The Torah continues, this week, with Moshe’s long oration to the Children of Israel before he dies. In it he highlights the issues that he thinks are going to lead to a loss of faith and the danger that they might abandon their faith. Without someone as strong as he was to keep them together and to impose discipline, he…
Parsha Eikev
Reward & Punishment
“If you obey my commands…then I will send the rains in good time.” The Second Paragraph of the Shema implies a direct correlation between keeping God’s commandments and being rewarded with the world’s bounty and thriving. Conversely, betraying God brings about destruction and the failure of the physical world to produce food. On a rational level this does not make…
Depopulation
There are different attitudes to be found in Devarim itself in regard towards the Canaanites. On the one hand in Chapter 7 it says that the Israelites must destroy the Seven Canaanite nations completely and not intermarry with them. Well, if you destroy them then of course you cannot intermarry. But then in Chapter8 Moshe says that God will not…
Shortcuts
“And you shall eat and be satisfied and thank the Lord.” This phrase in the Torah that we read this week is the basis of the law that we should thank God for our food. You might argue that it makes sense for thanking God after we have eaten but even then, the rabbis declared that although the Torah says…