On Simchat Torah we read the very last parsha of the Torah, and then we begin all over again at the very beginning.  Let’s save the beginning for next week, since we will read it once again on Shabbat.

At the end of Deuteronomy, the end of the Torah, Moses blesses each of the tribes. To Joseph, for example, he says

Blessed by God be his land,
from the excellence of the heavens, from dew,
from Ocean crouching below

At the end of these blessings, Moses climbs up Mount Nebo, and God lets him see all the land.  But God says to Moses: “You shall not cross.”  So Moses dies there.

“Now Moses was a hundred and twenty years old at his death; his eye had not grown dim, his vigor had not fled.”

Joshua took over, but as the Torah says: “There arose no further prophet like Moses.” 

Food for Thought 

Some commentators say Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land because he was too old to lead the people of Israel, yet the Torah says “his vigor had not fled.”  What do you think?