In this week’s parsha (Torah portion), we have plenty of excitement and thrills and chills. Let’s check it out. The parsha is named after the first word, vaetchanan, which means, “And I pleaded or beseeched,” because the parsha continues Moshe’s (Moses) history lesson to the nation by telling them how he beseeched haShem (god) to let him come into the land. HaShem denies the request and instead tells Moshe to climb a mountain and see the land. God also tells Moshe to help Y’hoshua (Joshua) prepare to cross at the head of the people. And thus ends the history lesson.
Moshe now tells the people to listen the rules he is teaching them so they can enter and live on the land, for the observance and doing of these laws is our wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations, and they will say, “…’And who is a great nation that to it, god is close to’, like haShem our god is when we call to him.” We are told not to forget, and to tell our children and grandchildren, the events at mount Sinai, and we hear how god told Moshe to teach us the Torah so we will be ready to do all the rules when we enter and settle in the land. We are warned against making an image of anything in this world or in the skies for it might lead us to worship them. We again hear that Moshe cannot cross the Jordan and another reminder not to forget the covenant with haShem. And again not to make an idol, along with what will happen if we do.
Moshe then reminds us of all god has done for us, and will do for us so we can settle the land, and, “You will know, today, and think in your heart that haShem is the god in heaven above and earth below – there is no other,” and to, again, guard the laws. Moshe tells us which three cities on the east side of the Jordan are cities of refuge, and what parts of the land belongs to the tribe of Reuvan, Gad, and half of Menasha.
Moshe then recounts the events surrounding haShem talking to us, including his version of the 10 utterances, after which he tells us again to follow the rules in order to stay on the land. Moshe then says, “Listen Yisrael, haShem Elokaynu (our powers or our god), haShem is one,” followed by the command to love haShem will all our heart, soul, and resources, and to teach this to our children and to talk of it all the time, and bind it to our arm’s and between our eyes, and to write it on our door posts and gates.
We then read of what we will receive upon entering the land and not to forget god who took us out of Egypt, from a place of slavery, and to again follow all the rules and what to tell our children when they ask about these laws, and what to do to the people who live in the land we are about to take. All because we are a holy nation to haShem. The parsha ends with Moshe telling us that god is kind to those who observe his commandments, and pays back those who hate him, and we should observe the commandment, the laws, and the judgements that we are being commanded today!
Boy can Moshe talk up a storm. What is he really trying to tell us with these final words of his before he dies? What is he really saying? I feel like I am reading a murder mystery where the victim uses his last bit of strength to write a clue to the killer’s identity. Ok, this is not a murder mystery, but I trust you get the analogy I am trying to make. The point I hear Moshe making on the surface seems pretty obvious: it is really important for us to live the way haShem is asking us to live in order to fulfill god’s desire to have holy people living in this holy land.
Now that we have the obvious out of the way, let’s see what, or how, Moshe is really telling us about living life. I want to try showing this in a couple or three different ways. The first way I want to look at it is through the idea of marriage.
In our family tradition, we frequently refer to god as the husband and the nation of Yisrael as his bride. Now, how does a marriage start? It starts by the couple getting married and then they move into a house together, with the house, in this case, being the land the tribes are about to settle.
Actually, this is not true. A marriage starts with two people acknowledging who they are and where they came from, because if you can’t acknowledge and accept the life you have lived up to this point, you cannot have an honest and healthy relationship. This is why Moshe has been giving us a history lesson for the last two parshas.
What else does Moshe say? He says that we should not forget all that haShem has done for us. This translates into not taking your partner for granted.
And all the repetition of following god’s rules? Well, if we include the part about loving god with all your heart, etc. that I wrote above (which we say every day in our prayers), what Moshe is trying to tell us is that we should love our partner with all our heart, and soul and being, and if we do this, then how could we not want to do everything that our spouse asks of us? And if we do everything that our spouse wants, our life in the house we share (or the land) will be lengthy and joyous.
Now, before anyone goes off that this looks like a one-way street, that a woman must do what the man wants, and the is no reciprocity, remember this: we are both made in god’s image, male and female. So, too, in a marriage between two people, both of us need to play the part of the nation/the bride for the other person is god, who is both male and female.
Now, what happens in a marriage after a few years? Children are born. This leads us to something that really struck me in the parsha. In verse 5:27 (of D’varim or Deuteronomy) Moshe says, “…and I (haShem) will speak to you (Moshe) all the mitzvah (commandment) and chukim (literally engravings, but normally translated as statutes), and mishpatim (judgements) that you will teach them…,” and verse 6:1 reads, “And these are the mitzvah and the chukim and the mishpatim that haShem your god commanded to teach to you-all to do in the land…”
The thing that bothers me is why is mitzvah, or commandment, singular? Don’t we have many commandments to follow?
The answer that came to me is that there must be ONE commandment that is most important. The question now is: What is that commandment? Well, the next verse, 6:2 says that not only do we need to observe the laws, but also our children and our grandchildren need to observe the laws, and immediately after (6:4-7) says, “Listen Yisrael, haShem is our god/powers, haShem is one. You should love haShem, your god/powers with all your heart/soul/resources, and these words that I command you today shall be upon your heart. Teach them to your children…”
When I read this, along with verse 6:1, I saw something in common: to teach the way god wants us to live on the land. And I thought to myself that this must be THE commandment.
Why did I think that? Well, it is one thing to know something. But to teach it, you need to know it really well. And if we are to teach it to our children, as it says in verse 6:7, well, that means we have to live it. Why do I say that? Because one of the beautiful attributes that god gave to children is that can smell hypocrisy a mile away, and they do not accept it. So, if you try to teach a child something that you do not do yourself, well, I wish you the best of luck, and even then I doubt you will be successful.
What I am trying to say here is that the most important mitzvah, THE mitzvah is to teach your children and grandchildren the ways god wants us to live so we can be a holy people living in a holy land in relationship with god. And the only way that one can teach one’s children and grandchildren is to really know AND TO DO the chukim and mishpatim that haShem has asked us to do. If we do that, then we, and our children will have a long and happy life, with our partner/god in our house/on our land. The reason it is the most important mitzvah is because it is telling us to really know, and to really do all the mitzvot of haShem, as well as to insure that our future generations will keep the mitzvot/ways of haShem. In other words, it is all encompassing and for all time.
I know this is getting long, but I would like to squeeze in something else: how to talk to your partner. Moshe teaches this to us in the very first verse of the parsha which reads, “And I beseeched haShem at this time saying.”
Just to give you a reference, this is when Moshe was praying to god to let him into the promised land. Now before I talk about this, I want to tell you that this idea came out on a Shabbat night at the Lewis’s shabbat dinner table, and it is the product of something that Reb Yitzhak of Lebditchov said, that my friend Pesach shared and expanded on, and that I then added to It goes like this:
Why does it say here that Moshe, “Beseeched and said,” when he was praying to god to let him into the land, when everywhere else it just says Moshe prayed or spoke to haShem? Why does it say both, beseeched (etchanan) and say (amor)?
The answer is that here Moshe is asking god for something for himself, and before he did so, he needed to pray to god (the etchanan or beseeching) that what he was praying for (amor) was in order. Now, before I can explain further, I need to explain that the root of the word to pray, l’heetpalel in Hebrew, means to judge oneself. In other words, when you pray, what you are really doing is looking at yourself and seeing where you measure up and what you need to work on in order to get closer to god, which is what prayer is all about. So, what Moshe is doing here when he prays that he can pray for a personal request, is looking at himself and asking god to help him become pure enough to be able to look at himself and see if what he wants is really what is best for him (ie what god wants). Moshe is telling us that we don’t need to do this when we are asking for god to help another, but it is good to do before we ask god for something for ourselves, because he just might give it to us.
Now to bring this full circle with the theme of this week’s parsha: it is also a good idea, before asking your spouse or partner or child or anyone for something, to do a little check in on yourself and ask that your be clear in what you really want and need.
There are other ideas I wish I had space and time to share, but this is already long enough. Perhaps they will bubble to the surface next year.
Before I go, I bless you all to take the time to purify yourselves so you can really ask for what you want, so you can have the relationships you really want and deserve.
If you want to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.