Tishah B'Av: Words and Visions
Rabbi Oren Hayon teaches: "Reading Deuteronomy is a very different experience from reading the rest of Torah. Here, the omniscient narrator of the earlier books has vanished, replaced abruptly by Moses's subjective voice. Deuteronomy, as its Greek name indicates, is a second telling: Moses's own reiteration of earlier events. In this book, we experience the Jewish past only through Moses's narrow perspective, which frustrates and disorients us at times. And yet it is this particular characteristic of Deuteronomy that makes it deeply relevant and meaningful for the formation of spirituality in a postbiblical diaspora."
Rabbi Hayon reminds us that Moses narrates the Book of Deuteronomy. Here at the end of the forty years in the wilderness, just before his own death, Moses gives his "own reiteration of earlier events." Also important is that in Deuteronomy, Moses speaks not to the generation that came with him out of Egypt but to the children of those people (and to us). If you've ever eagerly (or sleepily) listened to your grandparents reminisce about their lives, you get the picture.
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