Everybody
has heard the term ‘swan song.’ It comes
from the legend, originating as early as with the ancient Greeks, that the mute
swan finds its voice just before its death.
Then it sings a beautiful song, and finishes its life in a burst of
glory.
‘Swan song,’ then has come to mean
one’s final performance. Those in the
entertainment industry or the performing arts, when they decide to retire,
often pour their heart and soul into their final public performance. That way, they will feel assured that that
performance, their ‘swan song,’ will be memorable…and a fitting end to an
illustrious career.
But the term ‘swan song’ also applies
to those in other than the performing arts.
In the US military, when one retires it has become customary to speak at
one’s retirement ceremony. One is
expected to give a final good-natured roast to one’s superiors, peers, and just
about everybody else. Of course, the key
term here is ‘good natured.’ In the
military, as elsewhere, it is considered bad form to use one’s ‘swan song’ to
say nasty or biting remarks about others.
A ‘swan song’ is not considered the right occasion for whistle-blowing,
although some do use it for that purpose.
More often, individuals use their ‘swan
song’ to present an ethical lesson. The
premise is that many of us in our working careers, like the ancient legend of
the swan, are essentially ‘mute.’ We go
about our tasks day after day, but others aren’t listening to us. The organisations for which we toil are only
interested in our performance of specific tasks, not in what we think.
I think that the pandemic of injurious gossip among people is, in part,
attributable to this syndrome. We go
through life thinking our legitimate voice is ignored, or quashed. And yet we have a natural need to find that
voice. So, many people use their voice
for that which people listen to. And
that is the use of information, true or untrue, to create interpersonal
drama. I’m not condoning: only trying to explain, at least in part,
this addiction. But I digress…
We can see the entire book of Deuteronomy as Moses’ swan song to the
people Israel. Moses has been told
unequivocally that he will not lead the people across the Jordan River to the
Promised Land. Now you can imagine that
this is a bitter pill for him to swallow.
From the time that he confronts Pharaoh, he gives about 40 years of his
life to the quest of taking a refugee band and melding them into a nation. And the reward at the end of the struggle,
for the people and for Moses, is the lad that God promised to Abraham: the Land of Israel. One would think that Moses, for all his
trouble, would rate the joy of seeing this dream to its realization. But this is not to be. God has decreed otherwise.
It seems a harsh decree indeed.
And what’s the reason for it? It
is very explicit. Because, at the Waters
of Meribah, Moses struck the rock in anger with his staff rather than speaking
to it and commanding it in God’s name to send forth water for the people. Given the frustration Moses was feeling at
the repeated and baseless challenges to his leadership, one can certainly begin
to understand why he struck the rock in anger.
We could be forgiven if we sympathise with Moses, even to the point of
wondering whether God was not being overly harsh in His judgment here,
So Moses is most probably feeling
more than a bit of bitterness at this point.
Actually, there’s no ‘probably’ about it. From the text itself, we can ‘hear’ Moses bitterness. Indeed, even the name of the place where
Moses received his judgment – Mei Meribah – means ‘waters of
bitterness.’
Moses, therefore, might be forgiven if he’d used his ‘swan song’ to
express his bitterness over the decree against him. Other leaders throughout history, leaders who
fell from grace in scandals of various sorts, used their swan songs to attack
their detractors and justify their actions.
But not Moshe Rabbeinu, the great law-giver.
Moses is, instead, using his swan song to offer moral instruction to the
people Israel. To offer them his own
keen insights as to how to organise themselves, and govern themselves, in their
Promised Land. Specifically, in this
week’s portion he speaks of solutions for all sorts of unfortunate
circumstances. Captives of war, slaves
who do not desire their freedom, rebellious children, women widowed without a
child. Moses knows that each one of
these situations is bound to come up, sooner or later, and he’s instructing the
people as to the divine solutions. He is
using his swan song to offer an important benefit to the people.
The truth is that we don’t really know why Moses must die before
Joshua leads the people into the Promised Land.
Oh, we can make educated guesses.
I’ve made a few along the way.
Here’s an additional one. When a
commanding general, or a president retires, he does not stick around to
continue calling the shots from the background.
When a leader does that, we see it as a pathetic need to maintain
control, and almost always with bad consequences. No, they mostly move on to different roles
and challenges, completely outside the structures where they found their power
in their careers.
Moses is ready for retirement.
Some of his sharp-edged interactions with the people during the
narrative of his last years at the helm, show this rather clearly. For a variety of reasons, he is not the
right man to lead the people in the war of conquest. But because the entire people will be
consumed with the task of the conquest, there is no way for Moses to pass on
the mantle of leadership, and still remain on the scene. In this sense, there is a logic, even if it
is a cruel logic, for his death before the conquest begins.
And yet Moses does not use his
swan song to complain and make his case. Instead, he uses it to provide important
legislation – legislation that will serve the people as it works to constitute
itself in its Promises Land. Moses,
whose life has been all about giving to others, offers a patently unselfish act
in dedicating his swan song to benefit the people.
It’s a wonderful example for us. Many of us, in various ways, are called upon to
end our careers in less-than-desirable circumstances. How we make our exit, is an important measure
of our character. What we offer on our
way out, speaks volumes about the values that guide us. Whatever our particular path in life, we may
very well be offered an opportunity to make our swan song, as statement of the
values that guided us during our working careers. And the principle can be applied to the other ‘careers’
that form part of the rhythms of our lives.
Like many others who have gone before us, we can make our swan songs a
spectacle and a circus. Or in the manner
of a few individuals like Moses, we can use the occasion to make a final selfless
act. Shabbat shalom.
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