This post is by Tiffany Leigh  (CAS ’21)                   

Dr. Zornberg looks at Moses’ role as a leader, specifically focusing on the end of his life. She refers to the book The Sense of an Ending to demonstrate how humans must imagine and anticipate the end of a story in order to give significance to one’s own life. She mentions how you must imagine the end of your life to help you evaluate its meaning. We know the beginning of our stories, but we have hopes and expectations for the future. Viewing time as a series of events that have not yet occurred helps us to organize our lives by providing a framework for the future. This alludes to the idea of “kairos” which is eventful time, and “chronos” which is undistinguished time. Our desires for the future provide significance to our current life, as seen in the life of Moses.

Moses’ goal was to cross the Jordan River and enter into the promised land. However, there is a deviation to the imagined plot Moses had for his life. Dr. Zornberg recounts the book of Deuteronomy and how Moses essentially begged God to let him enter into the promised land, yet was refused by God. Moses’ persistent prayers for his one main goal in life showed that he expected God to eventually open the gates for him. Moses thought that his personal goals and plans for his life will be brought to fruition by God. Yet, as Avivah Zornberg eloquently stated, the nature of human life is incompleteness. Kafka said Moses was able to see Canaan in the time leading up to his death but could not enter “not because his life is too short, but because it’s a human life.” Part of being human is dying without achieving the goals you spent your whole life dreaming about.

God was angry at Moses for continually praying to cross over into the promised land. God interrupted Moses and refused to listen, differing from their past interactions. Prior to this, God had always listened to Moses, and he was seen as someone who always had access to God. Moses was always heard by God, but his final plea was not heard. Recounting the interaction Moses had with God must have been extraordinarily humiliating and upsetting because he was silenced by the same God that encouraged him to speak up to the Israelites. The disappointment Moses felt after acknowledging that his future aspirations will never be fulfilled didn’t demolish him. Instead he spoke with power and leadership to the Israelites about what had happened. The goal he had for the end of his life, crossing over the Jordan, was now replaced by the desire to look after the welfare of the Israelites.

I think Dr. Zornberg’s takeaway from describing the end of Moses’ life shows us that we can’t change the future. Imagining how our life will unfold gives us the feeling of control and of purpose. But the passages of Deuteronomy show us that our purpose is not to complete our own goals, but to fulfill God’s plans for us. The sense of incompleteness in human life is encompassed by Moses emphasizing to the people that they will cross into the promised land, when they would rather stay on the fertile side they are currently on. While Moses, who wants to cross over more than anything, will die without having done so.