Endings and Beginnings

Friday July 25, 2025/ 29 Tamuz 5785/Rosh Chodesh Av/Parashat Matot-Masei

Hevre/Friends,

It’s the end of the week, and the start of the weekend.  In Jewish time, this Shabbat is the end of Sefer Bamidbar (Numbers), but it’s also the first of the new month of Av. Endings and beginnings weave into and around each other teaching us something about the inextricable links between all that we experience - as human beings, as families, as communities, and as Jews.

Tomorrow in synagogues throughout the world, after the last aliyah, communities will chant the words “chazak chazak venitchazek/be strong, be strong, and may we all be strengthened”, just as we do at the end of each book of the Torah, expressing our hope for the courage to keep learning and growing from its teachings.

Rabbi Avi Weiss once pointed out that if you look closely at each of those book endings, you’ll notice that they each describe an event in the midst of its taking place and one which needs the next generation to continue. At the end of Bereishit, Jacob dies - the last patriarch - and we’re about to head down to Egypt from where eventually we’ll be led to freedom, to Sinai and to Israel. At the end of Shemot, the Mishkan (desert sanctuary) is built but it hasn’t yet been put into use. Vayikra and Bamidbar end with laws of tithing and inheritance, laws which are only fulfilled in the land of Israel where we hadn’t yet put down roots. Devarim ends with Moses’ death just as we are about to enter the land, but under someone else’s leadership - Joshua’s. The endings and beginnings are linked to teach us that the Jewish story goes on and on and on. As it still does today.

This can be a tough lesson for us now when all we long for is an end to the madness we’re living through. The war in Gaza is now in day 658. This week’s news of the much-anticipated hostage deal failing once again, of the shocking scenes from Spain where 50 Jewish children were forced off a plane while their counsellor was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed, of more IDF soldiers being killed, of the world’s singular focus on blaming Israel entirely for the dire situation in Gaza – it can all make the pain and anxiety we’re living through feel endless in an overwhelmingly dispiriting, not at all enlivening, way.

But that’s not the only story we’re living through. In what seems like a completely different tale, this week we also heard news of how this year the Tel Aviv stock exchange has outperformed all of the world’s major stock indexes; of how robust the shekel has become against the dollar and the euro; how Nvidia, the world’s largest company, is planning a major expansion of its Israel operations. Can we see the Israeli economy as a deeper story of optimism? As a story that’s linked to the larger narrative we’re struggling to compose today?

After all, this news reflects more than just a financial calculation of Israel’s ongoing promise in the world of consumer consumption, innovation, entrepreneurship, and high tech development. It’s a statement of hope by the world’s most powerful system of investment in business but also in people and families and communities. It’s a declaration of faith that the opportunities afforded by Israel’s military successes against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, by the growing alliances forged in the Abraham Accords, and by the sense that, while it has remained tragically elusive, an end to the Gaza war will indeed come about – that all of this will lead to renewed stability, productivity, and, dare we say it, peace. The doors of peaceful living with our non-Jewish neighbours feel like they keep closing even as new thresholds for the future keep emerging.

Jewish wisdom - in both its content and its rhythms - teaches us that the stories of our lives - as individuals, families, communities, and nations - are ones that continuously unfold, in spite of any boundaries or milestones we may erect in their midst. A change of date or a change of chapter can often help us frame a story or shape it for us to better behold and understand it, but the narrative itself is ongoing and that fact demands our sustained attention and commitment. 

The blessing uttered at each book ending, “chazak chazak venitchazek/be strong, be strong, and may we all be strengthened” is an admission that it takes courage to stay focused, to not lose interest, to not abandon hope. We must each be strong and we must strengthen one another as our Jewish story and our personal stories arrive at their momentary endings and beginnings. For we know that though they remain unfinished - and blessedly so - it’s precisely that reality that invites us into the noble and sacred, if daunting, task of continuing to write them.

With continued prayers for our ability to bring home all the hostages, protect the soldiers, heal the injured, comfort the bereaved, and build a lasting peace in Israel and around the world, and with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom,

Dini

Photo Courtesy of Ronen Avisror