As I write this D’var Torah, I am sitting in my office at my summer pulpit in East Hampton, New York, still thinking about London. I spent the Spring 2026 term as a visiting student at Leo Baeck College and have been back in the United States, where I am entering my penultimate year of rabbinical school, for just over a month. I think about those few months often, and fondly: the new friends and future colleagues I met for the first time, the old mates I reconnected with, and the opportunity to be part of the UK’s vibrant, resilient Jewish community. Back on this side of the pond, the question I have been asking myself has been how to process the experience, what medium is capable of holding the gratitude for taking the journey and also the longing for it to continue? As I read and re-read this week’s parasha, I found inspiration in Moses.
Parshat Va-etchanan opens with Moses recalling a plea to God to let him cross into the land of Canaan. He says, “I pleaded with the Eternal at that time, saying, ‘O Eternal God, You who let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your mighty hand, You whose powerful deeds no god in heaven or earth can equal! Let me, I pray, cross over to see the good land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country, and the Lebanon.’” (Deuteronomy 3:23-25)
The phrase, “at that time”, b’et hahu, refers to the defeat of Sihon and Og in Numbers 21. However, if you go to Numbers 21 you will not find an account of Moses pleading with God to enter the land. Likewise, in Numbers 20, where God issued this punishment after Moses struck the rock, makes no mention of pleading. It is singly attested in this verse, which is to say that it doesn’t appear anywhere else in Torah.
The rabbis of Devarim Rabbah, an aggadic midrash on the book of Deuteronomy, argue that Moses pleaded with God hundreds of times. They do this by using Gematria, the practice of assigning numerical values to Hebrew letters in order to interpret and find hidden meanings in Torah. The rabbis determine that the gematria of va-etchanan is 515, and thus, Moses pleaded with God to enter the land 515 times. The gematria of the words for prayer and song, tefilah and shirah, respectively, is also 515. 515 prayers, songs, and pleas never answered in the affirmative.
The book of Deuteronomy can be understood as a Mosaic monologue recounting the journey of the young Israelite nation and a giving over of the laws and precepts they will need to follow in the land. But it’s important to note that the retelling of the journey is not always consistent with previous books of Torah. In verse 26, for example, Moses blames them, the generation that survived for his punishment, “But the Eternal was wrathful with me on your account and would not listen to me. The Eternal One said to me, ‘Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again.’”
This creative retelling and omission/changing of details is a pattern in these opening chapters of Deuteronomy. When recounting the system of delegation and adjudication to the heads of the twelve tribes, Moses says it was his idea, when Exodus 18 confirms the idea came from Jethro, his Midianite father-in-law. Further, he tells the Israelites it was their idea to send scouts into the land, even though God commanded it in Numbers 13.
My first Talmud teacher stressed the importance of having both generous and critical reads of texts. An easy critical read of Moses suggests that his acts of revision are hypocritical or purposely deceitful; perhaps they are. But with more generous eyes, I see a different possibility. His acts of revision are testimony, driven by his internal experience of the last forty years. With the time he has left, he is deciding what the surviving generation needs to carry forward with them. His testimony is both for his own benefit and demonstrative of his vulnerability, since it’s not attested elsewhere, he didn’t need to confess to pleading with God. By doing so, he shows that he too is anxious about what’s next, and still, he keeps teaching.
Among his teachings in this parsha is perhaps the most well-known verse in all of Torah, often called the watchword of our faith: the Shema. It is immediately preceded by a warning to the people to follow all the laws and the commandments so that they may live long, satiated lives in the land flowing with milk and honey. It is followed by the v’ahavta, with its commands to listen, to love God completely, to teach the next generations. And then a plea, to not forget the God who brought them out of Egypt into this well-resourced land; to not become complacent now that the end of their wandering is in sight.
When considered together, these two sections share a common thread. On the one hand, Moses is securing his legacy by shielding his reputation and revealing the depths of his disappointment and grief. On the other, he created a spiritual practice that has stood the test of time. After pleading with God 515 times, Moses knows he’s come to the end of the road, and yet he still gives of himself and cares for the generations that will outlive him, even if that care presents itself as rebuke. Through the careful curation of his reputation and continuing to teach the ways the Israelites must follow, he is giving the generation that survived something to remember him by. They are carrying him into the land.
Journeys end and that’s hard. Sometimes the destinations we so earnestly sought to reach turned out to be the journeys themselves, that’s not any easier. Yet no matter which details we change or which parts we omit when telling the story of a journey, the sequence of events doesn’t change, but it informs.
In one of the final meetings of the Leo Baeck College Student Society, we discussed our roses (highlights), thorns (challenges), and buds (opportunities) from the academic year, and I confessed my thorn was the sadness I felt at leaving this community that I felt easily at home in, and welcomed me with open arms from the very beginning. Don’t get me wrong, there were good days and bad weeks, I won’t rewrite that story. But every rose, bud, and thorn, was a necessary part of my experience, and I will carry them with me always.
Marques Hollie, rabbinical student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.