Parshiot Nitzavim and Vayelech: Is Hakhel A ‘Mission Impossible’?

 

Deuteronomy 31:

(9) Moses wrote down this Torah and gave it to the priests, sons of Levi, who carried the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, and to all the elders of Israel.

(10) And Moses commanded them as follows: At the end of seven years, at the time of the Sabbatical Year (i.e. Shmittah) during the Sukkot Festival,

(11) when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord, your Gd in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Torah aloud in the presence of all Israel. (Rashi and Rambam explain that the king stood on a wooden platform in the Temple and read from a Torah scroll starting with the first verse of the Book of Devarim until the end of the first paragraph of the Shema, the second paragraph and the majority of chapters 14 to 28, including the Tochecha/warning).

(12) Gather (Hakhel) together the people—men, women, children, and the strangers in your cities—that they may hear and so that they may learn and they will fear the Lord your Gd and to observe faithfully every word of this Torah.

(13)  And their children who do not know - they shall hear and they learn to fear the Lord, your Gd, all the days that you live on the land to which you are crossing the Jordan to possess it.

 It is the seventh day of Adar and Moses is now one-hundred-and-twenty-years old. In a few hours, he will die and his successor, Joshua, will lead the people into the Promised Land. He knows that this will happen soon but as always, his entire focus is on the nation he has navigated through the desert over the last forty years. Through miracles and plagues, rebellions and wars, Moses has always been there for his people. He has pleaded with Gd for their salvation at times when they didn't deserve to be saved. His people - Gd's people are ready to enter the land from which he has been barred.

Others, less noble, less humble than Moses, Moshe Rabbeinu - 'our teacher', may not have been in the proper frame of mind to focus on anyone else but themselves. Moses is different. He has a job to do. There are two more mitzvot, commandments that he needs to teach the people. The six-hundred-and-thirteenth is to tell them that they each need to write their own Torah Scroll so that the holy words of our Torah will never leave their lips. Indeed, if one can inscribe a letter in a Torah Scroll, one has fulfilled this commandment (Chazal, our Sages interpret this to mean that, were one unable to do so, purchasing a Chumash is tantamount to writing in a scroll - as long as you read the book!).

The penultimate commandment however, as described above in Chapter 31 seems to be one of those that we are no longer able to fulfil, as we have neither a king nor a Beit Hamikdash/Temple.

Is it really a case of Mitzvah #612 being an example of a 'Mission Impossible'?

In 1994, I was single and without many cares in the world.

I seized the opportunity to spend a month in Israel, encompassing all the Chagim, from Rosh Hashanah through to the end of Simchat Torah.

I had a fabulous time!

A friend was renting a flat in downtown Jerusalem (in the German Colony of Emek Refaim) which meant that I could stay with him was within walking distance of both the Old and New Cities. The weather was glorious. I flitted around from Tel Aviv to Eilat and ventured to Haifa. Yom Kippur in Jerusalem was a touch challenging, granted the heat but I made it through the day without too much suffering endured.

When Sukkot came along, I heard of an event taking place at the Kotel/Western Wall that still sends chills down my spine to this very day.

1993-94 (or 5753-54) was the seventh year in the Shmittah cycle,  which meant that Chol Hamo'ed Sukkot was also the time when, in the past, the Hakhel Assembly had taken place in the Women's Courtyard of the Beit Hamikdash. This ceased with the destruction of the last Temple but was reinstated with a modern twist by the Israeli Government in 1952. To my delight, I happened to find myself in Jerusalem over Chol Hamo'ed Sukkot, at the exact time when the ceremony was being re-enacted.

I made my way to the Kotel and was greeted by what appeared to be an ocean of people. Men, women and children as far as the eye could see. The throng of the crowd took up the entire plaza in front of the Wall, all the way back to the security barriers. 

Proceedings began with the Kohanim/Priests, dressed in their traditional white robes, blowing the silver trumpets (Chatzotzerot) which had been recreated from the Biblical specifications by the craftsmen at the Temple Institute,  an organisation which are currently preparing the artefacts that will be (Please Gd) used when the Moshiach finally arrives.

The Kohanim were lined up along the wall by the gentlemen's entrance to the Kotel, just north of the hand-washing area.

Trumpets having been sounded, we were then treated to speeches by the respective Ashkenazi and Sephardi Chief Rabbis who described the Hakhel ceremony (as per this week's Parsha) and its significance in our collective history.

With the speeches over, we then had the opportunity to move over to one of the numerous shaded tables where Baalei Korah/Torah readers were reciting the said chapters from a myriad of Torah scrolls of different shapes and sizes. I heard the familiar Ashkenazi melody from one, a fascinating and virtually unrecognisable chant from a Yemenite sage (which is probably one of the most authentic versions, along with those emanating from the Iraqi and Persion traditions) as well as many other recitation.

We may not have witnessed a single king doing the job that day, but each Baal Korei was wearing a crown, in my opinion, for they were all magnificent. For all intent and purpose, I was present as the Hakhel Assembly prescribed by Moses, all those years ago.

It is interesting that we spend a great deal of our year mourning the destruction of the Temples, particularly the recent period of the Three Weeks, encompassing the Nine Days and Tisha B’Av.

Four out of our six annual public fasts have come about as a direct result of these catastrophic national events. The fifth fast , our most important one, is Yom Kippur whose highlight (during the repetition of the Musaph prayer) consists of the intricate description of the Avodah, the holy service which took place every year in the precincts of the Temple on this very day.

When we bow down and say "Baruch Shem Kevod...." numerous times, we are instinctively and directly connecting with a tradition that has survived two millennia. In fact, you could even add that the sixth fast, of Esther, would not need to have taken place had the Jews not been exiled to Persia as a consequence of the events that took place after the Babylonian Exile and destruction of the first Temple. Six fasts, all linked with Jerusalem.

As for myself, a twenty-first century Jew, to be able to participate in this ancient ceremony, at our holiest site, in the city of Jerusalem, the capital of Medinat Yisrael is truly remarkable.

Hakhel will (Please Gd) take place again in two years’ time. It will be another opportunity to fulfil a mitzvah that previous generations could never have envisaged and most importantly, Moses would have been extremely proud to see his vision enacted. 

He may not have physically entered the land of Israel but there is not a single day that passes when his name is not mentioned in awe – in our Promised Land.

Shabbat Shalom.