Re'ehDevarim (deuteronomy)

Blessings and Warnings
Moses continued, “God has instructed me to command you to stage a formal ceremony upon your entrance into the Promised Land in order to formalize the covenant between you and Him. After you cross the Jordan River, proceed to the vicinity of Shechem and station yourselves on the adjacent mountains Gerizim and Eival. The priests and Levites, standing in the intervening valley, will then pronounce specific blessings and curses upon the rest of you. See, I set before you today the formula of the blessing and the curse that they will pronounce.

The blessing will be intended to motivate you to heed the commandments of GOD, your God, that I am commanding you today;

and similarly, the curse will follow if you will not heed the commandments of GOD, your God, but instead turn away from the path that I am commanding you today – the Torah – by following other peoples’ deities, whom you did not know, for serving idols will eventually lead you to transgress all the Torah’s commandments.

Thus, when GOD, your God, will bring you into the land that you are entering in order to possess, you must position those pronouncing the blessing facing Mount Gerizim and those pronouncing the curse facing Mount Eival.

Aren’t these mountains on the other side of the Jordan River, further on from the river in the direction of the sunset, i.e. westward, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain beyond Gilgal, next to the Plains of Moreh at Shechem?

Motivated by these blessings and curses, you must safeguard your ability to fulfill all the rules and ordinances that I am setting before you today by constantly studying the Torah’s instructions regarding how to perform them.

Eradicating Idolatry
Besides the commandments that apply wherever you may live, the following are the specific rules and ordinances that you must first safeguard by studying how to properly perform them, and then perform, in the land that GOD, God of your forefathers, is giving you to possess all the days that you live on the earth.

Whenever you come across a place in which the resident nations served idols, you must utterly eradicate their deities from all the places where the nations whom you will dispossess worshiped them, whether they had set up these idols upon the lofty mountains, upon the hills, or under every lush tree.

Specifically, you must demolish their multi-stoned altars, upon which they only offered up sacrifices to their deities; smash their one-stoned pedestals, which were originally set up solely as monuments to their deities but which have since come to be worshiped as idols; burn their deified trees in fire; and cut down the sculpted images of their deities. Moreover, you must destroy the aura surrounding the names of these idols from that place by referring to them by derogatory nicknames indicating that they are the exact opposite of what their worshipers represented them to be. The stones and trees are innocent, but because by Divine providence they were used for this sin, they must be destroyed. From this law you may conclude a fortiori that a human being who causes another person to sin will be punished.

You must not do likewise to GOD, your God. On the contrary, you must treat His Name with respect, not even erasing it from any inscribed tablet or written document.

Centralized Worship
Furthermore, rather than having multiple sites of worship as the idolaters do, you must direct your attention solely to the place to which GOD, your God, will choose, from among all the territories of your tribes, to attach His Name. You must seek His presence and come only there to offer up your sacrifices.

This directive will apply first to the interim, semi-permanent site for the Tabernacle that God will establish before He commands you to construct the permanent Temple. You must bring there – to this interim site – your obligatory ascent-offerings; your obligatory peace-offerings; your tithes, both the tithe of animals and the second tithe of produce, in order to eat them there; the first fruits elevated by your hand; the objects of your sacrificial vows and of your sacrificial dedications; and the firstborn of your cattle and flock, so that they can be offered up there.

You must eat the portions of the sacrifices and tithes designated for your consumption there, before GOD, your God, and you must rejoice in the success of all your endeavors – you and your households – by offering up voluntary peace-offerings in accord with how GOD, your God, has blessed you.

You will be allowed to set up and use private altars because you will not yet have come either to the first, interim resting place of the Tabernacle nor to the final, permanent inheritance that GOD, your God, is giving you for the purpose of establishing His Temple. When either of these structures is standing, however, the use of private altars will be forbidden. (Should the interim sanctuary cease to function, however, you will again be permitted to offer up voluntary sacrifices on private altars until the permanent sanctuary is established.)

The Temple
You may establish a permanent Temple only after you cross the Jordan River; after you settle in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance; after He grants you respite from all your surrounding enemies; and after you dwell in the land securely.

You must rejoice before GOD, your God, by eating there – i.e., in the city surrounding the Temple – the portions of the sacrifices and tithes designated for your consumption – you, your sons, your daughters, your bondmen, and your bondwomen, as well as the Levite who is within your cities. Invite the Levite to share your food, for he has no portion in the spoils of war or any land-inheritance with you on which to raise crops.

The obligation to offer up voluntary sacrifices only in the Temple, which is couched above as an active commandment, is also subject to a restrictive commandment: Take heed not to offer up your ascent-offerings at any site you see fit,

but only in the place that GOD will choose, which, although located in territory belonging to only one of your tribes, will be purchased with funds collected from all the tribes, thereby rendering it collective property of the entire nation. There must you offer up your ascent-offerings, and there must you do all that I am commanding you concerning such sacrifices. The only exception to this restriction is when a genuine, proven prophet instructs you to offer up a sacrifice elsewhere on an ad hoc basis.

Redeeming Blemished Consecrated Animals
However, if an animal that had been designated to be offered up as a sacrifice becomes blemished in such a way that permanently disqualifies it from being used as a sacrifice, you may redeem it by buying it back from the Temple treasury, and then as much as you desire, you may slaughter and eat its meat in any of your cities outside the Temple city, as long as you take care to eat meat according to your means, i.e., not beyond the blessing of wealth that GOD, your God gave you. The meat of such an animal is no longer subject to the restrictions of ritual purity imposed upon eating sacrificial meat: both ritually defiled people and ritually undefiled people may eat thereof together – just as they may eat the meat of species of animals that are not offered up as sacrifices, such as gazelle and deer, together – even if doing so renders the meat of this animal ritually defiled. Nonetheless, this blemished, formerly consecrated animal does not revert to the status of a non-consecrated animal to the extent that it becomes subject to the requirement to give its shoulder, cheeks, and stomach to a priest, even if it belongs to a species that is usually subject to this requirement; in this respect, it is just like gazelle and deer, which are exempt from this requirement.

However, even though you are thus permitted to eat meat that until now had been forbidden to you because it was allocated for the Altar, do not assume that its blood – which was also forbidden for consumption – has likewise now become permitted. No, you must not consume the blood; you must spill it on the ground when you slaughter the animal. However, even though I have compared these animals in certain respects to wild animals – gazelle and deer – you are nevertheless not required to cover their blood after you slaughter them, as you are with respect to the blood of wild animals when you slaughter them. In this respect, the blood of these formerly consecrated animals is like water, unlike the blood of gazelle and deer.

The obligation to perform the other rites mentioned above only in the Temple, which is couched there as an active commandment, is also subject to a restrictive commandment: You may not consume within your other cities the second tithe of your grain, wine, or olive oil; or (if you are a priest) the firstborn of your cattle or flocks; or any of the objects of your sacrificial vows that you may vow; or the objects of your dedications; or the first fruits elevated by your hand – even if for some reason you are not able to bring them (or their value, in the case of the second tithe) to the Temple city – despite the previously stated obligation to eat these consecrated foods.

However, you do not have to eat the portions of these sacrifices and tithes that are designated for your consumption only within the Temple precincts; rather, you, your son, your daughter, your bondman, your bondwoman, and the Levite of your cities whom you have invited to be your guest may all eat these portions and tithes anywhere considered ‘before GOD, your God,’ i.e., within the place – the city – that GOD, your God, will choose as the location of His Temple. You must rejoice before GOD, your God, in all your endeavors by eating these portions of the sacrifices and tithes together with your family and guests.

The obligation to care for Levites, couched above as an active commandment, is also subject to a restrictive commandment: Take heed not to forsake the Levite all your days that you dwell upon your land.

Eating Unconsecrated Meat
Presently, you are only allowed to eat meat if you offer up the animal as a peace-offering, portions of which are designated for your consumption; slaughtering animals for non-sacrificial purposes is forbidden. This restriction poses you no inconvenience right now, since we are all encamped closely around the Tabernacle, and in any case you are not presently preoccupied with earning a living. When, however, you enter the land and GOD, your God, expands your boundary, as He has spoken concerning you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat’ because you desire to eat meat, you may eat meat, provided that you can afford it. As long as it is within your means, you may eat meat according to your every desire, i.e., without having to first consecrate the animal as a sacrifice.

If the place to which GOD, your God, chooses to attach His Name will be distant from you, therefore making it inconvenient to journey to the Temple to offer up peace-offerings in order to eat meat, as you do now, you may slaughter of your cattle and flocks that GOD has given you, provided that you do so in accordance with the method of ritual slaughtering that I commanded you to use when I gave the Torah at Mount Sinai, and you may thus eat meat even in your outlying cities according to your every desire.

Blood
However, even though you will be thus permitted to eat meat that is presently forbidden unless the animal is first consecrated as a sacrifice, do not suppose that blood – which is also forbidden – will also become permitted. Firstly, be resolute not to consume the blood that initially spurts out of the animal as it is slaughtered, for this blood is the physical embodiment of the animal’s life-force; its departure from the animal signals the animal’s death. Similarly, you must not consume this blood, the physical embodiment of the animal’s life-force, together with its flesh, by cutting off any of the animal’s flesh before it has been ritually slaughtered and then eating that flesh – even after the animal has been slaughtered.

Secondly, you must also not consume the blood that oozes out of the carcass after the initial spurt accompanying slaughtering. Rather, you must spill it onto the ground like water.

And furthermore, you must not even consume the blood remaining in the animal’s body after slaughtering if the blood leaves its location in the animal’s body, for example, by cooking. You must therefore either salt the meat on an inclined surface so the blood is drawn out and drains, or roast it so the blood drains. If you eat the meat raw, however, you do not have to remove this type of blood. Refrain from consuming blood in order that it go well for you and your children after you, when you do what is proper in the eyes of GOD. And if God promises to reward you for refraining from consuming blood, something to which people are naturally averse, it follows that He will reward you even more generously for observing commandments that require effort and discipline!

Subject to these restrictions, you will be able to eat meat wherever you live. However, this applies only to non-consecrated meat. You must still take your consecrated animal-offerings that you will have, as well as the animals with which you intend to fulfill your vows to sacrifice peace-offerings, and come to the place that GOD will choose as the interim location of the Tabernacle – or later, as the site of His permanent Temple – no matter how far you may live from it.

There, you must offer up your ascent-offerings – the meat and the blood – upon the Altar of GOD, your God. The blood of your peace-offerings must be poured upon the Altar of GOD, your God, and afterwards you may eat the flesh.

Imitating Idolaters
When GOD, your God, cuts down the nations inhabiting the land that you are entering in order to dispossess them, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their land,

beware, lest you begin to imitate them. On the contrary, after you see that they have been annihilated from before you, you should understand that God annihilated them because of the depravity of their deeds and you should therefore seek to distinguish yourselves from them, not imitate them. Beware lest you inquire about their deities, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their deities? I will do likewise.’

You must not do this to GOD, your God, for as you have been told, serving an idol in the way it is normally worshiped is forbidden and is punishable by death. For they performed for their deities every act that GOD considers an abomination and therefore hates; they would burn their sons and daughters – and even their parents – in fire to their deities.

Everything I command you – whether the punishment for not doing it be severe or light – that is what you must be careful to do. I previously warned you not to try to enhance God’s commandments by trying to ‘expand’ their scope. In addition, you must neither add to any commandment nor detract from it in a way that seemingly intensifies its effect.

False Prophets
If there will arise among you a prophet or dreamer, and he gives you a sign, i.e., a miracle occurring with regard to something in the sky, or a marvel, i.e., a miracle occurring with regard to something on earth,

and the sign or the marvel of which he spoke to you takes place, and he then says, attempting to base his authority on the fact that he was able to perform that miracle, ‘Let us follow other peoples’ deities, which you have not previously known, and let us worship them,’

you must not heed the words of that prophet or dreamer. God only allowed him to perform a miracle because GOD, your God, is testing you to ascertain whether you really love GOD, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.

Dealing with Inciters
If anyone – even a close relative such as your brother, whether you have a common father or he is only the son of your mother but not of your father; your son; your daughter; the wife who lies in your embrace; or your father, who is your friend as dear to you as your own soul – incites you, either publicly or in secret, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other peoples’ deities, which neither you nor your forefathers have known,’

from among the deities of any of the peoples around you, whether those nearby or those far off – for just as you know that the deities worshiped near you are false, so may you conclude that those worshiped far away from you are also false – and even if they incite you to worship a transnational deity, such as one of the heavenly bodies that traverse the sky from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth;

you must not seek a way to let him live out of love for him, even though you are otherwise commanded to love your fellow; you must not hearken to him when he pleads for his life, even though you are otherwise commanded to come to the aid of your enemy; you must not pity him, even though you are otherwise prohibited to idly allow your fellow to be killed; you must not have mercy upon him by trying to exonerate him; you must not cover up for him by refraining from testifying against him when you have incriminating information that would enable you to do so.

Returning to how you should treat the inciter: You should not have mercy on him; rather, you must do your best to kill him. If the court acquits him and you then remember some incriminating testimony, have him brought back to court for a retrial. Or, if he has been condemned and you then remember some exonerating testimony, do not have him brought back to court for a retrial; let them kill him. The inciter is executed by stoning. The normal procedure in stoning is that the witnesses first try to kill the convict by pushing him off an elevation twice his own height and, if this fails, casting a heavy stone onto his chest; only if this, too fails, does the community kill him by pelting him with stones. In this case, however, your hand – that of the person the inciter was attempting to incite, rather than the hand of the witnesses – must be the first to be raised against him to put him to death, since you would have been the victim of his attempted incitement, but if you cannot kill him by yourself, afterwards he must die at the collective hand of all the people.

Thus, you must pelt him with stones so that he dies, because he sought to lead you astray from GOD, your God, who took you out of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.

All Israel must listen to the case so that they be afraid to do likewise, and so that they never again commit any evil such as this in your midst.

The Idolatrous City
If, when you enter your land, you (i.e., your legal proxy, the Sanhedrin) hear testimony about people residing in one of your residential cities (but not in the Temple city, for it is in essence a setting for the Temple service, not for residence, even though people may live there) that GOD, your God, is giving you, saying,

you (i.e., the court) must inquire, investigate, and question the witnesses thoroughly about their testimony. If it is indeed true, and the court is convinced that the matter is certain, that this abomination has been committed in your midst,

You (i.e., the agents of the court) must then gather all its spoils into the midst of its open square and completely burn the city and all its spoils in fire in honor of GOD, your God, and on His behalf. It must be a heap of destruction forever, never to be rebuilt.

Nothing that is doomed to destruction may remain in your possession, so that GOD may turn from His fierce wrath – for God displays anger whenever and wherever idolatry is practiced – and inspire others to treat you with compassion, be compassionate with you Himself, and multiply you, as He swore to your forefathers –

provided that you hearken to the voice of GOD, your God, by keeping all His commandments that I am commanding you today, in order that you may do that which is proper in the eyes of GOD, your God.

God’s Treasured People
As God has said of you before, you are the children of GOD, your God, and should therefore keep yourselves befittingly handsome. As you have already been commanded, you must neither cut yourselves anywhere on your body nor make a bald spot – either next to your forehead, which is above the point between your eyes, or anywhere else on your head – as a sign of mourning for the dead, for these are Amorite practices, which you must shun.

For, as you have been told, you have inherited from your forefathers the qualities that make you a holy people to GOD, your God, and beyond this, GOD has chosen you out of all the nations upon the earth to be His treasured people. It therefore does not befit you to imitate non-Jewish customs.

Furthermore, your holiness obligates you to refrain from eating foods that are detrimental to this holiness. To begin with, you must not eat anything produced by a forbidden act; you must not eat such entities, just as you must not eat any entity that God has explicitly declared to be an abomination.

Animals Forbidden for Consumption
Besides this, you must not eat the meat of any animal that God has explicitly forbidden you to eat – which means most species of animals. The following are the minority of land-animals that you may eat: among the domesticated animals: ox and other cattle, lamb and other sheep, and goat-kids and other goats;

among the undomesticated animals: deer, gazelle, fallow-deer, ibex, addax, bison, and wild sheep,

as well as – as you have been taught – every other land-animal whose feet are not only partially cloven but completely split into at least two sub-feet, and that regurgitates its cud. You must only eat such animals. Thus, the prohibition against eating animals that render you spiritually defiled, couched elsewhere as a restrictive commandment, is also subject to an active commandment. If there is a fetus inside such an animal, once you ritually slaughter the mother you may eat the fetus without having to slaughter it separately.

But you must not eat – of those animals that regurgitate the cud or have split feet – the cloven one (a now-unknown or extinct animal possessing two backs and two spinal cords), the camel, the hare, and the hyrax, for they regurgitate the cud but do not have completely cloven feet – for as you have been taught, eating them renders you spiritually defiled,

and the pig, because it has completely cloven feet but does not regurgitate the cud – for as you know, eating it also renders you spiritually defiled. You must not eat them, because they exhibit only one of the two signs of permitted animals. Similarly, you must not eat other animals that exhibit only one of the two signs, and certainly not animals that exhibit neither of the two signs. Nonetheless, you transgress the prohibition against eating such animals only by eating of their flesh, not their bones, sinews, horns, or hooves. If you eat these, you transgress only the active commandment to only eat permitted animals. Although you are not allowed to spiritually defile yourselves by eating these animals, you are allowed to ritually defile yourselves by touching or carrying their carcasses – except on the pilgrim festivals, during which you must not touch their carcasses because doing so renders you ritually defiled, and you must remain ritually undefiled on the festivals in order to be allowed to enter the Tabernacle precincts and eat consecrated meat.

Fish
Among all creatures that live in the water, you may eat these: you may eat all that have both fins and scales.

But you must not eat whatever does not have both fins and scales, for eating such creatures renders you spiritually defiled.

Fowl
You may eat every bird that does not impart spiritual defilement – which includes most species.

But these are those from which you must not eat: the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture, the osprey,

the various other species of vulture,

every type of species of crow,

the ostrich, the cuckoo, the gull, the various species of sparrow hawk,

the screech owl, the barn owl, the bat,

the pelican, the magpie, the cormorant,

the stork, the various species of heron, the hoopoe, and the ataleif.

Insects
Every crawling creature that also flies – such as flies, wasps, mosquitoes, and forbidden species of grasshopper – renders you spiritually defiled if eaten; they may therefore not be eaten.

The prohibition of eating fowl that render you spiritually defiled, couched above as a restrictive commandment, is also subject to an active commandment: You may eat only fowl that do not render you spiritually defiled.

You must not eat the carcass of any animal that died by any means other than ritual slaughter. You may give such a carcass to the resident alien, who is allowed to live in your cities, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a non-Jew. Since you are a holy people to GOD, your God, you should voluntarily abstain from behavior permitted by the Torah if doing so will help prevent you from transgressing any of the Torah’s prohibitions. In addition to not eating or deriving any other benefit from any young animal cooked in milk, you must not cook a young animal of the goats, sheep, or cows in its mother’s milk or in the milk of any other animal that you are permitted to eat. The very act of cooking milk and meat together is forbidden, for it may lead to eating or deriving other benefit from the mixture. This is an act of cruelty, and it is forbidden to be cruel to animals.

Tithes
By the same token, you should not force God to metaphorically ‘cook a child in its mother’s milk’ – i.e., scorch young, tender kernels of grain with hot weather while they are still developing in their husks, thereby ruining your crop – by neglecting to observe the commandment to tithe your produce, thereby forfeiting your right to benefit from it. Rather, you must tithe all the produce of the seed that you sow and that the field yields year by year. Furthermore, you should only tithe the produce of any given year from produce of that year, rather than from produce of a previous or subsequent year. You are not required to tithe the portions of your produce that you have been commanded to abandon for the poor: fallen gleanings, the corners of the field, and forgotten gleanings.

Your obligation to offer up sacrifices to God only in the centralized Temple is reflected in the laws governing the tithes of your produce, as well. After giving the first tithe of your grain, wine, and olive oil to the Levites, you must then tithe the remainder, and use this second tithe as follows: In the first, second, fourth, and fifth years of every seven-year sabbatical-year cycle, you must eat this second tithe of your grain, wine, and olive oil – as well as the firstborn of your cattle and of your flocks – ‘before GOD, your God,’ i.e., anywhere within the place – the city – to which He will choose to attach His Name by situating the Temple there, so that you may learn to revere GOD, your God, always.

Redeeming the Second Tithe
If, however, the journey from your home to the Temple city is too long for you, for you are unable to carry your produce that far because the place to which GOD, your God, will choose to attach His Name is too far from where you live, because you have too much tithe-produce to carry that far – for GOD, your God, has blessed you with abundant crops – then you may do as follows:

You may assess the monetary value of your second-tithe produce and then assign its second-tithe status to money equal to that value. You must bind up the money onto which second-tithe status has been transferred in your hand, and go with it – instead of with the produce – to the place that GOD, your God, will choose. The tithe-produce will revert to its pre-tithing status, and you may eat it anywhere you choose.

Once you reach the Temple city, you must purchase with that money whatever your soul desires – cattle, flocks, new wine or old wine, or whatever your soul desires, as long as it derives from the earth, even indirectly (excluding, for example, fish) – and you must eat what you have bought there, ‘before GOD, your God,’ i.e., anywhere within the city, and you must rejoice, you and your household. All the aforesaid is in regard to agricultural tithes. You may not, however, redeem your animal tithes; if they are not blemished, you must take them to the Temple city and eat them there.

As for the Levite who resides in your cities, you must not forsake him this year by neglecting to give him your first tithe, for he has neither any portion in the spoils of war nor any land-inheritance with you.

Final Dates for Tithing
If, however, you do not manage to give the Levites your first tithes on time, then, after the end of each of the two sub-cycles of three years that together constitute the first six years of the seven-year sabbatical-year cycle – specifically, by the day preceding Passover in the fourth and seventh years of the seven-year cycle – you must take whatever part of the first tithe of your crop that is left in that year from the preceding three years and place it outside the gates of your property in order to declare it ownerless and make it available for any Levite who might wish to take it. In addition, should you neglect to bring the second tithe of the first or second years (or its monetary equivalent) to the Temple city, you must take it there and eat it (or whatever you buy with its monetary equivalent) by the day preceding Passover of the fourth year; similarly, should you neglect to bring the second tithe of the fourth or fifth years (or its monetary equivalent) to the Temple city, you must take it there and eat it (or whatever you buy with its monetary equivalent) by the day preceding Passover of the seventh year.

In the third and sixth years of each sabbatical-year cycle, you must, as usual, give your first tithe to the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you. However, in these years, instead of taking the second tithe with you to the Temple city in order to eat it there, you must instead give it to the poor: the convert, the orphan, and the widow who are in your cities. You must give a sufficient amount of both the first tithe and the poor tithe so that their recipients who come to receive it will eat and be satiated, so that GOD, your God, in reward for your generosity, will bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.

Release of Loans
In addition to resting from agricultural work during the sabbatical year, you must conduct a release of loans at the end of the sabbatical year, which comes every seven years.

This is the type of release you must conduct: every creditor must relinquish whatever money he lent his fellow. No creditor may exact repayment for a loan from his fellow, i.e., his brother-Israelite, for God has proclaimed this year to be one of release in honor of GOD.

The prohibition against exacting repayment, couched above as a restrictive commandment, is subject to an active commandment as well: you may exact repayment for a loan only from a gentile who owes you money, but you must relinquish your claim to whatever money your brother-Israelite owes you.

However, these rules will hopefully be irrelevant, for there will be no destitute people among you who will need to borrow money, inasmuch as GOD will bless you with material abundance in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you to possess as an inheritance that you can bequeath to your descendants –

provided, of course, that you hearken to the voice of GOD, your God – even if only partially at first, since the impetus of positive action will lead you to further positive action – by safeguarding all the commandments that I am commanding you today, i.e., studying the Torah’s instructions regarding how to perform them, and then performing them.

Charity
Rather, you must open your hand for him wholeheartedly each time you give him money. If he does not want to accept the money as a gift, then lend him money. You only need to lend him enough for his needs, not enough to make him wealthy. But if he was accustomed to a certain standard of living before becoming destitute, you should provide him with whatever he is now lacking, even if this might be considered a luxury by others. In particular, you should provide him with the means to get married, if necessary.

Beware lest there be an unfaithful thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of release, is approaching,’ and, because you know that your loan will be released, you begrudge your destitute brother-Israelite and not give him a loan, for in that case he will cry out to GOD against you, and even though your stinginess will be accounted as a sin for you in any case, God will punish you more quickly if he cries out to Him.

Rather, you must give him a loan despite your hesitations, and if necessary a gift of money, despite your reluctance. Your heart must not be aggrieved when you give to him, for even if you promise to give him and then circumstances prevent you from keeping your word, GOD, your God, will still bless you in all your work and in all your endeavors on account of this word of yours as if you had actually given.

For as long as you are at all negligent in performing God’s commandments there will never cease to be destitute people in the land. Therefore, because the reward for charity is so great, I command you in God’s Name, for your own benefit, saying, ‘You must repeatedly open your hand to your brother-Israelite, whether poor or destitute, in your land.’

In cases (b), (c), or (d), when you send forth the person free from you, you must not send him forth empty-handed.

You must provide him with a sizeable gift of sheep and goats from your flock, or grain from your threshing floor, or wine from your vat, or any other item that replenishes itself on its own – thus excluding infertile animals – with which GOD, your God, has blessed you. Specifically, the value of the gift must be at least thirty shekels of silver.

You must recall that you were a slave in Egypt, and that GOD, your God, redeemed you, bestowing great material abundance upon you when you left – both when you first left and again at the Sea of Reeds. Therefore, I am commanding you today, in God’s Name, to do the same thing when you release your bondmen.

If he says to you, ‘I will not leave you,’ because he loves you and your household, for it is good for him with you,

you must take an awl and put it through his right earlobe and straight into the door, and he will be a bondman to you until the next Jubilee year, when he will go free whether he wants to or not. In addition to giving a gift to your bondman when you free him, you must also do the same for your bondwoman when you free her.

Addressing the priests (as individuals), Moses continued: “You must eat it ‘before GOD, your God,’ i.e., within the place – the city – that GOD will choose as the location of His Temple. You, your wife, your children, and the rest of your household may eat it only once its blood and fats have been offered up on the Altar. You should optimally eat the firstborn that are born each year within the first year of their lives.

If the firstborn animal be blemished – whether it be lame, blind, or suffering from any other bad, permanent blemish that is visible on its exterior – you must not sacrifice it to GOD, your God.

The Festivals
Once again addressing the entire people, Moses continued: “The restriction of offering up sacrifices only in the centralized Temple applies to the sacrifices you must offer up on the festivals, as well. Furthermore, now that you are about to enter the land and begin cultivating it, you must ensure that these festivals coincide with specific points in the annual progression of the seasons. As you know, you are to observe the three pilgrim festivals each year. Safeguard the timing of the month of Nisan, ensuring that the grain will be ripe when Nisan arrives, so you will be able to offer up the omer of barley from the new crop on the second day of Passover as prescribed. If you see that the grain will not be ripe in time, add a leap month to the calendar before Nisan that year. You must also make sure that Nisan will fall in the ripening season because you must offer up the Passover offering to GOD, your God, which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, during this month, and because GOD, your God, took you out of Egypt in the month of ripening – specifically, on the morning after Pharaoh gave you permission to leave on the night of 15 Nisan.

Passover
You must slaughter the Passover sacrifice to GOD, your God, from the flock, and a peace-offering from the cattle, in the Temple, the place to which GOD will choose to attach His Name.

The obligation to offer up the Passover sacrifice solely in the Temple, couched above as an active commandment, is also subject to a restrictive commandment: You must not offer up the Passover offering within any of the other cities or other locations in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you, for God has commanded you to offer up sacrifices only in the Temple.

You must count seven weeks for yourself. You must begin to count these seven weeks from 16 Nisan, which is the first time the sickle may be put to the standing crop of grain to harvest it. The first grain that may be cut from the year’s new crop is the omer of barley offered up on this day in the Temple; after it is offered up, you may begin to harvest your personal crops.

You must recall that you were a slave in Egypt and that God redeemed you only in order that you safeguard these rules – i.e. ensure that you observe them properly – by studying the Torah’s instructions regarding how to perform them properly, and then do them.

Sukot
You must observe for yourself the festival of Sukot for seven days, from 15 to 21 Tishrei, which is when you typically gather the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress, that has been outside all summer, into your homes for safekeeping during the rainy winter.

Every man must bring as many of these offerings as he can afford, in accordance with the blessing of GOD, your God, that He has given you in the form of material abundance. The wealthier he is, the more ascent-offerings he should bring; the larger his party of family and guests, the more peace-offerings he should bring.”