Shabbat Sermon: Why Moses’s Final Words Call Out to Us With Special Urgency Right Now with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

Why Moses’s Final Words Call Out to Us With Special Urgency Right Now

This past week, in anticipation of Simchat Torah,  I was drawn to a granular question that I had never thought about before: namely, what are Moses’s very last words before he dies?  The portion we read on Simchat Torah contains Moses’s final farewell speech. He blesses all the tribes of Israel one by one, offering them final words suited to their story. When he is done blessing the last tribe, he has one last thing to say to the Jewish people. What is it?

When I examined the text, I was surprised by what I found. Here are his final words:

Your enemies shall come cringing before you,

And you shall tread on their backs. Deuteronomy 33:29.

Curious. Enemies come cringing before you. You shall tread on their backs. What enemies? What does treading on their backs even mean? Rashi, the classic commentator, explains that it means: “Put your feet upon the necks of these enemy kings.”

Not what I would have expected.