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It has been said that our Parsha Vayeilech is the among the shortest and often the most overlooked Parsha in Torah. It rarely stands for leyning on its own.
Most often it is leyned with Parsha Nitzavim and so, when it is read on its own, the are machklosim as to where certain of the aliyot end.
But our Parsha comes to speak at length about the Mitzvah of Hakhel — the communal gathering which took place every seven years; that is at the beginning of the year following the end of the Sh’mittah year.
The Hakhel is a Mitzvah dating back to Moshe Rabbeinu’s mussar talk on the last day of his life when he convened the entire nation; men, women and children — from the wealthiest to the most itinerant woodchopper, to the Ger;
…So that they may hear and so that they may learn and fear Hashem and guard to do all the words of Torah. (Sefer Devarim, Perek 31, posuk 12)
The concept of the Hakhel which I learned back in Philadelphia, back in the “Old Country,” was that even infants, those not even yet cognizant of language would be touched by this communal gathering and be affected by the enunciation of Halachot.
Sefer L’lmod U’Lamed notes that the Hakhel is meant;
To emphasize the need for parents to maintain close watch on their children’s development… To set the proper example for their children, especially during the early years when they are their children’s primary role models.
The Sefer then presents a story to illustrate the point of Hakhel and parents as their children’s primary role models.
The spiritual leader of a small town noticed that parents wew allowing their children to roam the streets late at night without any supervision. The next day, he delivered mussar to his kehillah;
He told them about the night he encountered a woman searching the streets for her missing goat. The Rav asked her why she was concerned about her goat spending the night in the fields.
The woman replied that the fields were full of wolves and other wild animal and that to leave the goat in the field would expose it great danger.
The Rabbi asked if she had children who could search for the goat in her stead.
“‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but they’re out with their friends in the streets!”
“‘Woe to you, foolish mother,’ the Rabbi responded, ‘You are concerned enough about your goat to go out and search for it, Yet, you let your children roanm the streets at will even though they are in great danger of being corrupted there…” (Sefer L’lmod U’Lamed on Parsha
Vayeilech, pages 166-167)
We learn in our Parsha (Sefer Devarim, Perek 31, posuk 16);
Hashem said to Moshe. “When you go and lie with your ancestors this nation will rise up and stray after the [false deities] of the land into which they are coming. They will thus abandon Me and violate the covenant that I have made with them.”
Torah Gems, by Aharon Yaakov Greenberg (page 314) cites a Mikra MeForash which notes;
Torah refers to this as “rising up”, when i would seem more proper to use a verb such as “to descend.” Rather, what this teaches us is that the people will rise up. They, rather than their leaders, will be the rulers, and that will result in their falling to the lowest depths.
The “people”, rather than their [Torah] leaders, will be the rulers resulting in the nation’s fall to the depths.
How very much does this Torah Gems citing sound like modern-day Israeli Torah-devoid governance, even amongst the alleged “religious sectors”? And how very much this citing sounds like the great rhetorical noise, i.e., which Israel’s so-called “leaders” make about the advent of Iranian nukes which translates to zero action, while these same so-called “leaders” arrest and persecute Jews who fight for the Torah way against internal ruling subversion?
Then, in the very next posuk (Sefer Devarim, Perek 31, posuk 17);
Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles will befall them…
Oh, that the Olmerts, Livnis, Baraks and Netanyahus come to realize and;
They will say on that day, “Have not these evils come upon us because Hashem is not within me?”
On Shabbos Teshuva, as repentence reaches a peak with Yom Kippur’s approach, may we, the B’nai Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard, captive Gilad Shalit and the other MIAs be liberated alive returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem and that we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos! L’Shana Tova — may all who read this be inscribed and sealed for a healthy, happy and prosperous 5769 and every year thereafter to at least 120!!
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Moshe Burt is an Oleh, writer and commentator on news and events in Eretz Yisrael. He is the founder and director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network.