Scrollers Preview - Parashat Vaetchanan

“I pleaded with the LORD at that time, saying, ‘ O Lord GOD, You who let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your mighty hand, You whose powerful deeds no god in heaven or on earth can equal! Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan. . . .”

The parasha opens with these painful and personal words from Moses. And then it launches into Moses’ exhortations to the people to follow God’s laws and rules when they go into the land without him. The text becomes liturgical, poetic and philosophical. It is here that we find the Sh’ma “Hear, Oh Israel, YHVH is our God. YHVH alone. You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. . . .” And here too, Moses repeats the Ten Commandments.

The words we see repeated most are various forms of the following verbs: “sh’ma” or “listen,” “r’eh, or “look,” “chayyim” or “life,” and “shamor,” or “guard/keep.” These words occur in connection to constant reminders to follow God’s ways and not to stray.

Moses is so sad and so worried. He made one misstep, and now he can’t even enter the land. How much the more so are the people in danger of straying from God’s laws and being exiled. Moses pleads with God at the beginning, but the entire portion is a plea. Moses is pleading with the people to not make the same mistakes he did; to treasure the opportunity to live in the holy land and create a holy community in covenant with God.

As we read this parasha, are we worried, as Moses is? Do we have hope – not only in the generation of Israelites whom Moses is addressing, but in our own generations of living Jews? Are we able to see and listen, guard and keep, and live?

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Dvarim 2013

Moses, the man who pleaded with God that he was not an “ish d’varim,” a “man of words” is now about to speak to us for the entire book of Deuteronomy, which we begin this week. When God first commissioned Moses, he tried to get out of the job, saying that he was slow of tongue. But now he seems to have plenty to say!

Moses begins by giving a brief summary of the Israelites’ travels up to this point. He lingers on the retelling of two events – the delegation of his leadership to chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and so forth; and the devastating spy mission that ended with the older generation being barred from entering the land. Both of these incidents come across differently in Moses’ retelling than they do when we first read them in the books of Exodus and Numbers.

Moses also reviews the various military campaigns the Israelites pursued on the eastern side of the Jordan River. All of this sets up the new generation, to whom Moses is speaking, to cross the Jordan and conquer the peoples there without fear.

A strong theme in this parasha is that of fear and faith. Moses reminds the new Israelites of the fear of the older generation to face the challenges of the giants and fortified cities of the land of Israel. They are told not to fear the other peoples whom they will encounter, and they are told that the other peoples do fear them.

I see some parallels between the fear operating in this parasha and the fear that was operating in the interaction between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin that may have led to Trayvon’s death. I also wonder about how fear has been operating in Egypt lately.

I look forward this week to examining the dynamics of fear and faith as the Israelites turn and face the Promised Land and hear Moses retell the story of their parents’ failure to hold on to faith as they faced their fears.

Scrollers Preview - Parashat Matot-Masei 2013

This week’s double parasha concludes the Book of Numbers, and with it, the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness. The new generation has taken over, for the most part, and Moses is about to die. The people will pause here on the steppes of Moab, listening to Moses speak for the whole book of Deuteronomy, before they finally cross over, in the Book of Joshua. As we conclude this book, we will encounter many questions: about the autonomy of women and what it means to make a vow; regarding what we think about the fact that Moses is instructed to conduct a holy war as his last act; and what we and the Israelites see as we reflect on the journey and look ahead to conquering and settling the land.

Below, you’ll see a summary. I look forward to engaging with these questions, and with yours, tomorrow morning!

As we near the end of the Book of Numbers, we receive some additional laws, Moses receives his last task from God, and we begin to focus on the settlement of the Promised Land. The three main sections of the first parasha of Matot are:

1.) Laws regarding vows – Specifically, we learn about who is responsible for the vows or oaths of a woman, depending on her personal status (living in her father’s house, married, divorced, widowed.) A vow or oath is a powerful use of words, made binding by the use of God’s name.

2.) God asks one last thing of Moses before his death – to go to war against the Midianites. This war is meant to redress past wrongs, specifically the Midianites’ seduction of the Israelite men in last week’s parashah. Balaam reappears here as the mastermind behind that mass-seduction. Moses is unhappy when the Israelite armies only kill the men and not the women. So he sends them back to slay all male children and all women who have known men carnally.

3.) The tribes of Reuben and Gad claim the land on the East side of the Jordan as their inheritance and want to settle it because it is good cattle country. Moses is not happy; he is concerned that they won’t help the Israelites conquer the land. A compromise is reached in which the Reubenite and Gadite men will serve as “shock-troops” and will conquer the land before returning to their lands on the East side of the river.

Then, in the second parasha, Mas’ei, we review the marches and stopping points through the wilderness, 42 in all. We also get the boundaries of the land, more details on the cities of refuge and the other cities of the Levites,

At the very end of the parasha, the daughters of Zelophechad return, the laws of inheritance changed once again to insure that heiresses will marry within their tribes, therefore keeping land in its original tribal holding.