Moses strongly encourages the people to not only remember all that they had witnessed since their departure from Egypt and all that God had done for them along the way, but to pass it on to their children and future generations as they will not have the experiences, signs and works the people who were about to enter the land of Canaan had. Even with those experiences, the Israelites that were brought out of Egypt continued to test and rebel against God, ending in the destruction of those who rebelled.
11: 12-17 “It is a land [Canaan] the Lord your God cares for. He is always watching over it from the beginning to the end of the year. If you carefully obey my commands I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and worship him with all your heart and all your soul, I will provide rain for your land in the proper time, the autumn and spring rains, and you will harvest your grain, new wine, and fresh oil. I will provide grass in our fields for your livestock. You will eat and be satisfied. Be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside, serve and bow in worshop to other gods. Then the Lords’s anger will burn against you. He will shut the sky and there will be no rain; the land will not yield its produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land the Lord is giving you.”
There will be temptations. God is asking Israel to recognize that the temptations will be there and to cling on to God when faced with them – to love Him and worship Him with all your heart and soul. He promises to take care of them with all their needs if they stay focused on him. If they give into temptations, instead of being cared for and having their needs met, God will turn away from them and they will suffer.
Customs, traditions and cultural rituals mean nothing if Israel’s personal relationship with God is missing.