TorahParsha

Mercy

for Parshat VaEtchanan

 

Before Moses retells the giving of the Ten Commandments, he dedicates the cities of refuge.

These are the cities where accidental murderers can run to and hide from avenging families.

Before we have Law, we must have mercy.

 

 

Shabbat shalom,

Abe

Why is it good to fear God?

for Parshat VaEtchanan

 

 

i

God tells Moses:

gather the people

that they hear my words

that they learn to fear Me.

*

Later, Moses tells the people:

remember you saw no image then;

you only heard a voice.

Had you seen a vision

you could come to make an idol;

you could come to look to the sun,

the moon,

you could come to worship them,

you could craft spiritualities

from what you see.

 

ii

In this,

Moses says:

Seeing means looking to the world

to construct your worldview

from your own perspective

even if your perspective is wrong.

 

iii

But God gathers the people

to learn to fear Him.

*

Of course fear and sight

yirah and ri’eyah

are nearly one word

spelled differently.

*

In fear, you also look to the world.

But not to find your own view.

You look,

and see how you are wholly dependent

on something else

on someone else.

You see yourself in the world’s eyes,

in another’s eyes.

 

iv

Revelation begins not in looking,

but in fear:

perhaps to teach us to see

through someone else’s perspective

through God’s perspective

through God’s eyes alone.

 

 

_____

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

_____

Verses: Deut 4:9-21

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Can you be religious if you cannot approach God?

for Parshat VaEtchanan

 

i

Moses tells the story

of how God appears on the Mountain

of how the people meet Him face to face

of how the people say to Moses:

we cannot withstand this holiness;

you speak to God;

tell us what He will say.

*

God is happy with this proposal,

with the fear of God behind it.

 

ii

Moses tells of how

in generations to come

children will ask their parents:

What has God commanded you?

Through this question,

Moses says,

we are to teach our children of God.

 

iii

For Moses,

Revelation is face-to-face with the Divine.

*

But most people are not Moses.

Most people are not able

to reach such spectacular heights.

*

For most people,

Revelation is turning to Moses,

to parents,

to another,

and asking:

What about God can you teach me?

 

___

Shabbat Shalom,
Abe
www.TorahParsha.ocm

 

Do we need to know who God is?

(for Shabbat VaEtchanan)

 

i

I am the Lord your God Who brought you from Egypt,

God says.
He says: Do not make an idol to Me.

Moses says: If you make idols, God will scatter you among the nations.

ii
God Who brought you from Egypt

and into the Desert

and toward the Land

is the God whose Temple you travel to

three times a year,

is the God

whose sacrifices are called korban:

a coming close.

This is the God of the journey.

 

iii

An idol is an attempt to pinpoint God—

an attempt to say: here, precisely, is God;

this, precisely, is what God is.

*

If you try to be so precise with God

as idolatry is precise with God

then the God you journey towards

will send you away:

He will scatter you among the nations.

 

iv

This is to say:

Your job is not to pinpoint God.

Your job is to follow after Him,

to come toward Him,

to journey toward Him forever.

 

 

 

_________

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

 

Please pray for Ayelet Yakira bat Chaya Hinda Matel Nechama, a one-year-old who needs a bone marrow transplant, and get your cheek swabbed today.

For further reading on Torah and the Parsha, consider: Hirhurim – Jewish Ideas Daily - Rabbi Jonathan Sack’s writings –Pardes  - The Virtual Beit Midrash – Yeshiva University Online

Thought for Parshat Va'Etchanan

What knowledge should we seek?

 

i

God said, Let there be Light. And there was light.

And God saw the  Light; and behold: it was good.

*

Light must come because God has spoken.

Words create obligation.

*
But vision does not create obligation.

Vision offers understanding:

God saw the  Light; and behold: it was good.

 

ii

Moses says: Guard yourselves… lest you forget that which your eyes saw at Mount Sinai:

HaShem spoke to you from the midst of the fire

a voice of words did you hear; but you saw no image:

only a voice.  

 

iii

Seeing, we understand.

And so if we had seen a vision of God, we would have received an understanding of God.

But we saw no image of God.

We saw the voice of God’s words.

*
Words obligate.

Seeing God’s words, we saw how God obligates.

We understood how God obligates.

*

We were not asked to know God.

We were asked to know how God obligates us.

We were asked to know what we must do.

At the height of Revelation, we learned this.  

___________

Shabbat shalom, Abe

___________

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Please continue to pray for Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah, and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther.

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Truths (For Parshat VaEtchanan)

i
God speaks the Ten Commandments to the people and He wrote the Commandments on two tablets of stone.

But the people tell Moses: If we continue to hear the voice of…God, then we shall die.

*
The people say to Moses: You go hear all that…God will say, and we shall do what He will tell you.

ii
Moses says:

Hear, Israel: HaShem is our God; HaShem is One.

And you shall love HaShem your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

And you shall teach these precepts to your children; and you shall speak of them…in your house and on the way.

And you shall bind them… upon your arm…and between your eyes; and you shall write them on your doorposts and on your gateways

*
Once you heard God’s voice. Now you shall hear of the knowing of God.

You shall make your life the place where the knowing of God will gather.

You shall write of that knowing on the places of your life, even as God wrote His words onto stone.

iii
Only Moses is called upon to reach the great heights, all the way up to God.

We are called upon to make a life of God of the life that we have.

Based on Chasidic teachings.

Shabbat Shalom,
Abe

~
Correction: Last week, I spoke of God’s warning to not attack Moav. I should have written not Moav, but Moav’s sister nation, Ammon. (The text is slightly confusing; see Deut 2:17-19.)

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