…bring Him sacrifices on a regular basis. God does not need sacrifices. But God responded to the people’s wish, much as He did when they said they could not continue to hear His overwhelming voice at Sinai: “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good” (Devarim 5:25). What brings people close to God has…
…carefully. Here is Moshe Rabbeinu (here is Moses) speaking in the Book of Devarim. “Veyadata ki Hashem Elokecha hu haElokim Hakel hane’eman shomer habrit ve’hachessed”, “You shall know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God, who keeps Habrit ve’hachessed – the covenant and the loving-kindness.” וְיָ֣דַעְתָּ֔ כִּֽי־יקוק אֱלֹקֶ֖יךָ ה֣וּא הָֽאֱלֹקִ֑ים הָאֵל֙ הַֽנֶּאֱמָ֔ן שֹׁמֵ֧ר הַבְּרִ֣ית וְהַחֶ֗סֶד לְאֹהֲבָ֛יו וּלְשֹׁמְרֵ֥י…
…in our parsha – repeated twelve times – is there to tell us that the twelve men were not sent to spy. But only two of them understood this. Almost forty years later, when Moses retells the episode in Devarim 1:22-24, he does use the verbs lachpor and leragel. In Genesis 42, when the brothers come before Joseph in Egypt…
…on Maimonides’ approach, see his Commentary to Gen. 18:1. [3] Num. 24:9: “May those who bless you be blessed, and those who curse you be cursed!” Earlier, 23:8, he had said, “How can I curse those whom God has not cursed?” [4] However, Devarim Rabbah 1:4 suggests that God chose Bilam to bless the Israelites because when an enemy blesses…
…you serve me, I will bless you. Every covenant has an if-then quality to it. Therefore, every covenant is inherently vulnerable. That is what Moses emphasised throughout Devarim. Don’t take the land or its blessings for granted. If you do well, things will go well, but if you do badly, great dangers lie in store. That is covenant. Chessed, in…
…acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.” (Devarim 21:15-17) On the face of it, this is a straightforward law. It tells us that love must not override justice. The…
…given after all the recapitulation of the Torah in the book of Devarim, the blessings and curses and the covenant renewal ceremony. They are embedded in the narrative in which Moses hands on leadership to his successor Joshua. The connection is that both the laws and the narrative are about continuity. The laws are intended to ensure that the Torah…
When is Tu BiShvat? The chag of Tu BiShvat is celebrated on the 15th day of Shvat in the Hebrew calendar. This year, the festival commences on the evening of Wednesday, 24 January 2024, and continues until sunset on Thursday, 25 January 2024 Contents Tu BiShvat In a Nutshell Tu BiShvat for Our Time From the Thought of Rabbi Sacks…
…Devarim (Deuteronomy). There are a lot of passages in all the Prophets, especially Amos, but Jeremiah above all. Jeremiah was politically intelligent, he had a far finer grasp of politics than any of his contemporaries. Jeremiah was a moral extremist, but he was a political moderate, he really was. He believed in making peace with the Babylonians, all the rest…
…same thing. We know we’re argumentative. We know that the 11th chapter of Bereishit describes a world in which, vayehi kol ha’artz safar achat u’devarim achadim, the builders of the Tower of Babel spoke one language and all had the same idea. And God came and confused their language. We have never sought to impose unity on the world. We…