And Moshe, the servant of Hashem, died there, in the land of Moav, by the mouth of Hashem. (Devarim 34:5)
The Gemara (Bava Basra 15a) asks a fascinating question: Our tradition maintains that Moshe wrote the Torah. Yet how can a living Moshe write the words “and Moshe died?” These final eight verses, which we read on Simchas Torah, describe his death and burial!
Rabi Yehudah or Rabi Nechemya say that the last eight verses, written after Moshe’s death, were written by his successor, Yehoshua.
Rabi Shimon disagrees, maintaining that the entire Torah was written by Moshe. However, he adds that up until this point, Hashem dictated and Moshe repeated each word and wrote it down. But for the final eight pesukim, Hashem dictated and Moshe wrote with tears.
It’s a haunting interpretation: Ever the teacher and ever the leader, Moshe performed one last heartbreaking mission before his death: He recorded his own end.
Still, how does Rabi Shimon answer the original question — if Moshe was alive, how could he write the untrue words “and Moshe died?”
One of the most moving interpretations comes from the Yad Rameh, the Ritva, and the Maharsha, who explain that the Gemara doesn’t mean that Moshe wrote these verses while he was crying; it means that he wrote them with actual tears, instead of ink.
The entire Torah was written with ink on parchment, but the final eight verses that tell the story of Moshe’s passing were transcribed not with ink, but with Moshe’s tears.
Says the Maharsha, this sort of writing, with tears, isn’t permanent. Its more ethereal nature allowed it to be written even before his actual passing. Moshe’s tears functioned as a kind of “invisible ink.” They made an imprint on the Torah, but they’d need to be reinforced with actual ink afterward. This explanation reconciles the two answers in the Gemara: Moshe wrote the verses in tears, and after his death, Yehoshua filled in the tears with ink (Rabbi YY Jacobson, TheYeshiva.net).
It was a half a year already, in a world gone crazy. A world which now included gloves, masks, tests, and tears. A world of loneliness, in which we each were locked into our own homes and a world of mourning; everyone knew someone who had felt searing loss.
Still, the Yamim Noraim were approaching, and while Pesach had been spent in total confusion, as we scrambled to acclimate ourselves to this new normal while still celebrating Yom Tov, by now we were unfortunately pros.
Our shul divided itself into many minyanim, one of which was right across the street from my home, and I listened to the tefillos from my garden. Please Hashem! Write us and seal us in the Book of Life!
Why did Moshe weep when he wrote those final verses? Were they tears of gratitude or of longing? Regret or joy? Was it the feeling of impotence in the face of frightful mortality? Or maybe it was the pain he felt saying goodbye to his beloved people?
Perhaps it was all of this, coupled with the overwhelming feeling of the magnitude of the moment. He had lived for 120 years; now his soul was about to depart. How do you put that into words? Tears capture the depth of such moments far more than any words can.
Is this not true for each of our lives? The Baal Shem Tov said that the Jewish people is a living sefer Torah, and every Jew is one of its letters. Each of us adds another chapter to the sacred scroll of Jewish history. Some of our chapters are written in ink; but others are written with tears. There are chapters in everyone’s lives that are written with tears — tears of sorrow, of gladness, tears of awe or gratitude, tears of ecstasy, and tears of facing the ultimate mystery of life.
Then the intensity of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur gave way to the joy of Succos. As no one knew if travel or even eating together would be allowed, we built several succahs in our yard for our marrieds to use. While hoping for the best, we no longer took for granted the huge zechus and opportunity to spend Yom Tov meals together.
