When the world was new – really new – there were no historical narratives to give us perspective, no moral tales or traditions from previous generations. Instead, every story told and each lesson learned was fresh and original.

Today, we only get glimpses into the newness that existed during the time when creation was fresh. But every now and then, an event or a person will give us an insight that sends us traveling back into the source of it all.

As Jews, our search for meaning is meant to lead us into the deepest and most essential parts of ourselves, things around us, and this whole world. We are a people meant to seek out G-d. The Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya, teaches that G-d is to be found within every Jew, in the deepest recesses of his inside world. Finding and connecting with our G-dly self requires living on the level of truth, where facades are meant to be broken, and the core to be revealed.

You didn't want the story to end, but it had to. After spending much time with the characters, the story built up to a perfect ending and now you've closed the book and are sitting on the couch with a smile and that fulfilled feeling vibrating through your insides.

It's that feeling we all love after finishing a good book.

And, with the conclusion of the Torah this week, it's that feeling that we, well, just don't have.
The last portion of the Torah ends with the blessings Moses gives to the twelve tribes, followed by his uneventful death. The last portion of the Torah has no crash and bang closing. There are no bottom-lines, no hints to a sequel, and certainly no clear motive to please the reader. It is not the culmination of an intense plot or the answers to mysterious questions.

It is in no way the type of ending a book is supposed to have.

John Grisham and Shakespeare are in a frenzy.