first of all i wanna explain the subject of this thingie (after long contemplation, i came to the conclusion that that is the best way to describe my divrey torah), i kinda feel bad for the last parsha of the torah, you know it never really gets the attention it deserves it’s always read the same time that so many other things are going on and it just never really gets to shine the way a parsha (especially this one) is supposed to, and so i wanna try and make up for some lost opportunities and focus on the parsha as apposed to the chag (has anyone ever taken more time to “i don’t really have any good divrey torah for sukkos”?)
Moshe dies……. just giving you all a second to contemplate that…….. and a couple of moments of silence in memory of the greatest leader we ever had.
Moshe taught us countless amounts of lessons throughout his 40 years of leadership, in fact if we trace back every single action he ever did from the moment hashem spoke to him at the bush and till the day he die, we can see that there is something to learn from every action, now what is there to learn from his final moments? or better so, what can we learn from the whole “dying” episode? many things, which i do not have the time, patience, energy or quite frankly the knowledge to share with u 🙂 but there is one point i do wanna discuss, one seemingly innocuous,or to be more exact, lack of, detail. I’m referring to Moshe’s burial place, as we are told in the torah moshe’s burial site has not been revealed to us. why? why is hashem denying all the travel agents from making the deal of their life? just think bout it, 7th of adar nothing else is happening , no one is really flying anywhere and then BOOM “moshe rabeynu’s kever for just 999 [plus tax, gas, food and bribe], go now before moshiach comes and moshe moves to a better place!!!!” it would be the perfect sales pitch, but NO hashem had to hide it………..why?
The gemara gives a very interesting explanation (i actually got acquainted with this gemara thru an Aaron Razel song……..so kudos to him!), if the children of israel (and moses, weather biological or other) would have known where the grave was, they would have gone there on their way into exile and pleaded with moshe to daven to hashem (all kever davening issues aside for now) to forgive them and allow them to stay in the land and………hashem would have HAD (kivyachol) to listen to moses’s prayers! and he never would have been able to kick us out of our land [so why indeed did hashem deny us that privilege? cuz going into exile is part of our purification process, ein kan mokom leha’arich, a.k.a i’m not getting into that]. That is the basis of the lesson…….now what is the lesson itself? dunno. JUST KIDDING!
When do we daven for something? when all else has failed, “there is nothing left to do now, all you can do is pray”- after we have tried fixing the problem on our own, after we have gone to all the “professionals” for advice, after we wasted many hours and money, only after that we go to our last resort…….G-D. I mean he did like create the world and stuff so maybe, just MAYBE, he will have an idea of how to fix it, it can’t hurt to try. that is BAD……..VERY bad!!!!!
Let’s go back to that gemara…….. just stop for a second to realize just how powerful prayers can actually be, if done in the right manner, and for the right reasons they can, so to speak, FORCE hashem to answer us! no matter how much of a “miracle” we are asking for!!! i am in no way saying prayers are a magic potion for everything, and i am in no way saying that every time we ask for something we will be answered (and i am especially not saying that every time we daven, plead, beg and even cry(!!!!!)really really hard that our team should win they will win, even if we go to every grave we know of!!!), all i am saying is that prayers ( a.k.a tefilos) are mucho mucho powerful! and as a result of their potentness (that is a real word right?) they really should be our FIRST option and not just some by the way last resort.
That is what the aforementioned “innocuous” (thats’s a lot of vowels, and i’m not even sure what the word really means……) detail was told to us for, and so even in death moshe teaches us, possibly the most important lesson of all!
So, will this lesson go like all others? in one ear, around the brain a bit and out the other? or……… try this. Next time something not so pleasant happens in your life, or next time you want something pleasant to happen in your life, before you go to all the “natural” ways of going about things, try the “supernatural” (and since we are in olam hasheker, then obviously we always get mixed up, cuz indeed the “supernatural” prayer method is really the most natural method, cuz our entire existence is “supernatural” and therefore supernatural+supernatural= natural……….huh???) davening method. no……..REALLY try it!!! i know it sounds weird, but just sit down, drown everything else out, and start talking to “him” (if you happen to be out doors put a cellphone ear piece in your ear so ppl won’t think ur weird!!!!).