
Deuter ("second") onomy ("telling") – Devarim in Hebrew – is Moses' take on what happened during the last three books. Parts are inspiringly uplifting, some is a "creative" re-telling of the past, and some is downright harsh. Maybe it resembles our own look-back on this year that, Jewishly speaking, is rounding the corner toward its final push to the reboot and renewal we call Rosh Hashanah.
The most emotional of Moses' Second Telling changes confronts us immediately. The Moses of Exodus didn't show much weariness, exhaustion or bitterness, but in his second telling, Moses narrates that he said to the people at that time (Deut. 1:9-12):
“I can't bear the burden of you by myself!
YHVH your God multiplied you until
today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky.
May YHVH, the God of your ancestors,
increase your numbers a thousandfold,
and bless you as promised –
but how can I bear alone your trouble,
your burden, and your bickering!"
לֹא־אוּכַ֥ל לְבַדִּ֖י שְׂאֵ֥ת אֶתְכֶֽם׃
יהו''ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֖ם הִרְבָּ֣ה אֶתְכֶ֑ם
וְהִנְּכֶ֣ם הַיּ֔וֹם כְּכוֹכְבֵ֥י הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם לָרֹֽב׃
יהוה אֱלֹהֵ֣י אֲבֽוֹתֵכֶ֗ם
יֹסֵ֧ף עֲלֵיכֶ֛ם כָּכֶ֖ם אֶ֣לֶף פְּעָמִ֑ים
וִיבָרֵ֣ךְ אֶתְכֶ֔ם כַּאֲשֶׁ֖ר דִּבֶּ֥ר לָכֶֽם׃
אֵיכָ֥ה אֶשָּׂ֖א לְבַדִּ֑י טׇרְחֲכֶ֥ם
וּמַֽשַּׂאֲכֶ֖ם וְרִֽיבְכֶֽם׃

Is the Moses of Second Telling finally speaking the depths of his emotional truth withheld in Exodus, or is Moses retrojecting how he feels now onto what happened then? Is Moses remembering, or is he refracting through a lens he needs to aim on history?

This same word also is the starting word and Hebrew name of the potent Book of Lamentations, the text of dirge and woe traditionally read on Tisha b'Av. And yes, you guessed it, Moses' Eikha always comes the weekend before Tisha b'Av's Eikha.
Torah is doing what Torah often does. She keys to where we are in the Jewish spiritual year, and aims at shared impulses embedded deep in the human psyche.
The Season of Meaning is approaching: it's time for us and Jews worldwide to begin looking back on the year – what it was, who we were, what we did or didn't do, where we erred, what we can repair, who hurt us, what we can forgive, how far we strayed, and how we can return. This teshuvah journey will invite many things, and one of them is attention not just to what we see but also how we see.
Do we look back with guilt? blame? anger? defensiveness? hope? optimism? generosity? joy? Do we look back on the year as how it and we were then, or as it and we are now, or how we want or need the year to be (whether or not it was)? All of these are real experiences, and odds are good that we all do all of them sometimes. The integrity of our teshuvah journey will depend vitally on which one(s) we choose.
Moses' Second Telling shines a light on the deep truth that often we reconstruct the past to fit where we are or want to be now, which can reinforce or gloss over rather than genuinely repair. As the ironically named Canadian band "Barenaked Ladies" sang:
"We recognize the present
as half as pleasant
as our nostalgia for
a past that we resented
recast and reinvented
until it's how we meant it."
These too are key questions of this moment – and not all of them pleasant. There's timely spiritual wisdom to them, though, and I believe that there can be better ahead. As Judaism's spiritual masters taught, the descent of Tisha b'Av is for the sake of ascent immediately after. We go down for the purpose of readying our ascent to the heights of what true teshuvah can be – not despite our hurts and disappointments, but precisely amidst them.
While this week Moses' lament keys us to start looking back, next week's Torah portion will bring the lofty "Jewish Greatest Hits" of the Ten Commandments (yes, a Second Telling of them), the Shema (unity) and the V'ahavta (love).
There really can be renewed unity and love – just up ahead.