Parsha Inspired Menus - V'Zot HaBracha

To-rah, to-rah, to-rah

To-rah, to-rah, to-rah

To-rah Tzvialnu Moshe!

If you heard what we called the Torah Parade song in your head when you read those words, you probably grew up attending something like a Torah for Tots (or attending with a little one.) It is one of the first things we teach our children and it comes from Parshat V'Zot HaBracha - the last parsha of the whole Torah. While we won't actually read V'Zot HaBracha this Shabbat (instead we read the Torah reading for the appropriate Sukkot day), it is the next Torah reading, it's what we read at mincha this past Shabbat and I don't want to skip it in #parshainspiredmenus.

In the final moments of Moshe being the leader of Israel before he sends them into the Promised Land and then goes to Har Nebo, his final resting place, we are reminded that:

תּוֹרָ֥ה צִוָּה־לָ֖נוּ מֹשֶׁ֑ה מוֹרָשָׁ֖ה קְהִלַּ֥ת יַעֲקֹֽב׃

The Torah which Moshe commanded us, is the heritage of the congregation of Yaakov.

This line connects the Torah from God to Moshe and back to Yaakov. So, for something to make us think of Torah, try these Torah potato borekas (with some tricks to make them a bit easier.)

At the very end of the Torah, we read of Moshe's death and the leadership passing to Joshua.

So Moses the servant of יהוה died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of יהוה. [God] buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, near Beth-peor; and no one knows his burial place to this day. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated.

For those who believe that the whole Torah was written by Moshe, the information of his death and subsequent actions seems impossible. For some commentators, such as Ibn Ezra, it's easy to imagine that just these last lines were written by Joshua. But others, such as the Or HaChaim, feel very strongly that it's problematic to assume authorship transfers to Joshua. The Or HaChaim deals with this seeming inconsistency by saying:

We must accept the statement in Baba Batra 15 that Moses wrote the entire Torah whereas he completed the writing of these last eight verses by using tears instead of ink [or by weeping while writing it.]

It's an interesting question if the potential for Joshua to have written a few lines calls into question. Worth a good Shabbat table discussion! For a food to get you into this topic, I suggest focusing on the tears that Moshe is using to write and make a clear, almost tear-like soup.

Shabbat Shalom & B'Tayavon!