Parshah Musings
Last Will and Testament

If you had a chance to prepare in advance the last words you'd ever get to say, what would they be?

Would you waffle? Would you prevaricate? Would you suffice with the usual growl at your spouse as you stomped out of the house, or would you take the time to come up with something meaningful?

And would you say it more than once?

Moses was about to die. G‑d informed him in advance so he could prepare the people for a smooth transmission of executive powers and so that he could carefully weigh up his final message to his nation. Every single Jew was present as he stepped up to speak…

He spoke.

Then said it all over again in another language.

He then repeated it in a third language.

He didn't stop till he had done the whole talk in each of the seventy root languages into which linguists divide human speech.

Why?

For what earthly reason could he possibly have needed to translate these words, crucial as they may have been, into every language known to man? Those Jews standing around him all understood Hebrew, and I seriously doubt that any one of them would have been comforted or impressed to hear it over again in Outer Mongolian or Swahili.

For All People, For All Times

It is sometimes a struggle to reassert the Torah's right to influence the lives and times of contemporary Jews. In our fast-paced and even faster changing society it is tempting to believe that any similarities between those nomadic desert wanderers and ourselves must be purely accidental. Why should I let the Mosaic code, with its apparent superstitions and dietary hang-ups affect my reality?

Moses was speaking to us. He took the time and effort to speak the words of Torah in tongues and languages that his direct audience could not appreciate, to demonstrate that the instructions and lessons he was imparting were relevant to all people, in all countries, at all times.

Whatever I do for a living, no matter the jargon of my job, or the talk of the street, I can and will bring my Torah with me; for after all, Moses was speaking my language.