Parashat Va-yeilech
Parashat Vayeilech is one of the shortest weekly sections in the Torah, just a single chapter of 30 verses. In most years it is doubled with Nitzavim. As presented in the Torah, Vayeilech acts as a prologue to Moses’ swansong, Ha’azinu, though very often either Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur intervenes between the two, as is the case this year when we read Vayeilech on Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of return which falls within the Ten Days of Awe. So our Parashah is squeezed between two major community events just as it is squeezed between two arguably more famous and dramatic Torah readings.
The subject matter is well suited to this easily overlooked situation. In Vayeilech, Moses prepares the Israelites for Joshua to take over after his death. We remember the moment when a great leader leaves us, and the often stormy beginnings when someone new takes over. But we don’t always pay attention to the phase leading up to this transition, the time when a change is coming and we need to prepare for it. Yet, this preparation, often behind the scenes, can be vital to ensuring that our communities, our organizations, even our social groups and families, can weather the change successfully.
In Deuteronomy chapter 31, Moses considers the needs of the people who will soon have to go on without him. He also expresses his own concerns about what will happen to the people when he is no longer there to lead them. We can imagine that he may experience some fear or uncertainty about his own approaching death, but Torah does not really record that element of Moses’ perspective. God also steps in, partly it seems to reassure Moses as well as guiding him towards setting up a successful transition.
Moses starts by reminding the people that change is inevitable. He is too old to carry on as a leader, and besides God has told him that he will die before reaching the Promised Land. He does not allow any room to argue or bargain, to persuade him to stay with us just a little longer, to pretend that we can avoid change by putting off the moment. He clearly reinforces the choice of Joshua as his successor, while also reminding people that God remains their ultimate leader.
Achieving agreement about who should be in charge is important, but perhaps more essential is reassuring each other that even if we face change, we are still working together to achieve a higher purpose. If we are very fortunate, we may even have a clear, holy purpose in directly carrying out God’s plans. Moses gives plenty of words of encouragement, telling both Joshua as an individual and the people collectively to ‘be strong and resolute’, and not to ‘fear or be dismayed’.
As well as emotional reassurance, Moses takes into account practical concerns. He makes sure that the critical things the people need to know are written down. His instructions and teachings are passed on not only to Joshua his successor, but to the priests and all the elders, and must be read aloud every seven years to the whole community. There can be no guarantee that when a leader moves on (or even, in the worst case, dies), their knowledge will be retained, but if we don’t make a serious effort to preserve vital records we are certain to run into problems!
God’s intervention in the middle section of the chapter is fascinating. With Divine foreknowledge, God states baldly that the Israelites will in fact rebel and break the Covenant, but God promises to forgive them and keep all the promises of Torah. This difficult yet ultimately hope-filled glimpse of the future inspires Moses to deliver the great poem that follows in the next Parashah.
It is not only organizations that experience difficult changes. As individuals we hope and pray for renewal during this season of return and repentance. And like the Israelites when Moses prepared them for Joshua to take over, we can handle change better if we prepare for it. That’s what the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is for. In some ways we share Moses’ good fortune in that we know that the time of change is coming so that we have time to think about how we want the future to look. Throughout the season and especially during Rosh Hashanah services, we thought about what memories we wanted to preserve and how to make sure our knowledge and traditions are handed on to the next generation. We have the opportunity to name our anxieties and concerns about the future, and perhaps to seek reassurance from God at least in the inspired and inspiring words of Torah and our prayers and poems and songs, even if we are not blessed to receive a direct personal revelation.
Is it relevant to be thinking about a change of leadership during the High Holy Days? I would say that it can be. We can imagine the process of Teshuvah as one of appointing our true, best self to be in charge. Perhaps the ideals and commitments we made when we were younger, or last year at this season, have grown too old to really direct us. Or perhaps we have been rebelling against our own conscience and the ideals we really know we should be following. Renewal may not necessarily be about stopping committing sins or doing acts that we regret, though those are deeply important. It could also be about recognizing that the temporary systems we used to keep going through the wilderness of a challenging situation are no longer serving us, as we yearn towards a future where we can build something more permanent. Getting there might not be easy – we might even have to fight external threats. But we can learn from Vayeilech that putting the right person in charge can help, as long we preserve the valuable lessons we have learned from our past.
Rachel Berkson, LBC rabbinical student