By Nadav Danieli

This week's parasha focuses on the last song-speech from Moses to Bnei Israel, before he leaves them and finds his death on Mount Nevo. Bnei Israel are about to enter the promised land after a long hike of 40 years, a hike that was supposed to make them ready enough, and pure enough for life in the holy land. But Moses, with his last prophecy, has one central message to them, and not a very optimistic one. He sings about all the horrible things that will happen to Bnei Israel if they won’t keep they loyalty to God.

I want to ask a question- what kind of leader uses his last moments on earth to threaten his people? Moses, the great leader of Israel can’t find even a one good word for a goodbye?

But the last sentence that Moses says spreads light about the sub-text of his speech:

"ויאמר אליהם שימו לבבכם לכל הדברים אשר אנכי מעיד בכם היום אשר תצוו את בניכם לשמור לעשות את כל דברי התורה הזאת"

"Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of the law." (Deuteronomy 32:46)

And Rashi explains: A human being need to keep his eyes, ears, and heart on the Torah.

In order to obey the Torah, and truly live our life in a way that realizes our ideals and beliefs, it’s not enough to follow the dry rules, if we won’t feel connection and love to the ideals and ideas that we choose to follow, it simply won’t work. And in this parasha case-the results will be unpleasant.

The last thing that happens in this parasha can give us a better prespective about Moses' point of view- he can’t enter the promised land because of the very thing that he warns Bnei Israel of. This is his punishment for not trusting god in Kadesh (the story with the rock, stick and the water, remember?)

So Moses, in his last moments, actually has a very strong message as a leader, and I think that he says something that only great leaders can say. He asks Bnei Israel- “please, don’t do the mistakes that I’ve done, if you want to succeed, you need to prove that you all can be better than I was”.

With a lot of hope that this year we all be a little bit better than last year, and remember to put our hole heart in our actions.