In the same way the blessings of Ya’akov provide a certain closure to the entire book of Bereshit,154Redeeming Relevance in Exodus, pp. 73–75. so too, Moshe’s blessings at the end of the book of Devarim provide similar resolution. And since their place is also the end of the entire Torah, they may carry even more significance.
Two questions are fundamental to a proper understanding of Moshe’s final act: To what extent did Moshe feel a need to bless the Jewish people, and what was he trying to accomplish by doing so? Regarding the first question, one commentator goes so far as to suggest that it was an afterthought, only meant to reassure the Jewish people after the harsh rebuke he had just given them.155Abarbanel, Introduction to parashat Zot haBeracha. If, as several commentators understand it, the blessings are simply words of encouragement, such a suggestion could be plausible. Yet it is hard to leave it at that, as the many unusual features of this section compel us to look more closely. As we examine the structure and content of the blessings, what emerges is a strong case for saying that Moshe had much more than just encouragement in mind.
It is natural to compare and contrast Moshe’s blessings with those of Ya’akov. The similarities are obvious: both foundational leaders156See Redeeming Relevance in Exodus, Chapter Three, especially pp. 47–50, for an analysis of the many similarities between the lives of these seminal leaders. bless the twelve tribes right before they die. The differences are also easy to find: not only does Moshe change the order of the tribes to be blessed, he dramatically changes the content of almost all the blessings (the similarity between Yosef’s two blessings is an exception, although it illustrates that Moshe could have chosen to echo most of Ya’akov’s other blessings as well). The reason for any of these deviations is far from obvious, and the majority of commentators struggle to find the reason.
The order of the blessings is as follows:157Those receiving what we will call superblessings later in this chapter are bolded. Mothers’ names are indicated, as this will also be of some significance.
Ya’akov ---- Moshe
Reuven (Leah) Reuven (Leah)
Shimon/Levi (Leah) Yehudah (Leah)
Yehudah (Leah) Levi (Leah)
Zevulun (Leah) Binyamin (Rachel)
Yissachar (Leah) Yosef (Rachel)
Dan (Bilhah) Zevulun/Yissachar (Leah)
Gad (Zilpah) Gad (Zilpah)
Asher (Zilpah) Dan (Bilhah)
Naftali (Bilhah) Naftali (Bilhah)
Yosef (Rachel) Asher (Zilpah)
Binyamin (Rachel)
We immediately note that Moshe blesses the more important tribes first and the less important tribes later. At the very least, this tells us that the order is not random. Moreover, Leah’s more significant children (i.e., Reuven, Levi and Yehudah) come, as is always the case, before Rachel’s children. Looking more carefully, we also see several deviations from the birth order of each subgroup, most prominently the listing of Yehudah before Levi, and Binyamin before Yosef. Also curious is the placement of Binyamin and Yosef in the middle of Leah’s tribes, specifically between Levi and Zevulun. (Shimon is not mentioned at all, although many commentators understand him to be subsumed under Yehudah.158See, for example, Ramban on Devarim 33:6–7.)
R. Avraham Ibn Ezra is the first major commentator to try to make sense of the order and does an admirable job in finding reasons for the unexpected divergences from the birth (or any other obvious) order. Most important is his suggestion that Yehudah and Binyamin’s future territorial proximity necessitates the proximity of their blessings. He adds that Levi is placed between them since that priestly tribe’s center would be in Jerusalem, which lies between the other two tribes.159Ibn Ezra on Devarim 33:6. Many subsequent commentators adopt his general approach and summarize it as being based on the configuration of the nachala, the territorial inheritance, which also helps explain why Reuven is first (though his status as the firstborn means that there really isn’t a great need for explanation vis-à-vis him to begin with).160See, for example, Ramban, Rabbenu Bachya ben Asher, Abarbanel. Nevertheless, saying that it is based on the order of the tribes’ geographic inheritance uncovers almost as many problems as it solves. It is for this reason that Abarbanel is forced to say that the explanation does not pertain to the last four tribes.
Moshe’s Two Groupings
Ibn Ezra’s line of reasoning, however, fails to explain one important fact: There is a long gap (petucha) only between the blessings of Yehudah and Levi,161According to the Keter Aram Tzova text, the oldest and most reliable version of the Torah. It should be noted, however, that the Leningrad Codex does not have such a deviation, but rather shows the gap between these two blessings as the same as all of the others. whereas the Torah separates all the other blessings with a short gap (setuma) between each one. While most commentators pass over this curious deviation, there is one from the modern era, Netziv, who brings it to our attention.
Netziv suggests that the Torah is presenting two groups to us: Reuven and Yehudah on one side and the rest of the other tribes on the other. Of course, noticing this distinction is much simpler than explaining it. Netziv’s explanation that the first two tribes operated on a more earthly, natural level (which he calls malchut, monarchy) whereas the latter operated on a more miraculous level of Divine intervention (which he calls tiferet, splendor) seems rather speculative.162Ha’amek Davar on Devarim 33:7–8. This distinction follows Netziv’s theory concerning the two possible ways for the Jews to inherit the Land of Israel which were discussed in Chapter One. Before returning to his approach, let us look for an explanation more grounded in the text.
One way to gain better insight into the separation of Reuven and Yehudah from the rest of the tribes is to focus on the most important differences between the blessings given by Moshe and those given by Ya’akov. Ya’akov distinguishes his two most illustrious sons, Yehudah and Yosef, by giving them what we could call “superblessings.” Both in length and in quality, the blessings of these two brothers suggest special treatment. Given the leadership they had shown during Ya’akov’s lifetime, it is understandable that he earmarks them to be at the forefront of the Jewish people in the future as well. Judging by future events, his blessings hit their mark, at least through most of the Biblical period, when the rivalry between the two brothers is embodied by the split of the tribes into the kingdoms of Yehudah and what is often referred to as Ephraim (Yosef’s dominant son), or Yisrael. The special role these two brothers play extends even beyond the Biblical period, for even after the exile of Yosef’s descendants, prophets still looked forward to the leadership of both Yosef and Yehudah in the messianic era (Yechezkel 37:16–17).
Moshe follows Ya’akov’s general example in the bestowing of two superblessings, but gives it an interesting twist. Like Ya’akov, Moshe awards Yosef a superblessing, even repeating some key phrases from the former’s blessing. But with regard to the second superblessing, Moshe boldly replaces Yehudah with Levi, his own tribe. Not only is the blessing transferred to Levi, its focus is changed as well. When Ya’akov gave Yehudah his blessing, the focus was clearly on power and might: Yehudah is compared to a lion who is feared by all and who will have his hand on the neck of his enemies. He is to be the master of the scepter and the staff (Bereshit 49:8–10).
Not so with Levi. Although Moshe’s blessing to him concludes with an allusion to the blows he can land his enemies, the focus is clearly somewhere else. At the center is Moshe’s declaration that Levi will “teach Your statutes to Ya’akov and Your laws to Israel” on the one hand, and “place the incense before You and the sacrifice on Your altar” on the other (Devarim 33:8–11).
The significance of Moshe’s move is rarely discussed but should not be underestimated. For one, the ideals that Moshe’s transfer and transformation of the superblessing implies clearly impacts on the balance of power among the tribes: All of a sudden a new tribe is thrust into leadership, seemingly at the expense of Yehudah, the traditional front-runner for political power.
This change also mirrors a certain transformation that had already taken place on the Jewish people’s way from Egypt to the Land of Israel. The Levite children of Amram – Moshe, Aharon and Miriam, had become the leaders of the Jewish people de facto. Beyond these three eminent personalities, the tribe of Levi had been promoted more generally via its new responsibility concerning the sacrificial rite and its trappings. Yet this did not mean the Levites had permanently displaced the tribes of Yosef and Yehudah. Even while the Jews were still in the desert, the tribal leaders who made a difference are from Yosef (Yehoshua, from the tribe of Ephraim) and Yehudah (Calev).
But if Yehudah would not lose its position of leadership, this doesn’t mean that Moshe had to endorse it. We have already seen from Chapter One that Moshe was a man of vision; he was willing to propose lofty ideals that the Jewish people were not always able to attain. Thus, it appears that rather than confirming the current status quo, Moshe used the blessings as an attempt to create (or at least, model) a new sociopolitical order.
Moshe knew Yehudah would likely be the leader of any long-term monarchy created by the Jews. He also knew that such a monarchy would represent a triumph of mundane worldliness, wherein the exigencies of state would often derail the nation’s spiritual agenda.163See Chapter Seven. Such a system is certainly not what Moshe had in mind. Instead, he sought a state dominated by a spiritual leadership that would tower over a weak administrative arm, the latter meant only to keep the running of more practical matters under control. He certainly did not look forward to the creation of the complex infrastructure and political glory that would eventually take form under David and Shlomo. Rather, his model of leadership was based on what he had largely created in his own day.
Under the very unusual circumstances of the desert, Moshe had become the undisputed leader whose clear focus was on the spiritual. This is very much in line with the blessing he gives to Levi, where leadership is not defined by domination of the other tribes and military prowess, but rather by mastery in the fields of education, law and worship.
Clearly, Levi would still need a “prime minister” to run the temporal affairs of state; that is precisely why Yehoshua’s tribe of Yosef is given a superblessing. Yet it is clear that in “Moshe’s state,” Levi would set the tone. Moreover, to make sure that we know the subordinate place of Yosef in such an arrangement, his younger brother Binyamin is placed before him. (Not necessarily the only reason for this placement, but perhaps the most important one.)
This was also reflected in Moshe’s desert administration. There, he was assisted in the more basic administration of the nation by his Ephraimite disciple and eventual successor, Yehoshua. In the desert as well as in Moshe’s ideal Jewish state, we see a political leader who is to the religious leader what the moon is to the sun.164See Bava Batra 75a. It gives off light when the sun is not visible. But even then, it never emits anything that is not a reflection of the sun itself.
In line with this ideal, Moshe also uses his blessings to try to limit Yehudah’s more temporal sphere of influence to Reuven alone. Following Netziv’s observation, we see Moshe wanting to create a sharp distinction between this tiny subgroup and the rest of the tribes that would now have Levi at the top. If Yehudah’s influence could be contained, Levi could more easily dominate the rest of the tribes.
The New Order and the Old Order
What still needs explanation is why Moshe gives Yehudah a sphere of influence at all, and even more to the point why it includes specifically Reuven (and possibly Shimon). Most helpful here is to think of Moshe’s division of the tribes as that of a “New Order” and an “Old Order.” His proposed arrangement was completely different from the arrangement up until this point. It required a new way of thinking, the kind of which is usually the most difficult for those ensconced in the power structures of the past.
The old power structures had been dominated by the four tribes that were descended from Leah’s first group of children: Reuven, Shimon, Levi and Yehudah. Of these four, Levi would be not only the proponent of the New Order but also the tribe that had the most to gain from it. Taking Levi out, then, leaves us with a “new Old Order”: Reuven, Shimon and Yehudah – precisely the tribes that Moshe put to one side.
It makes sense that Reuven is listed first in this new manifestation of the Old Order, even though Yehudah is the leader of the group. A hallmark trait of Old Orders in general, and of this one in particular, is loyalty to traditional authority, often embodied by birth order. Only in Levi’s New Order can a younger brother precede his older brother, as was the case with Binyamin and Yosef there.
Placing Reuven with Yehudah may not have been only because both would support the Old Order against Levi’s new one. First of all, Reuven is characterized by problematic idiosyncrasies. Between the jealousy shown toward Levi by the Reuveni leaders Datan and Aviram on the one hand, and the tribe’s preference to stay in Transjordan on the other, Moshe might have seen them as a particularly troublesome group.165See Redeeming Relevance in Numbers, Chapter Five. Consequently, it was wiser to leave them out of the more refined state of affairs that Moshe wanted to create. Furthermore, Moshe may have foreseen that their recalcitrant character would be best suited to the sharp discipline of a Yehudah state. And if Moshe also included Shimon in this grouping, much of the same could be said of this tribe, if not necessarily for the same reasons.166Ibid., Chapter Seven.
The Other Jewish State
But what would be the fate of Yehudah’s sphere of influence according to Moshe? Obviously, Moshe didn’t want its complete destruction. If that were the case, Reuven and Yehudah would have been omitted from the blessings altogether – as was the case with their brother Shimon. And if that were too radical, Moshe could have advocated for the complete dissolution of the old order by putting Reuven and Yehudah after Levi and perhaps even after Binyamin and Yosef. So if, as it appears, Yehudah’s leadership role was not slated for demise, what did Moshe want from this tribe?
Instead of Yehudah having a specific job to perform concurrently with those of Levi and Yosef, Moshe may have seen Yehudah taking the role of an alternative type of leader when the situation called for it. The Old Order tribes would represent a fallback leadership model, to be brought out when the Jews would fail to live up to the higher standards of the New Order. Moshe’s vision of the future of Jewish leadership is thus similar to Netziv’s two-tiered approach concerning Jewish leadership in the desert. As discussed in Chapter One, the ideal situation of immediate and intense Divine presence reflected in the desert experience would be fraught with danger if the Jews could not live according to its required discipline. It was therefore important for there to be a contingency plan which would require less discipline, even if it came at the expense of the Jews losing the intensity of God’s involvement with them. While the great cost incurred by moving to such a leadership model is self-evident, once needed, the only alternative to it would have been total obliteration of the Jewish people.
Although his comments are not directly connected to the blessings, Netziv suggests that Moshe acquiesced to a lower-level fallback position in the desert.167Earlier (p. 31) we contested Netziv on this point. Nevertheless, his idea serves as a helpful paradigm to explain Moshe’s thinking regarding the future. This would certainly indicate that Moshe was aware of the usefulness of such an idea. Hence even if he wanted the Israelites to now move back to the higher level experienced immediately after leaving Egypt, he likely intuited that they would still need a contingency plan. The tribes of the Old Order not only represented this, it was their responsibility to keep it alive.
Indeed, the contingency plan was put into use over and over. For one, the monarchy of Yehudah, established by David, can certainly be seen as a withdrawal from the New Order ideal. This is why, when the Jews claim the need for a monarchy, God declares it to be a rejection of Him more than anything else (I Shmuel 8:7).168See also Chapter Five. Obviously, if it were a complete rejection, lacking nuance, it is hard to imagine that God would have acquiesced. Presumably then, what the Jewish people were actually requesting was a lower level of Divine intervention. This would mean they would no longer be harassed by their neighbors each time they failed to keep God’s commandments, but it would also mean that they would be relinquishing overt Divine protection from the normal political and military ambitions of other nations. This, in turn, would create the need for a more centralized government that could put together an army worthy of the name. And this is exactly what served as the focus of their request.
This is how things would be until the messianic period, when the temporal leader will also be the spiritual leader. Given the tradition that the messianic king will come from the house of David, and consequently from the tribe of Yehudah, the political vision that Moshe identified with Levi will at the end of days finally be adopted by Yehudah as well.
The Need for Dreams
Moshe’s vision for a New Order could easily be discounted as one more tragic failure of a leader who set his sights too high. It is obvious that the blessings, as we have portrayed them, had little effect on the Jews after they conquered the Land of Israel. Nor is it clear whether the blessings had any impact even during the early period, when the Jews first entered the land. Granted, the tenure and especially the conquests of Yehoshua do carry a shadow of Moshe’s vision, characterized as they were by so much Divine intervention. There one captures a glimpse of Yosef’s descendant in charge of a temporal conquest but still deeply rooted in a spiritual quest. Yet Yehoshua acts only as a reflection of the light of his departed teacher – a teacher he did not truly replace. Instead, there arose a vacuum of spiritual leadership which, once Yehoshua died, led to a cycle of sin and failure. And once the judges are replaced by Yehudah’s monarchy, Moshe’s vision gradually fades from the scene altogether.
Yet this is not the only way to look at what transpired when the Jews entered and settled their land. Visions are much more than just plans meant to be followed. They are at least as much about an ideal as they are about a prescription for the future. As such, the success of a vision need not depend on whether or not it materializes.
As an ideal, Moshe’s vision is meant to provide the answer when Jews are asked, “What do you really want?” If the Jews have rarely attempted to attain what Moshe let us know we should “really want,” it is far from a rejection of his ideal. Rather, it is an admission that we are not there yet.
Moshe’s blessings represent a concretized way to transmit a national vision. They are a spiritual legacy that his nation has since always known to be its ideal. Traditional Jews are meant to hope for the attainment of that ideal sooner rather than later. Yet when we are pursuing a spiritual journey, we know that we can’t be certain of when we will get there, or even whether we will get there at all. Be that as it may, our journey is forever informed and illuminated by the proverbial light that Moshe shone for us at the end of the tunnel.
* * *
It is surprising how many people cannot verbalize what it is they really want. It is even more surprising how many people have not even asked themselves this question, let alone tried to answer it.
We live in more pragmatic times, where we are bidden to seek realistic goals. There is something to be said for that, yet it should not come at the expense of dispensing with lofty goals and ideals. In fact, the loftier the better. For it to serve its purpose, a true ideal must inspire. And to do that, it must never be based on an underestimation of our tremendous potential.
Great visions are the products of great people. If there is a lack of vision today, it reflects a sore absence of people of true stature. One way to engender greatness, however, is to remind ourselves of the greatest and, consequently, the least practical visions of the past – visions such as Moshe’s that were almost doomed from the start. For it is precisely because they are so far out of reach that they are so inspiring. And if a vision is not inspiring, it is, by definition, a failure. In the end, then, the failure of Moshe’s vision is not only a tribute to its greatness. It is also a tribute to its actual success.