This week's parsha

Unless otherwise noted, "This week's Parsha" comprises articles taken from contributors to the Chabad.org website. We show the original author's name here, so that proper attribution is given. For the sake of brevity, footnotes cited in the original author's writings are omitted from this website. If you need to see the citations, please refer to the original articles on the Chabad.org website.

The Little Things

Published: 06 August 2012 | Written by Mordechai Wollenberg

This week's Torah reading begins with the statement "Vehaya eikev tishme'un..." The literal translation is "Because of your listening to these commandments" (you will merit the blessings which the Torah goes on to enumerate).

The word eikev can also mean "heel." The commentator Rashi explains that the verse is alluding to the "light" commandments, the seemingly less important mitzvot which people tend to "trample with their heels." The type of things which all too easily fall by the wayside. We all know about the "major" commandments, such as keeping kosher, or fasting on Yom Kippur, things like that. What about the smaller details? Are we as careful?

The Power of Comfort

Published: 30 July 2012 | Written by Tali Loewenthal

There are high points in life, beautiful moments of joy and a sense of fulfillment. There are also low, gloomy times, times of darkness. Times when beautiful structures are destroyed, when everything seems lost. Yet then again, the wheel of life continues to turn, and once again there is sunlight, once again we experience wholeness, well-being and happiness. This cycle of moving from darkness to light is expressed on this Shabbat, the Shabbat after the ninth of Av, the fast which commemorates the tragedy of the destruction of both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem.

The haftorah following the Torah reading on Shabbat usually reflects a topic in the Torah reading. The centerpiece of this week's reading, Va'etchanan, is the Ten Commandments. Yet the haftorah is from Isaiah, and it is about comfort. "Comfort My people, comfort them ..." says G-d to the prophets. After destruction comes rebirth and rebuilding. After the destruction of the first Temple came the building of the second. After the destruction of the second Temple will come the advent of the Messiah and the building of the third Temple. The sense of comfort after the darkness of destruction is so strong that in fact this is only the first of a series of seven haftarot, week by week, all with the theme of the promise of redemption.

The Gentle Rebuke

Published: 25 July 2012 | Written by Yitschak Meir Kagan

"These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan, in the desert, in the Plains [of Moab], opposite Suf, between Paran, and Tofel, and Lavan, and Hazerot, and Di-Zahav" (Deuteronomy 1:1)

The Book of Deuteronomy opens the Torah's account of how Moses reviewed with his people the forty years they had spent in the desert. In the first verse Moses rebukes Israel by alluding to a number of their rebellious sins against the Al-mighty during the years in the wilderness. Moses, although primarily rebuking the people, managed nonetheless to suggest an excuse within the words of the rebuke itself, to drop a subtle suggestion of extenuating circumstances for each sin, in at least partial defense of Israel's backsliding.

"Wilderness"

Moses says "in the wilderness," rebuking Israel for her lack of faith when the Jews had exclaimed bitterly "if only we could die in the wilderness" when they had no water. But Moses selects the general term "wilderness" (rather than naming the actual place where the incident occurred -- the Sin Desert between Eilim and Sinai) to suggest that it was a severe test of their faith; they could not be held so guilty for complaining of thirst, for they were in "the great and fearful desert of snakes, serpents and scorpions and arid with no water."