זֹאת הַבְּרָכָה
V’zot HaBracha / The Blessing
Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12
HafTorah Joshua 1:1-18

      V’zot HaBrachah is the concluding parsha of a family who served in bondage as a nation of slaves for four hundred years in Egypt.  The Israelites who were delivered from slavery (death) now become a nation to serve God and His Torah (Life). This is the parsha in which the children of God enter the Promised Land and become the Nation of Israel. Twelve individual brothers have now become a nation of people about to enter the Promised Land with HaTorah: the directions of becoming and maintaining the perfect ways of Elohim- The Will of God. 
     Deuteronomy 33 contains the blessings for the twelve tribes of Israel. In the first section of chapter 33, Moshe compares the Torah to a fiery law coming from His Right Hand. This takes us to John 1 ‘…In the beginning was the Word…’
     Reuben will live and not die. Judah will come to his people and Adonai will hear his voice. Levi will teach the Israelites Torah and burn incense before God. Benjamin is to dwell between His shoulders. Ephraim will reign in glory and push the peoples to the end of the earth. Of Zebulun, in his going out, and Issachar in his tents, they shall call the peoples to the mountain. Gad dwells as a lion and will administer the justice of the Lord, and His judgments with Israel. Dan is a lion’s whelp, and he shall leap from Bashan. Naphtali is satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of the Lord, possessing the west and the south. Asher is most blessed of sons, he is favored by his brothers, and he dips his foot in oil.
     Deuteronomy 33 ends with ‘Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord,
The shield of your help and the sword of your majesty! Your enemies shall submit to you,
And you shall tread down their high places.’ Deuteronomy 33:29.
     The end of this parsha is the death of Moshe and the beginning of Joshua.  ‘Now Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; so the children of Israel heeded him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.’ Deuteronomy 34:9.
      The Israelites were to cross the Jordan in order take the Land of Canaan. They were to pass over the waters of the Jordan just as miraculously as their fathers had passed through the Red Sea. On that day, the tenth day of Nissan the river was overflowing. The priests advanced with the Holy Ark, and as their feet touched the Jordan river, the waters stood still, piling up as did the waves of the Red Sea. The whole nation of Israel passed over as the riverbed became dry. The crossing was a turning point in freedom and deliverance from wandering. Crossing the Jordan River was a fulfillment of creation, a fullness of creation. 
      Twelve men, one from each tribe, then carried twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan to a spot on the shore, where they erected a monument to commemorate the event. Settling in Gilgal they set up the Tabernacle where it stayed for fourteen years.
     For us, comfortable in our homes and lives, it is impossible to imagine the life that the Israelites lived in the wilderness.  The flight from Egypt became a 40-year multi-generational piece of history. Their wilderness was a literal wilderness of heat, hunger, exhaustion, enemies, confrontations and battles. 
    Crossing the Jordan River was a time of transition.  As with us, too, when we faithfully cross over the Jordan that is in front of us, it is a time of transition.