Parashat V'zot Habracha: Who Wrote the Final Eight Pesukim of the Torah?

We finally made it! We are up to the final parasha in the Torah. One might have thought that Hashem would “bring it all home” in a simple, not complicated way. But perhaps if there is one thing that writing this Parasha thought each week has taught me, is that Hashem doesn’t want our study of Torah to be easy. He wants us to continue to search, question and think. With that thought in mind, I raise the ancient question of who wrote the final eight pesukim of the Torah? Let’s take a look at why this is not simple.

After Hashem takes Moshe to Har Nevo, overlooking Yericho and able to view the land of Israel, the Torah says וַיָּ֨מָת שָׁ֜ם מֹשֶׁ֧ה עֶֽבֶד־יְהוָ֛ה בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מוֹאָ֖ב עַל־פִּ֥י יְהוָֽה׃ - and Moshe died……

Who wrote those words? Did Moshe write his own death certificate? How could he write them if he had died? And what about the final seven pesukim that follow?

Much has been written on this topic and it all stems from the words of the Talmud below:

דתניא (דברים לד, ה) וימת שם משה עבד יי' אפשר משה חי וכתב וימת שם משה?

1. אלא עד כאן כתב משה מכאן ואילך כתב יהושע בן נון דברי רבי יהודה 

אמר לו ר"ש אפשר ס"ת חסר אות אחת וכתיב (דברים לא, כו) לקוח את ספר התורה הזה ושמתם אותו וגו?

2. אלא עד כאן הקב"ה אומר ומשה כותב ואומר מכאן ואילך הקב"ה אומר ומשה כותב בדמע 

As it is taught in a baraita: The verse states: “And Moses the servant of the Lord died there” (Deuteronomy 34:5). Is it possible that after Moses died, he himself wrote: “And Moses died there”? Rather, Moses wrote the entire Torah until this point, and Joshua bin Nun wrote from this point forward; this is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. 

Rabbi Shimon said to him: Is it possible that the Torah scroll was missing a single letter? But it is written that God instructed Moses: “Take this Torah scroll and put it by the side of the Ark of the Covenant” (Deuteronomy 31:26), indicating that the Torah was complete as is and that nothing further would be added to it.

Rabbi Shimon explains: Rather, until this point, i.e., the verse describing the death of Moses, the Holy One, Blessed be He, dictated and Moses wrote the text and repeated after Him. From this point forward, with regard to Moses’ death, the Holy One, Blessed be He, dictated and Moses wrote with tears without repeating the words, due to his great sorrow. 

So it seems we have two choices, either Yehoshua wrote the last eight pesukim as this alleviates the problem of Moshe writing about his own death, but it leaves open the issue of the Torat Moshe not being completely written by him. Alternatively, Moshe wrote it himself but with tears.

How does this actually answer the question? Even if it was with tears, how could Moshe write these words? How could he write as he dies? Then are his words not sheker?

Let’s explore what some later commentaries have to add to this idea of Moshe writing these pesukim בדמע.

1. Rabbenu Bachya writes that Moshe wrote this before he died, capturing what was about to occur. 
1. The problem with this is that the pasuk is talking in the present tense - and Moshe died….
2. Maharsha says that writing with tears made it less permanent so that he was not actually writing words of sheker.
3. Maharal says that since these words came from tears, this was actually the beginning of Moshe’s death.
4. Sefer Otzrot HaTorah quotes the Sefer Shar Bat Rabim that says that Moshe actually died and then Hashem revived him just to be able to write these final eight pesukim of the Torah. Torat Hashem Temima is to be taken literally that Torat Moshe must be totally completely written by Moshe. So Mashivat Nefesh, his soul was returned to him so he could write these pesukim. So בדמע means the mixture of גוף ונשמה, the mixture of life and death.
5. The Vilna Gaon has a novel explanation that suggests that there is in fact no dispute in the Talmud. He says that this same question could have been asked on the entirety of the Torah. The Torah was written thousands of years before He created the world so how could Moshe write anything in Torah before it actually happened? Isn’t that falsehood?

When we say the Torah was written even before the creation of the world, that doesn’t mean it looked the way we see the Torah today. Rather, all of the letters were there next to Hashem, but they were in a jumbled order. Only after the world was created were the letters placed in the order of the events as they occurred. 

Perhaps then we can suggest the same thing for the final eight pesukim of the Torah. בדמע means mixed up. Moshe did write these last eight pesukim, but he placed the letters there totally mixed up the same way they appeared to Hashem before the world was created. After Moshe died, Yehoshua came and rearranged the letters to the way they appear in the Torah today. So in actuality, Torat Moshe was, is and will always be perfect. At the same time, Yehoshua came along and arranged these pesukim so we could understand the final message of the Torah.