About this episode

This episode discusses the unique farewell address of Moshe Rabbeinu in Parashat Devarim, highlighting the wisdom that is often only understood in hindsight.

 The Advice We Only Understand Later     Parashat Devarim is unique. For nearly the entire Chumash, from the book of Exodus and forward, Moshe Rabbeinu is leading the Jewish people through events as they unfold. But now, standing at the threshold of Eretz Yisrael, he speaks differently. Devarim is a farewell address. It is a lifetime of wisdom distilled into one final conversation.     Some of Moshe’s words were understood immediately. Others would only be understood years—even centuries—later.     There is a remarkable story about Rabbi Yisrael Zev Gustman, one of the great Torah scholars of the twentieth century.     As a young dayan in Vilna, he once accompanied his revered teacher, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzzinski, on a walk outside the city. During that walk, Rabbi Chaim Ozer did something that seemed completely out of character. Instead of discussing a difficult sugya, he pointed to plants, shrubs, and trees, explaining which could be eaten and which were poisonous. He even showed Rabbi Gustman certain places in the forest and told him to remember them.     Rabbi Gustman could not understand why the…

People in this episode

Host: Rabbi David Bibi

Topics covered

• farewell address
• wisdom
• Torah
• survival
• Holocaust
• botany

Keywords

• Devarim
• Moshe Rabbeinu
• Rabbi Gustman
• Torah wisdom
• Holocaust survival
• botanical knowledge

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: JewishPodcasts.fm

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