See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’
For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him?
-- Deuteronomy 4:5-7
“Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul; and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, talking of them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates;” - Deuteronomy 11:18-20
God blessed Israel with a wonderful Law. But if it was nothing more than a list of “dos and donts”, theirs would be “a surface-level, legalistic, theocratic-government-forced dead moralistic (Jewish) nation.”
What God desired and instructed was a nation of people with the Law written on their hearts.