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Back to All Portions"If you will heed these ordinances and safeguard them by studying how to perform them, and perform them, God, your God, will keep the covenant for you, as well as the kindness that He swore to your forefathers."
Moses promises the Israelites that if they keep God’s commandments, they’ll thrive in the land God had promised to their forefathers. He also reminds them of their previous sins, including the golden calf, Korach’s rebellion, and the sin of the spies, but reassures them that God forgives.
Moses describes the Promised Land as “flowing with milk and honey,” and commands them to destroy the idols erected by the land’s previous inhabitants. The second chapter of the Shema is also repeated.
כׇּל־הַמִּצְוָה אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם תִּשְׁמְרוּן לַעֲשׂוֹת לְמַעַן תִּחְיוּן וּרְבִיתֶם וּבָאתֶם וִירִשְׁתֶּם אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־נִשְׁבַּע יְהֹוָה לַאֲבֹתֵיכֶם׃
In the time remaining between now and your entry into the land, you must safeguard – of all the commandments that I am commanding you today – those that you are able to perform during this period, by studying the Torah’s instructions regarding how to perform them, in order to be able to perform them properly, in order that you may live, multiply, and come take possession of the land that GOD swore to your forefathers – for you will enter and take possession of the land in the merit of the commandments you perform.
זְכֹר אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח אֵת אֲשֶׁר־הִקְצַפְתָּ אֶת־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בַּמִּדְבָּר לְמִן־הַיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר־יָצָאתָ ׀ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם עַד־בֹּאֲכֶם עַד־הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה מַמְרִים הֱיִיתֶם עִם־יְהֹוָה׃
Remember – do not forget – how you repeatedly angered GOD, your God, in the desert. You have been rebelling against GOD from the day you went out of Egypt until the day you came to this place.
בַּעֲלֹתִי הָהָרָה לָקַחַת לוּחֹת הָאֲבָנִים לוּחֹת הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר־כָּרַת יְהֹוָה עִמָּכֶם וָאֵשֵׁב בָּהָר אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְאַרְבָּעִים לַיְלָה לֶחֶם לֹא אָכַלְתִּי וּמַיִם לֹא שָׁתִיתִי׃
When I ascended the mountain the first time, to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that GOD made with you, I remained on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water,
וּבְאַהֲרֹן הִתְאַנַּף יְהֹוָה מְאֹד לְהַשְׁמִידוֹ וָאֶתְפַּלֵּל גַּם־בְּעַד אַהֲרֹן בָּעֵת הַהִוא׃
GOD was extremely furious with Aaron for acquiescing to your insistence on making the calf. He threatened to destroy him by killing his four sons, thereby leaving him without any descendants, so I prayed also for Aaron at that time. My prayer was effective only halfway, and therefore two of his sons – Nadav and Avihu – later died an unnatural death before having had any children of their own.
וְאֶכְתֹּב עַל־הַלֻּחֹת אֶת־הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר הָיוּ עַל־הַלֻּחֹת הָרִאשֹׁנִים אֲשֶׁר שִׁבַּרְתָּ וְשַׂמְתָּם בָּאָרוֹן׃
I will inscribe on the new tablets the same words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered, and you must place the new tablets into the wooden ark.’
וָאַעַשׂ אֲרוֹן עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים וָאֶפְסֹל שְׁנֵי־לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים כָּרִאשֹׁנִים וָאַעַל הָהָרָה וּשְׁנֵי הַלֻּחֹת בְּיָדִי׃
The Third Forty Days
Although God had told me first to hew the tablets and only then to make an ark to house them, I made an ark of acacia wood first, in order to have something to house the tablets, and only then I hewed two stone tablets like the first ones. I ascended the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.
וְעַתָּה יִשְׂרָאֵל מָה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ שֹׁאֵל מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי אִם־לְיִרְאָה אֶת־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לָלֶכֶת בְּכׇל־דְּרָכָיו וּלְאַהֲבָה אֹתוֹ וְלַעֲבֹד אֶת־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשֶׁךָ׃
Response to God’s Mercy
And now, Israel, even though you rebelled against God all those times, what does GOD, your God, demand of you? Only that you exercise your free choice to fear GOD, your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, and to serve GOD, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul,
לִשְׁמֹר אֶת־מִצְוֺת יְהֹוָה וְאֶת־חֻקֹּתָיו אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם לְטוֹב לָךְ׃
by keeping GOD’s commandments and rules, which I am commanding you today. Furthermore, He is not asking you to do this gratuitously, but for your own good, since He will reward you amply for your devotion. Indeed, it is only regarding your relationship with Him that He grants you free choice; everything else in life is predestined.
וַאֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה לְדָתָן וְלַאֲבִירָם בְּנֵי אֱלִיאָב בֶּן־רְאוּבֵן אֲשֶׁר פָּצְתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת־פִּיהָ וַתִּבְלָעֵם וְאֶת־בָּתֵּיהֶם וְאֶת־אׇהֳלֵיהֶם וְאֵת כׇּל־הַיְקוּם אֲשֶׁר בְּרַגְלֵיהֶם בְּקֶרֶב כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
and what He did to Dathan and Aviram sons of Eli’av grandson of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, their tents, and all their money, which stood them on their feet (i.e., made them self-confident), in the midst of all Israel; and since your children did not know or see all this, they might question how I can exhort them to be faithful to God based upon all these things –
אֶרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ דֹּרֵשׁ אֹתָהּ תָּמִיד עֵינֵי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בָּהּ מֵרֵשִׁית הַשָּׁנָה וְעַד אַחֲרִית שָׁנָה׃ {ס}
It is the land that GOD, your God, watches over; only through watching over the Land of Israel does He watch over the rest of the world. The eyes of GOD, your God, are always upon it, from the beginning of the year – Rosh HaShanah, when the material fortune of the world is determined for that year – to the end of the year, to see if the beneficence He apportioned it on Rosh HaShanah needs to be increased or decreased based on the merits of its inhabitants.”
לְמַעַן יִרְבּוּ יְמֵיכֶם וִימֵי בְנֵיכֶם עַל הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע יְהֹוָה לַאֲבֹתֵיכֶם לָתֵת לָהֶם כִּימֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם עַל־הָאָרֶץ׃ {ס}
Fulfill My commandments and study My Torah in order that your days as a collective entity and the days of your children increase in the land that GOD swore to your forefathers to give not only to you, their descendants, but to them as well, when they will be resurrected in the messianic future, for as long as the days of heaven above earth, i.e., for all time.
How do you keep a society functional, free, and thriving? These days, with politics and culture so chaotic everywhere, the question seems more urgent than ever. This week’s parsha, thankfully, delivers a searing answer.
The real challenge societies face, Moses instructs the Israelites, doesn’t come when they’re struggling with real hardships, like wandering in the desert for 40 years or fighting for survival against genocidal foes. The real challenge comes much later, when security is guaranteed and food is plentiful and no one’s lacking for much; because the real challenge is always spiritual, not physical.
The great philosopher Bertrand Russell described this condition in his seminal History of Western Philosophy. “What had happened in the great age of Greece happened again in Renaissance Italy,” he wrote. “Traditional moral restraints disappeared, because they were seen to be associated with superstition; the liberation from fetters made individuals energetic and creative, producing a rare fluorescence of genius; but the anarchy and treachery which inevitably resulted from the decay of morals made Italians collectively impotent, and they fell, like the Greeks, under the domination of nations less civilized than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion.”
This same cycle, the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks explained, eventually befalls each and every civilization, but should it happen to the Israelites, a small and struggling nation, it would be disastrous. “Only against this background,” Rabbi Sacks explained, “can we understand the momentous project the book of Devarim is proposing: the creation of a society capable of defeating the normal laws of the growth-and-decline of civilizations. This is an astonishing idea.”
But how to do so? This week’s parsha, Rabbi Sacks wrote, gives us three crucial rules to safeguarding our civilization from collapse, all of them captured in Moses’s powerful speech. First, we must never forget where we came from. Second, we must never drift far from our foundational principles and ideas, which, for us Jews, means faith in God and adherence to His commandments. And finally, we must realize that society is only as strong as its faith. “Only faith in God,” Rabbi Sacks noted, “can lead us to honor the needs of others as well as ourselves. Only faith in God can motivate us to act for the benefit of a future we will not live to see. Only faith in God can stop us from wrongdoing when we believe that no other human will ever find out. Only faith in God can give us the humility that alone has the power to defeat the arrogance of success and the self-belief that leads…to military overstretch and national defeat.”
The Israelites, Moses knew, would soon forget all this, grow over-confident, forget their tradition, and sin. But they—us—will then come back, back to first principles, back to a civilization that can’t be beat.
Each week, Israeli journalist and Torah scholar Sivan Rahav-Meir and Tablet’s Liel Leibovitz discuss the week’s parsha, giving practical advice from our holiest book.
