DEVARIM

Who Are You, To Criticize?

Moses, after forty years of loving, patient leadership over Israel, suddenly delivers harsh rebukes in his final speeches in Deuteronomy, something he never did before, even when the people sinned gravely (the Golden Calf, the spies, constant complaints) and were sentenced to wander the desert for forty years.

Normally partings involve reconciliation, not harsh words, and if Moses had these grievances all along, why did he wait forty years to voice them?

Five weeks before his death, Moses gathered all Israel and revealed a new side of himself: no longer just "the one who loved Israel" who never rebuked them, but now the one who remembers everything, reproves them, and warns them, about the human weaknesses that led to their past failures, so they can avoid repeating them.