Simchat Torah: V'zot HaBracha

This week we conclude the annual Torah cycle with V'zot haBracha and with it the end of a year in which I set out to read, study, and write about the weekly parsha as we progressed through the annual cycle.  My main intent was personal.  Like many other Jews raised in non-Orthodox households, for me growing up the Torah was something that provided stories in Sunday School, was read but not understood during weekly Shabbat services, and finally ends your Jewish-education  upon  reading from it at your bar/bat mitzvah.  For some reason (thank God!) I was one of the few but growing number of Jews that pursued Jewish education further, and I have come to realize that the Torah has the ability to be (and is) much, much more.  So this past year, for the first time, I read the entire Torah, in the order it was meant to be read throughout the Jewish calendar year.  Unfortunately I was not able to devote as much time to it as I originally intended and my blog fizzled out around the middle of Vayikra (Leviticus).   So now, I begin the 5773 Torah cycle with the renewed intent to read, study, and write on each parsha over the next year.  First, to finish 5772 on a positive note, here are my thoughts on V’zot Habracha, which will be read as we complete the Torah cycle on Simchat Torah this coming week:

The beginning of this parsha is laid out very similar to Vayechi.  In the last part of Bereshit (Genesis) we see Jacob blessing his twelve sons.  In the last part of the entire Torah it is Moses' turn to bless the twelve tribes, who descended from Jacob's twelve sons.  But Moshe only blesses eleven of the tribes.  

Shimon was missing.  

In Bereshit 49:5-7, Shimon and Levi are blessed together by Jacob; but in Devarim 33 8-11, Levi is blessed alone and Shimon not at all.  By looking at Jacob's blessing and the progression of the two tribes throughout the Torah we can understand Moses' "oversight."  Jacob blesses:

Shimon and Levi are a pair; their weapons are tools of lawlessness.  Let not my person be included in their council, let not my being be counted in their assembly.  For when angry they slay men and when pleased they maim oxen.  Cursed be their anger so fierce, and their wrath so relentless.  I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel.

Ya'akov's blessing is more of a warning than anything else, but the critical tone is that of a father who is disappointed in the actions of his children.  Jacob is scolding them in the hope that they will change their ways; he is dividing them so that they cannot influence each other in their negative ways.  (I am reminded of my dad separating me and my sister in different parts of the house as children when we were in trouble.)

Levi's descendants go on to improve themselves and get blessed as such; they are given a special role in the Temple.  Moses praises them for following "[God's] precepts alone."  Shimon's descendents did not heed Jacob's warning but continued to disintegrate.  They were the main perpetrators of sexually immorality and idol worship with the daughters of Moab.  For their un-remediated actions they are not deserving of a blessing.  They failed to heed Jacob’s warning.  

On Simchat Torah, on the heels of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, we as Jews are given the special privilege to rejoice in the blessing of the Torah, with the Torah.  As we dance with the Torah we should not just have the physical joy associated with the community-wide singing and dancing with the Torah scrolls; we should also remember the blessings within the Torah, heed the curses, and make sure they we do not let our New Year resolutions “fall through the cracks” like Shimon seems to have.