This week’s portion begins with Moses pleading to God to let him enter the land of Cana’an and God refuses saying, “Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again!” (Deuteronomy 3:26).

For almost all of us, no matter how long we have lived or how much we accomplished we can never have enough of life in all its richness and beauty, pain and suffering, joy and satisfaction. Existence is the ocean in which we swim and we cannot imagine anything beyond it. This consciousness of our mortality haunts us most of our lives, like a shadow.

Judaism suggests on way to address this in Psalm 90, “Teach us to number our days, that we may attain a heart of wisdom.” The most we can do is to live our lives well, being just, performing acts of compassion and loving kindness, being good people, citizens and members of our family. We will never cheat death but we can live on in the memories of those whose lives we have touched.

~Rabbi Dean

Tags: commentary, consciousness, existence, mortality, rabbi, torah

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