Eternally Yours - Deuteronomy: Torah's Enduring Relevance for a Life of Wisdom

Moses was the quintessential man of action, but in the Book of Deuteronomy (Devarim), he appears as a great thinker, teacher, elucidator of the Torah which had been entrusted to him. In Eternally Yours: Deuteronomy, Rabbi Reuven Mann expounds upon Moses’ final addresses to the Jewish people, in words so sublime that God saw fit to include them as the last book of the Bible.

Moses reached the highest level of prophecy possible for a human being, and attained the clearest and most direct form of communication from God. His teachings and prophetic utterances are thus on the most exalted level. He was also a great leader and courageous activist who, as the Bible shares in earlier Books, intervened to save the those who were victimized. Thus he slew the Egyptian taskmaster who was beating a Jewish slave, drove off the shepherds who were mistreating the daughters of Jethro, and rose to the occasion when the Jews sinned with the Golden Calf, putting an end to the dangerous descent into paganism while saving the People from imminent destruction with his timely prayers.

The Book of Devarim contains Moses’ final communications to the nation he had led out of Egypt and guided through the forty-year ordeal in the Wilderness. The Jews were on the brink of their entry into the land which they would conquer and settle without him, their great leader. Moses’ final talks to the Jews reveals his true greatness. He is not concerned about his own place in history; his only objective is to facilitate, to the best of his ability, the success of the nation in the land. He thus exhorts them to study, understand and fully implement the Torah which constitutes the surest guarantee of their longevity and well-being in the Land that God gave them so they would become a “Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation.” This book focuses on those lessons.

Rabbi Mann explores these timeless lessons in this, the final installment of his Eternally Yours series. In over 50 essays, he addresses intriguing philosophical, psychological, theological and intellectual questions about the Torah in a style that is uniquely accessible to all. Rabbi Mann shows that the Torah truly is “God’s Greatest Gift to Mankind.”

Publisher:

The Observant Artist Community Circle

Pages:

311

Date Published:

2023