Remember that Mincha today is at 6:55 pm. That way we can enjoy a Carlebach Kabbalat Shabbat and still light the candles before sundown.
Derasha
Earlier this month, we read a Parasha called Eikev (Tishm’un) and then a Parasha called Re’eh. The first begins with the sense of hearing and the second with the sense of sight. Normally, of course, those are reversed. As with lightning and thunder, we naturally see before we hear -- and we know Reuven is born before Shimon. But in Devarim they are reversed. This book comes after lots of failure in the desert. In restoring a proper sense of things, Moshe teaches that we must hear first in order to know what we are seeing.
This occurred to me after another week of national turmoil. Jacob Blake is from the same town I’m from, Evanston, IL. His father was in my sister’s elementary school class. His grandfather was the pastor in an Evanston church when I was an adolescent. So much of what occurred this week was based on seeing, and so little on hearing, the reverse of what the succession of Parashiot is trying to teach.
This week’s Parasha comes as the climax of three Parashiot which make up the bulk of the Mitzvot section of the book of Devarim. We heard some Mitzvot in Re’eh, and then more in Shoftim, and the most this week. This is the largest listing of Mitzvot in any Parasha in the Torah. I like to point out that this Parasha always falls out in Elul, when our return to the Mitzvot should be on everyone’s mind.
But it’s not just the specific Mitzvot. It’s the overall thrust of these Mitzvot that should be the take-away. There is a continuity between the end of last week’s Parasha and this week’s. And there is an overarching theme during the last three Parashiot.
The same phrase that begins this week’s Parasha also appeared toward the end of last week’s Parasha. (It’s a challenge for the Baal Koreh, who must make sure he is looking at the right column when he begins.) How to act when the nation goes out to war (Ki TeiTzei L’milchama) is the subject in both paragraphs. They really form a single section about the proper Halachic conduct of various aspects of war. This signals that in the various Mitzvot, there is a sequence. The Mitzvot do not always lend themselves to an easy understanding of this sequence. But one can see certain themes.
Even in the interruption between the sections having to do with war there is a lesson. The interruption teaches what to do when a murdered corpse is found outside of a city. That interlude comes to teach that even amongst scenes in which masses of warriors go up against each other, one should not lose sight of the significance of even one person who has been murdered.
But the arc of these Parashiot becomes clear in another way. Each of these three Parashiot of Mitzvot contains one of the Mitzvot central to the entrance into Eretz Yisrael. In Re’eh, we heard about the building of the Beit HaMikdash. Last week, we heard about the appointment of the King. And this week we finish with the Mitzva to annihilate Amalek. Indeed, the building of the Beit HaMikdash depends on a King who can properly deal with Amalek.
In many of the Mitzvot in this week’s Parasha, the decisive factor is what Hashem wants even when the human heart would tell one differently. The soldier lusts after the captive woman, but there has to be conversion and marriage. The two first-born from two wives are not felt to be equal: One comes from a wife who is more loved than the other. But that cannot affect the laws of inheritance. Parents love their children, but the rebellious child cannot be allowed to wreak havoc. By the end of the Parasha, many would have mercy on the women or children of Amalek, as Shaul HaMelech did, but that’s not what the Mitzva said. So much depends on whether one wants to hear the objective judgement or follow the subjective heart. Our eyes are closely wired to our hearts, and they are supposed to affect each other. But not at the expense of a proper examination of the facts, and the weighing of what the Torah would say. The eyes must sometimes be told what they are seeing. Elul is about allowing the Mitzvot to do the talking, and figuring out how to allow them to direct our eyes, and our hearts.
Congregation Emek Beracha 4102 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA 94306
