Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12
Moshe blesses each tribe individually, acknowledging their distinct roles within the nation. He then ascends Mount Nebo and dies, leaving Israel poised to enter the land. The Torah ends quietly yet majestically — with blessing, promise, and an open future.
The Breaking of the Tablets
In Moses, The Kotzker Rebbe and Parashat V'Zot HaBerachah by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Moshe Rabbenu’s greatest deed wasn’t splitting the Sea or ascending Sinai. It was shattering the God-engraved Tablets when Israel danced around the Calf. And yet, for this act, Moshe is praised by our sages. Moshe’s audacity saved Torah from becoming stone: a law without music, ritual without spirit. What he broke, he preserved—so that covenant could live.
The Need for Independent Torah Interpretation
In Parashat V'Zot HaBerachah and Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo
The Torah reading in synagogue is not conventional Torah learning, but rather a kind of a wake-up call. Although we have read it for many years, the fact that the story appears again an entire year later, and no earlier, gives us a chance to forget it and then rediscover it as never before.