The Book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, is the farewell message of Moses after forty years in the wilderness, before he dies and before he passes the baton on to Joshua. It contains two parts. The first is the apparent recapitulation by Moses of the history of the past forty years. As he tells it. As he remembers it. And the great…
Parsha Devarim
Repetition Helps Learning
Devarim is the last book of the Torah and in general terms it repeats all the essential laws, ideas and history of the first four books. You might well ask why is it necessary to repeat the Torah? There are several answers our rabbis give. Not least is that over the forty-year period different situations and new circumstances required modifications,…
Horma
After the Children of Israel are told in the Book of Numbers that they must delay a generation before invading Canaan, a group of them decide to go and attack regardless. They called the ma’apilim. Those who dare, but not in a good sense. Moses warns them not to and tells them in advance they will not succeed. They go…
Og’s Bed
The Torah mentions Og the King of the Emorites several times. He is called Og King of the Bashan which is on the East bank of the Jordan where Reuben and Gad ended up living. Although he was defeated and killed he had a fearsome reputation as a giant. Later, some think he would become a symbol of Israel’s enemies…