There are few more blazing passages in the whole of religious literature than the first chapter of the book of Isaiah, the great “vision,” chazon, that gives its name to the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish year. It is more than great literature. It expresses one of the great prophetic truths, that a society…
…within which to exercise that freedom. The book of Devarim represents the first attempt in history to create a free society. Moses’ vision is deeply political but in a unique way. It is not politics as the pursuit of power or the defence of interests or the preservation of class and caste. It is not politics as an expression of…
…to know and understand the law. Legal knowledge is not the closely guarded property of an elite. It is – in the famous phrase – “the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.” (Devarim 33:4) Already in the first century CE Josephus could write that “should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as…
The sedra of Tetzaveh, as commentators have noted, has one unusual feature: it is the only sedra from the beginning of Shemot to the end of Devarim that does not contain the name of Moses. Several interpretations have been offered: The Vilna Gaon suggests that it is related to the fact that in most years it is read during the…
…in the Torah. It is known as the tochachah (the rebuke: the other appears in Devarim 28), and it details the terrible fate that will befall the Jewish people if it fails to keep its covenant with God: I will bring such insecurity upon those of you who survive in your enemies’ land that the sound of a driven leaf…
…to resist. Not because, God forbid, they were afraid of fighting or because they were pacifists, but precisely because they remembered twice before when Jews rose against a superior force, armed resistance proved devastating and almost suicidal. And because Judaism says “uvacharta bachayim”, choose life (Devarim 30:19), “ya’aseh otam ha’adam vachai bahem”, live by Judaism, don’t die by it (Leviticus…
The year 2001 began as the United Nations Year of Dialogue between Civilizations. By its end, the phrase that came most readily to mind was ‘the clash of civilizations.’ The tragedy of September 11 intensified the danger caused by religious differences around the world. As the politics of identity begin to replace the politics of ideology, can religion become a…
…in Devarim, and incidentally tells us something not only about the nature of biblical justice but also about why the Torah contains narrative as well as law. Law deals in generalities. Narrative focuses on particularities: this person, that family, this time, that place. Without law, society becomes chaos. But without narrative, law itself loses contact with the realities of human…
…the book of Devarim he exhibits stunning insight when he says that the Israelites will find that their real challenge will be not slavery but freedom, not poverty but affluence, and not homelessness but home. Anticipating by two millennia the theory of the 14th century Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun, he predicts that over the course of time, precisely as they…
…stronger. They became in the most positive sense a nation of survivors. Who gave them that strength and courage? The answer is: three leaders whose names are indelibly associated with the Three Weeks: Moses, whose message to the generations at the beginning of Devarim is always read on the Shabbat before Tisha b’Av, Isaiah whose vision gives that day its…