We are in the season of graduations!!! Middle schoolers get to step into the big leagues, high schoolers are going to find out how to do their own laundry and college graduates will soon learn that the real world doesn’t come with a syllabus and entry-level still requires 5 years of experience. What a time to be alive in these moments of transition. I look back myself and see what one year has brought in this wonderful organization as my fellow rabbinic students don their graduation garb today. It is an exciting time, it is an inspiring moment and in the same breath transitions can be overwhelming. We love the systems that we are used to, and the characters that shape our day-to-day. There’s a reason why NBA teams win 60% of their home games despite all things being equal. Familiarity breeds safety breeds comfort breeds consistency.

In this week’s portion, we read about a graduation in its own right. After camping at Mount Sinai for more than a year, it was time to get up and get going. Right at this pivotal moment, the Torah does something that it doesn’t do anywhere else, it writes a 2 sentence paragraph that speaks to G-d’s protection. What is unique, here is how this sentence sets itself apart with inverted nuns; like divine parentheses. This signals that this moment is more than a transition; it’s a launch. It’s as if the Torah is marking the moment with holy punctuation, saying: pay attention, something big is shifting. The rabbis of the Talmud (Shabbat 116a), unsure what to make of this anomalous lettering suggest something radical: that these two verses are actually their own book. The claim seems somewhat exaggerated. You mean to say that the blessing contained in these two verses packs the same punch as the entire book of Genesis? Really?!? Perhaps, it is not a whole book, “the 6 books of Moses just doesn’t have the same ring to it, but it is a document. In the hustle and bustle of transition, G-d gives us a diploma, so that we can hang on our wall, and as we go on our way, and let life take us wherever it may, we can be reminded of the ebullience, the inspiration and the charge we all had on the day that we were ready to leave.