זֹאת הַבְּרָכָה
V’zot HaBracha / The Blessing
Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12
HafTorah Joshua 1:1-18

      V’zot HaBrachah is the concluding parsha of a family who served in bondage as a nation of slaves for four hundred years in Egypt.  The Israelites who were delivered from slavery (death) now become a nation to serve God and His Torah (Life). This is the parsha in which the children of God enter the Promised Land and become the Nation of Israel. Twelve individual brothers have now become a nation of people about to enter the Promised Land with HaTorah: the directions of becoming and maintaining the perfect ways of Elohim- The Will of God. 
     Deuteronomy 33 contains the blessings for the twelve tribes of Israel. In the first section of chapter 33, Moshe compares the Torah to a fiery law coming from His Right Hand. This takes us to John 1 ‘…In the beginning was the Word…’
     Reuben will live and not die. Judah will come to his people and Adonai will hear his voice. Levi will teach the Israelites Torah and burn incense before God. Benjamin is to dwell between His shoulders. Ephraim will reign in glory and push the peoples to the end of the earth. Of Zebulun, in his going out, and Issachar in his tents, they shall call the peoples to the mountain. Gad dwells as a lion and will administer the justice of the Lord, and His judgments with Israel. Dan is a lion’s whelp, and he shall leap from Bashan. Naphtali is satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of the Lord, possessing the west and the south. Asher is most blessed of sons, he is favored by his brothers, and he dips his foot in oil.
     Deuteronomy 33 ends with ‘Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord,
The shield of your help and the sword of your majesty! Your enemies shall submit to you,
And you shall tread down their high places.’ Deuteronomy 33:29.
     The end of this parsha is the death of Moshe and the beginning of Joshua.  ‘Now Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; so the children of Israel heeded him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.’ Deuteronomy 34:9.
      The Israelites were to cross the Jordan in order take the Land of Canaan. They were to pass over the waters of the Jordan just as miraculously as their fathers had passed through the Red Sea. On that day, the tenth day of Nissan the river was overflowing. The priests advanced with the Holy Ark, and as their feet touched the Jordan river, the waters stood still, piling up as did the waves of the Red Sea. The whole nation of Israel passed over as the riverbed became dry. The crossing was a turning point in freedom and deliverance from wandering. Crossing the Jordan River was a fulfillment of creation, a fullness of creation. 
      Twelve men, one from each tribe, then carried twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan to a spot on the shore, where they erected a monument to commemorate the event. Settling in Gilgal they set up the Tabernacle where it stayed for fourteen years.
     For us, comfortable in our homes and lives, it is impossible to imagine the life that the Israelites lived in the wilderness.  The flight from Egypt became a 40-year multi-generational piece of history. Their wilderness was a literal wilderness of heat, hunger, exhaustion, enemies, confrontations and battles. 
    Crossing the Jordan River was a time of transition.  As with us, too, when we faithfully cross over the Jordan that is in front of us, it is a time of transition.

V’zot HaBeracha / And This Is The Blessing
Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12
Haf Torah Joshua 1:1-18

     This is the last chapter of Deuteronomy/Devarim and the last chapter of the Torah, the teachings and instructions of God.  Just as Genesis/ Bereshith ends with Jacob imparting a blessing to his twelve sons from his death bed; Moshe imparts a blessing to the children of Israel before his death in Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12. After all the rebellion and attacks, he still leaves the people with a blessing.
     The last day of Moses’ life was anything but peaceful. As he wrote the last of Devarim, he challenged the people of Israel, warning them just as they were getting ready to cross the Jordan and enter the promised land; there he foretold of the challenges ahead and how they would turn from God’s Covenant.  He warned them that their challenges would not come from scarcity but abundance, not slavery but rather their freedom and not being guided by God, but by now guiding themselves. Right up to the very end of his life, he continued to challenge both the people and God.
    As Moses goes to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho, the Lord showed him the whole land and ‘Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I said I would give it to their descendants. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you may not go there.’
     What were at one time twelve brothers now has become a nation of people about to enter the Promised Land with HaTorah, the directions of becoming and maintaining the perfect way of Elohim. The Will of God.
      V’zot HaBerachah is the conclusion of a family who was bound to go into Egypt to serve Egypt as a nation of slaves in the bondages of Egypt for 400 years. This is such a clear representation of spiritual death. However, the Israelites are delivered from slavery, becoming a nation to serve God and His Torah, which is clearly Life. This is the parsha in which the children of God enter into the Promised Land.
    To quote the Etz Chayim Torah and Commentary: “In synagogues, we complete the Torah and proceed in two directions. First, we go back to the opening words of Genesis and we begin thinking new insights on every page, not because the Torah has changed, but because we have changed since we read it a year ago.”
     Our freedom which is the free will of choice that God has so abundantly granted us, gives us the opportunity to choose life or death.  The choice would seem obvious, yet so many times we choose out of our own vision and our own will rather than that of Adonai.
     The Torah teaches us that for every endurance there is a blessing. That is what Yeshua was conveying in Matthew 5.   We endure and we are blessed.
      Vezot HaBerachah ends with ‘and for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel.’ These are the words in which we complete the Torah.  And so, Devarim ends with the Israelites as a nation, on the banks of the Jordan River, about to begin their most profound journey – that of showing the very will of Elohim, the Torah into every life.

Chazak! Chazak! V’nitchazek! Be Strong! Be Strong! And May We Be Strengthened!