By Erika Kushner

Here is the rundown of events for this week: Moses is old. Really old. How old? If you guessed 120 DING DING DING correct! Moses is 120 and nearing the end of his life, and he knows it. So he gathers up all the Israelites and he tells them how old he is (120 years) and how he won’t be going into The Promised Land with the rest of them, but no sweat because God is still along for the ride/driving the ride/being God with y’all. And, if that didn’t comfort you, Joshua is going to be there too! So after this grand spiel, Moses goes and writes this stuff down and tells the priests that everyone, every single person, children, men, womyn, goats, strangers, an ambiguous person who you don’t really know but is hanging with you, everyone has to hear what he just wrote down. Don’t forget it! God gets back in action after this and talks to Moses and says the equivalent of “yo moses you gotta die soon. Sorry, I don’t make the rules... haha, wait, I do, lol, and you're gonna die, but you're old so...“ but more politely and gracefully I imagine. They talk to Moses about how the Israelites are going to enter the land of milk and honey and drink the milk and honey and stuff themselves silly and start worshiping other gods and then our God, the main squeeze, will be angry. Well, probably. But, because God really wants the best for Their people, They teach Moses this nifty song that he can then teach everyone so the song will be a witness for when the Israelites mess up. Once that’s clear, God moves over to Joshua and does the equivalent of shaking hands and says to him “glad you came. You're in charge now. Well really me, but you, and I'm with you bro, no sweat.” Moses finishes writing and gives what he has to the priests and tells them to gather everyone so he can teach all the Israelites the Don’t You Forget About Me (Your God) song.

Okay, first off, nepotism anyone? Just kidding, but honestly, we all know Moses and Joshua make a great team, but why is it only they who get to be the official leaders? I’m sure there are other qualified people who

could lead, why does God say “I’m gonna talk to about three people”? Sounds like God is not much of a people person, for all Their choosing the entire Jewish people to hang with. They barely interact with anyone. There are, let’s say a lot of Jewish people and God has interacted with... what? Twenty of them? Maybe 35? These numbers could be slightly inaccurate; my knowledge is not absolute.

This parsha got me thinking a ton about music and song and the power of influence. I mean, god has all these way that They can prove stuff to people or make them do things (example: plagues, giant flood, turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt like, what the heck dude? harsh, etc.) and God chooses a song. A little ditty. Maybe They think that Their people have become tired of wonders, horrors, and acts that are just not possible for the average person. But, the things that God chooses to be the most memorable is a song. Yeah, it’s probably not the greatest song, considering a good deal of it is just God reminding everyone how much They hate to be forgotten and disobeyed and all the things that They will do if/when the Israelites do that, but it’s still a song. For me, Jewish music is a big part of my Judaism and the how of my relating to tons of holidays and prayers is through music. Heck, the first thing the womyn did after they finished crossing the red sea was to sing a song and dance with their tambourines (also, you have about zero time to get the hell out of Egypt and what you bring is a tambourine and put it somewhere so you have easy access to it? I mean, okay). Music and Jewish stuff are like peanut butter and jelly. Unless you’re peanut free, in which case: sunbutter (wowbutter is better, though) and jelly. Also, the Torah is basically half music. All that trope and it changes for different holidays and there are about 3 bazillion different tunes for every single prayer,

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