“ADONAI, who may abide in Your tent?�Who may dwell in Your holy mountain? He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart.”�Psalm 15:1-2
וַיֵּלֶךְ מֹשֶׁה
“And Moses went…”�Deuteronomy 31:1
Moses went . . . to all of Israel (31:1)
“But the Torah doesn’t tell us where Moses went on this last day of his earthly life. The Chassidic masters say: Moses entered into the core of every Jew of every generation, so that every Jewish soul possesses a spark of the soul of Moses.”
Maayanah Shel Torah, cited in Chabad.org
“Vayelech means walking, and spiritually we must constantly be progressing to a new level, so that the place where one foot landed is not the same as the next step, as we constantly progress and deepen our relationship with G-d.”
Weisberg, Chana. Shabbat deLights: Enlightening Insights on the Weekly Torah portion (pp. 466-467). Kindle Edition.
“Before one learns how to walk, one must first learn how to stand. Before we can walk into the next year, we need to be able to stand up for what we believe in, but from a place of real power, not force.”
Pinson, Dovber. Awakenings: Drawing Life from the Weekly Torah Reading (p. 422). (Function). Kindle Edition.
“The mitzvah of walking in God’s ways is the 611th commandment. It requires every Jewish individual to rectify his or her character traits. As the sages explain, “Just as the Almighty is called compassionate, so you shall be compassionate.” Following this principle is one of the all-inclusive rules of the Torah. Thus, this mitzvah represents the entire Torah. The numerical value of Torah (תּוֹרָה) is 611.”
Ginsburgh, Rabbi Yitzchak. The Inner Dimension: Insight into the Weekly Torah Portion (p. 301). (Function). Kindle Edition.
וְאָנֹכִי הַסְתֵּר אַסְתִּיר פָּנַי בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא, עַל כָּל-הָרָעָה, אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה
“I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evil which they shall have worked, in that they are turned to other gods.”
Deuteronomy 31:18
“There are times when G‑d hides His face. But then there are times when G‑d hides His face and we don’t even realize that His face is hidden; we dwell in darkness, and think it is light. This is a double galut, a concealment within a concealment.”
The Chassidic Masters cited at Chabad.org
“On a deeper level, however, the Ba’al Shem Tov interpreted this expression to mean that G-d’s very hiddenness will itself be hidden from us, that is, we will be so submersed in our exile that we will have forgotten what it was like not to be in exile; thus, we will not appreciate how utterly deplorable life has become. Having become accustomed to spiritual darkness, we will view it as natural, and consider light and goodness to be abnormal, even unwholesome. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who speak of evil as if it were good, and of good as if it were evil; who consider darkness light and light darkness; the bitter sweet and the sweet bitter.”
“This curse is apparently the worst possible - for when we are at least aware that we are suffering, we can attempt to negate the cause of the suffering and thereby bring our suffering to an end, but when we are not even aware that we are suffering, this hope does not exist. Nonetheless, since we have pointed out that all the curses in the Torah are really blessings too intense to be revealed as such prima facie, it follows that this dire prediction is also a blessing in disguise. In fact, since this is apparently the worst form of curse possible, it follows that it embodies the highest form of blessing possible.”
Chasidic Insights, Kehot Chumash, pg. 190, cited at Chabad.org
“Even in a concealment within a concealment, HaShem, may He be blessed, is certainly there.”�R’ Nachman of Breslov
“The Torah portion of Vayelech contains the two final mitzvot (commandments) of the Torah. The penultimate (612th) mitzvah is Hakhel. Once every seven years, we are commanded to gather the entire Jewish People, men, women, and children, to hear the king read from the Torah...”
Ginsburgh, Rabbi Yitzchak. The Inner Dimension: Insight into the Weekly Torah Portion (p. 301). (Function). Kindle Edition.
הַקְהֵל
Hakheil
“At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the Feast of Sukkot, when all Israel has come to appear before HaShem your G-d in the place which he shall choose, you shall read this Torah before all Israel in their hearing. . .”
הַקְהֵל אֶת־הָעָם הָֽאֲנָשִׁים וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף וְגֵרְךָ אֲשֶׁר בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ לְמַעַן יִשְׁמְעוּ וּלְמַ֣עַן יִלְמְדוּ וְיָֽרְאוּ אֶת־יי אֱלֹקיכֶם וְשָׁמְרוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת־כׇּל־דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת׃
“Gather the people—men, women, children and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and so learn to revere HaShem your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching.”
Deuteronomy 31:12, Sefaria.org
The Fourth Revolution
“Now we can understand why the fourth revolution is, the fourth time that we say, "A time to act for G-d, Your Torah has been compromised..." This must be to teach non-Jews Torah. The fact that we need to teach them the Seven Noahide laws is obvious, that's not the revolution. The Revolution is to teach them Torah unconditionally...it's [teaching] Torah to sanctify G-d's Name…Not just Torah, real Torah that will extricate them from their non-Jewish ways of thinking. Something is happening in reality. Worlds are changing. The verse states, "For then I will transform the Nations...”
R’ Yitzchak Ginsburgh, The Fourth Revolution
“Mashiach will repair the entire world, motivating all the nations to serve G-d together, as Zephaniah states (3:9): “I will transform the peoples to a purer language that they all will call upon the name of G-d and serve Him with one purpose.”
Rambam, Mishneh Torah,
Melachim U’Milchamos 11:4
“Mashiach does not come only to redeem the Jewish People, but all nations and all of creation too. Mashiach will help every nation find her proper place. All of humanity will function optimally and work together as a single unit. The vision of Mashiach is not simply one of tolerance and coexistence, but of mutual interdependence. This is compared to the body: it begins as a single cell that quickly divides, and develops into many specialized organs. Each organ is very different, but they all work together and depend on each other to form a single organism. Mankind began with a single human—Adam. But this single man quickly branched out into many nations, each developing their own nature and serving a unique function. The purpose of these differences is for us to join together in the service of G-d.”
Moshiach, Day by Day, 4th of Kislev, The International Moshiach Campaign
“Only the tzaddik, who has a mastery of the deepest Torah mysteries and an awareness of Godliness that is beyond the grasp of even the very righteous, can reach into the most hidden places—into the concealment within a concealment—and raise the awareness of those who are most distant from God.” (Likutey Moharan I, 56:3)
REBBE NACHMAN'S TORAH: NUMBERS – DEUTER SONOMY - Breslov Insights into the Weekly Torah Reading (Kindle Locations 9874-9877). Breslov Research Institute. Kindle Edition.
“The ordinal numbers of these three final mitzvot are the numerical values of three significant Hebrew words. The numerical value of “Torah” (תּוֹרָה) is 611; the numerical value of “covenant” (בְּרִית) is 612, and the numerical value of Moshe Rabeinu (מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ), “Moses, our teacher,” is 613.”
Ginsburgh, Rabbi Yitzchak. The Inner Dimension: Insight into the Weekly Torah Portion (p. 301). Kindle Edition.
611
612
613
“Whereas the 611th mitzvah addresses us as individuals, Hakhel, the 612th mitzvah, obligates us as a people. The verse in which the 613th mitzvah appears describes how Moses wrote a Torah scroll before he passed away. The sages derive from this that every Jewish individual is obligated to write his own Torah scroll.4 Every Jew is like Moses. Anyone who writes a Torah scroll, “It is as if he received it at Mt. Sinai.” By performing this mitzvah individually, we reveal the spark of Moses within us.”
Ginsburgh, Rabbi Yitzchak. The Inner Dimension: Insight into the Weekly Torah Portion (pp. 301-302). Kindle Edition.
611
612
613
“And now, write for yourselves this song [32:1-43] and teach it to the children of Israel. Place it in their mouths, so that this song be a witness for Me with the children of Israel.”
Deuteronomy 31:19
“Every person must strive to receive the Torah anew, on his own personal level.” �
Likutey Halakhot V, p. 106a� Cited in REBBE NACHMAN'S TORAH: NUMBERS – DEUTERONOMY�Breslov Insights into the Weekly Torah Reading. Breslov Research Institute. Kindle Edition.
“…whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
1 John 2:5-6
NKJV