Devarim

בְּעֵ֥בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֖ן בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מוֹאָ֑ב הוֹאִ֣יל מֹשֶׁ֔ה בֵּאֵ֛ר אֶת־הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את
On the other side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to teach this Torah.

– Deuteronomy 1:5

This week, we begin the book of Deuteronomy with Parashat Devarim. Numbers would have been nearly the perfect ending to the story of our peoples’ wandering before entering the Promised Land, but Moses had other ideas. Like a parent sending children out into the world, he still had wisdom to share in the form of a forty-day-long lecture. He had to remind them of their journeys in the wilderness and give them his final advice on how to build a functioning ethical community upon settling down.

Interestingly, Moses begins to talk about topics that had never been covered in the rest of the Torah, namely the appointment of a king and the establishment of a central place of worship. Biblical scholars often identify this focus on centralization of power as anachronisms, dating the authorship of the book of Deuteronomy to a time when the monarchy and the Temple in Jerusalem were already firmly established. We may even find evidence of this in the Book of II Kings where, during the time of King Josiah, the high priest discovers a Sefer HaTorah, a book of the Torah in the Temple. It is only then that we read of Josiah’s regime reforming Judean religion to be centralized entirely at the Temple in Jerusalem. How convenient!

And yet, even if Deuteronomy was written later and, perhaps, smuggled into the Torah, it is as sacred and meaningful as any of the other books. In fact, among the five books, it has a unique focus on the value of learning and study, along with an emphasis on how our practice needs to be felt in and come from the heart. In a way, Deuteronomy serves as the first book of Reform Judaism, identifying a need for a change in the Jewish religion in response to a changing world and presaging a Judaism that emphasizes our power to learn and our capacity to love. There is no doubt that, in the words of Rabbi Ben Azzai (when asked why he would follow his teacher into the bathroom), this too is Torah and we must learn. Let us learn from the lessons of our ancestors who realized that we and our tradition must evolve along with the world around us, so we can better fulfill our purpose of being a light of moral clarity and justice to the nations. May we, like Moses, teach our own Torah.

L’shalom,


Rabbi Michael Weiss