Parashat Vezot Habberakha: The Blessing for Peace in the Middle East

By: HaRav Menashe Sasson
Reporting from Jerusalem, Israel
​Published in the U.S.A.

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​Parasha Vezot HaBerakha ([וזאת הברכה] “And this is the blessing”), the last Parasha in the Torah, contains the recipe for peace in the Middle East.  The Parasha begins with Moshe Rabbeinu, whose death is imminent, blessing the Jewish people as a whole.  Following this general blessing, Moshe Rabbeinu then addressed each tribe individually, giving each both blessing and prophecy.  After concluding the blessing of each individual tribe, Moshe Rabbeinu then turns to and addresses the entire nation one last time, and saying:

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​[HaShem] shall drive out the enemy away from before you and shall say, “Destroy them!”  Thus, Yisra’el shall then dwell secure and alone. . . .  Fortunate are you, O Yisra’el.  Who is like you!  O people saved by HaShem, the Shield of your help and one who is the sword of your grandeur!  And your enemies shall submit themselves to you and you shall trample upon their high places.

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​​Debarim 33:27-29.
 
The Or HaHayyim wrote, “[W]hen does this situation [of Yisra’el dwelling in safety] occur?  When they live in isolation. . . .  As a result of fulfilling this instruction [of driving out the nations] Yisra’el would be assured of dwelling safely in the Holy Land.”  Or HaHayyim, commentary to Debarim 33:27-29.
 
The command to drive out the nations who, prior to the Jewish people, possessed Eretz Yisra’el, is not a command which was limited to Biblical times.
 
The Or HaHayyim wrote that:

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​Even though the Torah says in Debarim 20:16 that “you must not allow a single soul [of the Kena’anite nations to remain in Eretz Yisra’el], . . . the Torah does not speak of [only] the seven Kena’anite nations[,] but [also] about others who lived among them.  This is the reason the Torah chose its words carefully, i.e., “all the ones who dwell in the land,” that the Israelites were to drive out even those people who lived there who were not members of the seven [Kena’anite] nations.

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​Or HaHayyim, commentary to Bamidbar 33:52.
 
Likewise, Abarbanel said:

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​Shemot 34:11-12 informs us that since HaShem is driving out the [Canaanite] nations, it would be improper for Yisra’el to forge a covenant with them.  If a nobleman helps someone by fighting that person’s battles and banishing that person’s enemies, it would be immoral for that person to make peace with [those enemies] without [first obtaining the] nobleman’s permission.  So, too, with HaShem driving out Yisra’el’s enemies, it is immoral for Yisra’el to enter into a treaty with them, for that would profane HaShem’s Glory.  This is especially true considering that the treaty will not succeed.  Because Yisra’el dispossessed them of what they believe to have been their land, there is no doubt that they will constantly seek to defeat and destroy Yisra’el.  This is why it said, “[the Land] to which you are coming.”  Since Yisra’el came to that Land and took it from its inhabitants, and because they feel that the Land has been stolen from them, how will they make a covenant of friendship with you?  Rather the opposite will occur: “they will be a snare among you.”  When war strikes you, they will join your enemies and fight you.

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​Abarbanel, Commentary on Shemot 34:11-12.
 
Immediately after giving the Jewish people the blessing for peace, Parasha Vezot HaBerakha, the final Parasha of the Torah, concludes with Moshe Rabbeinu, the only leader the Jewish people had known up to that time, making final preparations for his death:

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​And Moshe went up from the plains of Mo’ab to the Mountain of Nebo, to the summit facing Yereho, and HaShem showed him all the land of Gil’ad to Dan, and all Naftali, and the land of Efrayim and Menashe, and all the land of Yehuda, as far as the utmost sea, and the Negev, and the plain; the valley of Yereho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zo’ar.  And HaShem said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Yizhaq, and to Ya’akob, saying I will give it to thy seed.  I have caused you [Moshe] to see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.  So Moshe, the servant of HaShem, died there in the land of Mo’ab, according to the word of HaShem. . . .

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​Debarim 34:1-5.
 
The sentence immediately preceding the death of Moshe Rabbeinu restates that Eretz Yisra’el “is the land which [HaShem] swore to Abraham, to Yizhaq, and to Ya’akob, saying I will give it to thy seed.”
 
But why did HaShem give Eretz Yisra’el to the Jewish people?  The reason, of course, was revealed by HaShem at Mount Sinai, shortly before the giving of the Torah, when he said, “And now, if you will obey My voice and keep my covenant, you shall be to Me the most beloved treasures of all peoples, for Mine is the entire world.  You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation [ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש].”  Shemot 19:5-6.
 
The question that logically follows is: What can Medinat Yisra’el – the State of Israel, which in its legal documents proclaims itself to be both a “Jewish state” and a “democracy,” do to bring itself closer to becoming the “kingdom of priests and a holy nation [ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש]” which is envisioned by the Torah?  The following proposed laws for Medinat Yisra’el are the ingredients for Vezot HaBerakha’s recipe for peace in the Middle East:

1. Only a Jew may become a citizen of Medinat Yisra’el;
2. Non-Jews shall not have the right to vote;
3. Jews and non-Jews may not intermarry;
4. Hebrew, and no other language, shall be the official language of Medinat Yisra’el;
5. Non-Jews shall be ineligible for government employment;
6. Non-Jews shall be ineligible to purchase or otherwise acquire any ownership interest, or leasehold interest for a period greater than one year, in real property;
7. Non-Jews shall not be entitled or eligible to receive government assistance payments or other benefits;
8. The Israeli citizenship of any non-Jew who is a citizen of Medinat Yisra’el shall be revoked if the non-Jewish citizen is convicted of a serious criminal offense;
9. Premeditated murder shall be punishable by the death penalty;
10. All Israeli military units and civilian law enforcement agencies shall adopt and implement rules of engagement which permit, and which do not discourage or punish, the use of deadly force to protect themselves and innocent third-parties from any unlawful use of force, or any unlawful threatened use of force, that could result in death or serious bodily injury;
11. All Jews shall have the right to use force, including deadly force, to protect themselves and innocent third-parties from any unlawful use of force, or any unlawful threatened use of force, that could result in death or serious bodily injury;
12. All law-abiding, adult Jews (but not non-Jews) shall have the right to possess and publicly carry fully-loaded firearms (openly or concealed); and
13. Jews who use deadly force in defense of themselves or others shall not be subject to arrest, detention, or prosecution (criminal or civil), absent clear and convincing evidence that said use of deadly force was unlawful.

 
May we, the Jewish people, without further delay, achieve our purpose in life by becoming the kingdom of priests and a holy nation [ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש] that HaShem desires.
 
שבת שלום
Shabbat Shalom!

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