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✴︎ to be read on August 10⎮6 Av ✴︎

With the Book of Deuteronomy, we open the final book of the Torah. Devarim ("words" or "things") sees Moses in a role different than that which he has occupied thus far. Here, Moses becomes a storyteller, recounting various episodes from the Israelites' 40 years in the wilderness. He speaks of the appointment of judges, the sin of the spies, and wars with the Amorite brother-kings Sihon and Og. Did I mention these brother-kings were also giants?
 
As a mythological figure, the giant signifies the purported monstrosity that must be defeated for culture proper to begin. But, as David Shyovitz argues, the text of Devarim contains seeds of an alternative reading. The giants of Devarim appear not as that which threatens stable human culture, but rather as its apotheosis. What follows as a consequence of this reading is an altered understanding of Judaism as a countercultural force capable of disrupting long established political norms and seemingly incontrovertible social mores.

And what of the new perspective that Devarim provides on Moses, shifting his position from that of irascible leader to raconteur?  Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzy frames the commemorative work of the Moses of Devarim in terms of our own impending observance of Tisha B'av. The leader who makes history becomes, in this parsha, a teacher of sorts whose pedagogical work focuses on the internalization of history as memory. In this way, Devarim returns us, on the veritable eve of Tisha B'av, to a core aspect of Jewish identity: that alchemical transformation of impersonal history into cultural memory.

*Originally published in 2023 "LJCC Weekly Announcements July 16⎮27 Tamuz"