10/02/2026
Rabbi O’s Weekly Parsha: V’Zos HaBracha
The Journey We Don’t Finish
Each year, as we reach the end of the Torah and the end of Moshe’s life, there is something almost painful about the way his story concludes. After forty years of leading the Jewish people through the wilderness, Moshe climbs Mount Nebo, sees the Promised Land from a distance—and dies without entering it. It seems so unfair. Moshe had devoted his life to bringing the Jewish people to this moment. Couldn’t he have been allowed to cross the Jordan, even briefly, and see his life’s work completed? Perhaps that is precisely the point.
The Torah ends by teaching us something fundamental about human life: we do not always get to finish what we begin. Moshe’s life was extraordinary, but it was still a human life. And every human life is, in some sense, unfinished. We are mortal. No matter how much we accomplish, there will always be another place we hoped to reach, another project we wanted to complete, another person we wanted to help, another part of ourselves we wanted to develop. Moshe, the greatest leader in Jewish history, dies with his destination still visible in the distance, but that does not make his life a failure? Quite the opposite; Moshe had brought the Jewish people as far as he could. Yehoshua would take them farther and someone else would take them farther still. One of the most important lessons in the Torah is that we don't have to finish the journey for our lives to matter but we have to move the journey forward.
Another crucial lesson is the way the Torah tells Moshe’s story. Moshe was the greatest prophet who ever lived but the Torah does not portray him as perfect. He made mistakes and experienced frustration and disappointment—there were even moments when Moshe fell short. But this too is part of his greatness. Judaism does not ask us to become people who never make mistakes, it asks us to become people who learn and grow from them. Failure does not have to be the opposite of growth, because many times it’s what makes growth possible.
Finally, and perhaps the most powerful lesson of all, Moshe knew he would not enter the Land but he spent the final days of his life preparing everyone else to enter without him. He taught them and blessed them. He strengthened Joshua and made sure that the mission would continue.
There is something profoundly moving about that. The measure of a life is not simply what we personally accomplish, it is also what we inspire others to accomplish after us. Parents and teachers understand it, and so do community builders. We plant trees whose shade we may never sit beneath. We invest in children, students, institutions and ideas whose full impact we may never see.
And perhaps that is why the Torah ends where it does. Moshe's journey ends but the Jewish journey does not. In fact, almost immediately after we finish the Torah on Simchas Torah, we roll it back and begin again with Breishis, the beginning, which is symbolic in understanding that there is no real ending because one generation hands the story to the next.
Moshe did not enter the Promised Land but because of him the Jewish people did—and continue to do so. And so, the Torah ends with three life-changing ideas:
(1) We are mortal; therefore, make every day count.
(2) We are fallible; therefore, learn to grow from each mistake.
(3) We will not complete the journey; therefore, inspire others to continue what we began.
[This Dvar Torah has been adapted from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ Covenant & Conversation, 5779]
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