This Shabbos we begin Sefer Devarim once again. One of the most impactful lessons from Parshas Devarim is embedded within its opening words: אֵ֣לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בְּעֵ֖בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֑ן, these are the words that Moshe spoke to the entire (nation of) Israel on the other side of the Yarden (Devarim 1:1).

Moshe, who - when we first meet him at the Burning Bush - declares that he cannot accept the position of leadership because:

לֹא֩ אִ֨ישׁ דְּבָרִ֜ים אָנֹ֗כִי גַּ֤ם מִתְּמוֹל֙ גַּ֣ם מִשִּׁלְשֹׁ֔ם גַּ֛ם מֵאָ֥ז דַּבֶּרְךָ֖ אֶל־עַבְדֶּ֑ךָ כִּ֧י כְבַד־פֶּ֛ה וּכְבַ֥ד לָשׁ֖וֹן אָנֹֽכִי - I am not a man of words, neither from yesterday nor from the day before yesterday, nor from the time You have spoken to Your servant, for I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue (Shemos 4:10), is the Moshe who becomes - after a forty year mantle of leadership and transformation - the powerful orator who composed the stirring book of Devarim, which begins with “These are the words that Moshe spoke.”

And so it was, that on the first day of Shevat, until his death thirty-seven days later on 7 Adar, Moshe relayed to the people - and to our nation for all time - the messages of the book of Devarim.

Moshe’s transformation is all the more remarkable considering that the nation he led were not easy or cooperative most of the time. He faced rebellions against Hashem and himself, their rejection of the Promised Land, their complaints and arguments, he dealt with their sins and straying from the path of Torah, and yet, he advocated for them - in the aftermath of their sins - time and again before Hashem. Ever the faithful leader, Moshe never gave up on the nation, no matter how many times they sinned. 

And here, at the end of his life, Moshe is witness to the nation about to cross the land… while he will die, and be buried forever, on the eastern side of the Yarden River. At this critical moment in Moshe’s leadership - at the end of his life - what does he choose to do?

Rather than being bitter over his own fate, the failed realization of his long lost dream to enter the Land, and the troublesome nature of the people he had led for forty years, Moshe made an elevated and inspired choice that would shape our nation for all time.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks writes that, “What he did helped change the course of Jewish history… Over and above what Moses said in the last month of his life, though, is what Moses did. He changed career. He shifted his relationship with the people. No longer Moses the liberator, the lawgiver, the worker of miracles, the intermediary between the Israelites and G-d, he became the figure known to Jewish memory: Moshe Rabbenu, ‘Moses, our teacher.’

“… At this defining moment in his life, Moses understood that, though he would not be physically  with the people when they entered the Promised Land, he could still be with them intellectually and emotionally if he gave them the teachings to take with them into the future. Moses became the pioneer of perhaps the single greatest contribution of Judaism to the concept of leadership: the idea of the teacher as hero…” (Covenant & Conversation, Deuteronomy, p.19-21).

Rabbi Sacks further points out an incredible Torah fact: In Sefer Devarim, the Torah introduces us to a new shoresh/word that has not yet appeared in Chumash. The shoresh does not appear in all of Bereishis, Shemos, Vayikra or Bamidbar, yet appears seventeen times in Devarim. 

“In Deuteronomy, a new word enters the biblical vocabulary: the verb L-M-D, meaning to learn or teach…. Jews became the people whose heroes were teachers, whose citadels were schools, and whose passion was study and the life of the mind… [Moshe] became a leader not for his time only but for all time… His sons did not succeed him, but his disciples did. In the full perspective of history, he changed them [the people] more than any leader has ever changed any people, turning them into the people of the book and the nation [of] … schools and houses of study” (ibid., p.22-23).

Rabbi Sacks concludes by noting that it is the teachers of our people who shape our nation, as they hand the legacy of the past to those who will build the future. It is this that has “sustained Judaism for longer than any other civilization, and it began with Moses in the last month of his life” (ibid).

In his Out of the Depths, Rav Yisrael Meir Lau relates the following powerful vignette: “I recall the story of the late Rebbetzin Tzila Sorotzkin, my son-in-law’s aunt. She was one of the leading educators of the Beit Ya’akov movement, a teacher and teachers’ supervisor, and mainly, an outstanding person. Mrs. Sorotzkin who was also a Holocaust survivor, told my daughter Miri: “In all the six years of the war, I cried only once. I was in the most horrible of the camps, and lost my entire family.  I was left all alone in the world, broken in body and spirit - and I didn’t cry. I returned to our hometown, and found not a living soul - and I still didn’t cry,” said Mrs. Sorotzkin. “They told me: Go to Lodz, that’s where the refugees are gathering, maybe you’ll find a relative or an acquaintance.

“I went to Lodz, totally exhausted. They showed me the area where the Jews were assembling.  With my last remaining bit of strength, I walked through the streets in the twilight. Suddenly I recognized sounds coming from one of the windows.  As in a trance, as if someone were calling me inside, I opened a gate, entered the courtyard of an ancient building, then opened a door. In the darkness, I made out a row of boys with side-locks sitting along both sides of a long table.  At its head sat an elderly Jew wearing a baseball cap. The children were chanting the alef-bet to a tune. I don’t remember anything else… Then I found myself on the floor of the room, with people standing over me and pouring water on me.

“The teacher tried to revive me, and asked in a worried voice, ‘What happened? Can I help you? Sit up. Maybe you’d like something to eat.  Who are you?  Where did you come from?’  Slowly, I recovered and replied: ‘This is the first time I have cried in the past six years. But I am not crying from pain - I am crying for joy. I wandered far and wide until I reached Lodz, and finally saw Poland as it once was.  And if, after all we have been through,’ I said to the teacher, ‘little boys in side-locks are sitting here and an elderly teacher is teaching them the Aleph-Beit,  then no one can defeat us. Let me catch my breath; I feel fine. These are tears of joy, not of pain” (Out of the Depths, p.353-354).

Thus, our greatest teacher encourages us all to become teachers. As Moshe commands us:

וְלִמַּדְתֶּ֥ם אֹתָ֛ם אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶ֖ם לְדַבֵּ֣ר בָּ֑ם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ֤ בְּבֵיתֶ֨ךָ֙ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ֖ וּבְקוּמֶֽךָ - And you shall teach them to your children to speak with them, when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way and when you lie down and when you rise (Devarim 11:19).

In this way, our nation will ensure that the teachings of Torah will remain precious to our people for all times, in all generations.

בברכת שבת שלום ובשורות טובות