Torah Posting: ואתחנן
Mosheh’s first-person recounting of the 40-year wanderings of the children of Yisra’el continues. It picks up here with an emotionally quite different retelling of the moment in parashat Hukat when Mosheh is forbidden by God from entering the promised land. In the earlier parashah, it happens quite matter-of-factly; Mosheh strikes the rock in anger, defying God’s instructions to simply speak to it to produce water for the people to drink, and God clearly explains that this faithlessness is unacceptable and lays out the punishment. Here in Mosheh’s retelling before the people, he begs and pleads with God to let him enter the land, and God refuses.
Mosheh is really in a mood, huh? It’s clearly hard for him to stand here and do his job, which is to finish this teaching and then die here, sending his people on without him.
He uses this incidence of the severity of God’s judgment to pivot to talking about the law itself, which is the main purpose of this final address. Since this second generation was not present for the most instructive demonstrations of God’s law at the beginning of the people’s wandering, Mosheh has to reiterate it all here, and he has to drive home the seriousness of it by talking about the consequences for straying.
Mosheh makes clear that this is about living righteously in the land they are about to enter. The law will constitute the greatness of this people, even in the eyes of other nations. But it must be held fast and transmitted down the generations, or all — even the land — will be lost. Mosheh reminds them of the experience of standing before God as a whole people at the foot of Horev (Mount Sinai) with the towering flames and choking clouds and the overpowering sound of the Voice with no Shape. Even though we know the generation listening to Mosheh now is the one that came after those who were at Sinai, Mosheh recounts the story as though all these people were physically there. Drawing on this, our tradition teaches that all Jewish souls were physically present at Sinai — that this was a communal revelation for all Jews, ever.
Mosheh seizes upon this language about how the people heard a Voice but saw no Form. This shows that the children of Yisra’el know the true nature of God is formless, and so they are not to make a sculpted image of any incarnate form to worship as God — even of the Sun, Moon, and stars. God allotted these to the other nations, Mosheh says, but God took the children of Yisra’el out of Mitzrayim to be God’s very own people — the people of the formless God.
This warning against idolatry is long, impassioned, and prophetic. It even prophesies that the people could be cast out of the land for failing to uphold these teachings and be scattered amongst the nations. But — correctly, and even more poignantly — Mosheh reassures them that even there they will be able to find their God again, as long as they seek with all their heart and soul.
The speech contains many contrasting images of God, as impassioned as fire but also compassionate and forgiving. Mosheh contends that the people have seen God’s full range of passions on overwhelming display, and they survived, and this itself is a miracle deserving of their devotion.
As he prepares to give his detailed recounting of the specific laws, he begins by designating three cities of refuge for fugitives on the east side of the Jordan, one for the tribe of Reuvein, one for the tribe of Gad, and one for the tribe of Menasheh. And with that and a little more context setting for the place of this address, Mosheh launches into chapter 5, where the retransmission of the essential kernel of the law begins.
This address begins with the phrase “שמע ישראל” (“Hear, O Yisra’el”), arguably the most critical form of religious exhortation for the Jewish people. This is not the verse containing that phrase that becomes the fundamental mantra of Jewish prayer, but that is coming later in this parashah. Mosheh returns to the subject of the mass revelation at the holy mountain. He clarifies that “it was not with our ancestors that God made this covenant but with us, all of us here who are alive today.”
He then restates the 10 commandments, explaining that these were the words all the people heard uttered in God’s voice, and then they were inscribed upon the stone tablets Mosheh carried down from the mountaintop. He tells of the people’s overwhelmed devotion, and God’s admiration of it, and how God told him to send the people back to their tents while he went back up the mountain to receive the full set of laws. Mosheh reiterates again that the people must not stray to the left or the right of these instructions, and then he begins the indispensable chapter 6, the overview of what the whole of the law means and how the people are to orient themselves to it. A portion of this chapter is recited day and night by Jewish people the world over, as it comprises the essential meditation instructions of Jewish practice.
The Shema, as we now call Dvarim 6:4–9 — sometimes referring to just 6:4 itself — is an articulation of the fundamentals. On one level, it’s very simple: Love God. On other levels, some key specific ritual practices for doing so are established. Teach God’s דברים/words/things to your children. Recite them at home and when away, when you lie down and when you get up. Connect them as a sign upon your hand, and let them be a talisman upon your forehead. (This becomes the practice of tefillin.) Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and your gates. (This becomes the practice of mezuzah.) Tefillin and mezuzot contain actual parchment scrolls of these very words written by hand in the royal script in which entire Torah scrolls are also written.
Mosheh then goes into describing what it will be like for the people to enter the land, which will be filled with bounties God has provided them, enjoining them to feel this love when they experience these wonders and not to stray. He also provides specific formulations for how to fulfill the part about teaching it to children when they ask questions about why we follow all these laws and customs and their exacting specifics.
The final section of this parashah turns to restrictions about intermingling with the land’s prior inhabitants once the children of Yisra’el enter there. Mosheh’s purpose here is clear: The land is full of altars, pillars, temples, and idols to other gods. In order for the people to be holy in this land, all those will have to be destroyed, and no relations with the peoples who created them can be permitted, lest their ways and practices be transmitted to the children of Yisra’el, as has already happened to disastrous effect.
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