israelites straightaway; the continuity planning is successful, and there is no power struggle. Despite their anguish at the loss of Moses, his preparation eases the emotional burden of the transition, and the people are unencumbered in the hard work of moving into the land.
I don’t think we should underestimate the emotional difficulty Moses underwent when he asked God to find a replacement for him. Looking ahead to death and dissolution is frightening. Moses was scared of it too: Rashi tells us that when Moses wrote the Torah on top of Mount Sinai, he wrote the account of his own death, and did so with tears in his eyes.
Yet Moses prepared for death, and it brought him not just a practical but also spiritual/emotional benefit. R Joseph Soloveitchik illustrates why we might think beyond our own lives with a piece of Talmud in which Gd challenges humans over our fear of dying:
Fools of the world!
Someone who prepared their meal before Shabbat will be able to eat on Shabbat
But someone who did not prepare their meal – what will they eat on Shabbat?!Shotim she-ba’olam!
Mi she-tarakh be-erev shabbat, yokhal be-shabbat; mi she-lo tarakh be-erev, me-heykhan yokhal be-shabbat?(Avodah Zarah 3b)
If we prepare ourselves a Shabbat meal in advance, we will be able to eat in comfort and plenty when Shabbat arrives. So too with death: in this world we are given the opportunity to create, act, and accomplish. By contrast, in the world to come we will be powerless to change anything at all. Our finite lives are our only opportunity to prepare for the eternity that will follow.
And so, by cognising our death, I think we may be able to begin an easing, a positive process of preparation. Midrash tells us that when Moses appointed Joshua as his replacement, he was undiluted with regret (Sifrei Bamidbar 141:2). Rather, he appointed him with enthusiasm, in front of the whole community. For me, engaging directly with my own mortality helps me to walk the path of my life at ease, unafraid of where I’m heading.
By looking ahead to death, we also give others the chance to prepare, not just practically but emotionally. In taking on Power of Attorney for my parents, I know that the possibility of bureaucratic struggle is reduced. But it is also a whisper of the end of life, an invitation to begin my preparation for an unthinkable process.
More than anything, thinking about death reminds me of what I have at the moment. It is a wake-up call. Before we leave, stepping back into the Garden of Eden, we share a life of sunrises, sadness, and laughter. Anticipating death helps me to appreciate the fleeting beauty of life.
It’s natural to die. When we were born we made a contract (whether we knew it or not) that we were going to die. And the fact that we make such a big hullabaloo about it and are so desperate about it shows that we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human beings we’re something separate from nature. We’re not. Everything that gets born dies. So that’s what I’m working on, to accept that simple but very profound idea. – Morrie Schwartz
You can register for Power of Attorney at https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney
Tim Motz, LBC rabbinical student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.