Moses’ Disappearing Corpse (Vezot Habracha)

Time is not what you think. Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning. -Mitch Albom

After 120 years of life, after confronting Pharaoh, after taking the Children of Israel out of Egypt, after leading them to Mount Sinai, after speaking to God as no mortal ever has or will, after receiving the Torah and relaying it to the Nation of Israel, after bringing them to the edge of the Promised Land, Moses dies. He dies somewhere on Mount Nebo, overlooking the Promised Land, and is buried there by God.

The Torah tells us that no man knew the place of his burial.

The Meshech Chochma on Deuteronomy 34:5 tries to understand the significance of the verse.

He explains that when a mortal being dies, the person’s soul remains attached to its corpse in some fashion for three days and that for the subsequent twelve months the soul “goes up and down.” Somehow, the connection between the burial place and the soul isn’t completely or immediately severed at death.

However, Moses was different. Moses had elevated his soul to incredible heights while still alive. He was able to survive an intimate encounter with God. He was able to survive 40 days and 40 nights without food or water. He was as far removed from materialism and the physical world as humanly possible. Therefore, when he died, he barely felt it. He simply walked away from his body. He had none of the normal attachments us mortals have to our bodies. He was so far removed from the physicality of his own body, that he himself didn’t know where his body was laid to rest.

According to the Meshech Chochma, when the verse states that no “man” knew where Moses was buried, the “man” is referring to even Moses himself. He didn’t know, nor presumably really care, where his discarded physical shell had been buried. He was already so spiritually elevated that to die was as easy and painless as shedding old skin. The Talmud refers to this as a divine “kiss,” as trouble-free as removing a single hair out of a cup of milk. Such is the divine “kiss” that is granted to many of the righteous upon their death.

May we at the very least reduce the physicality and elevate the spirituality in our lives.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To the Meshech Chochma.