The last chapter of any book is critical to understanding the meaning of the book. The last chapter of the Torah, Deuteronomy 34, which we encounter this weekend on Simchat Torah, is in several ways a surprising last chapter, given the book as a whole.

The Torah is supposed to be about life. Choose life. But Deuteronomy 34 is about death. Why end with death when the book is supposed to be about life?

Why does Moses have to die on the wrong side of the River Jordan? Why does God command Moses to climb to the top of Mount Nebo to see the river he can never cross and the land he can never enter? How is this fair and just?

We only read this sad chapter--Moses’s death on the wrong side of the River Jordan, his life work unfulfilled--on Simchat Torah, which celebrates the joy of Torah. How does Moses’s death fit with the larger agenda of the joy of Torah?

What do we learn about how to die, and more importantly how to live, from the last chapter of the Torah?