Parashat Debarim: The Most Politically-Incorrect Book Ever – Part I

​​​By: HaRav Menashe Sasson
מאת: הרב מנשה ששון

This week's Parashat piece is dedicated to the Jews who have been murdered, abducted, or otherwise harmed or threatened in the current war against our Arab enemies.

​The “Torah,” which, broadly defined, consists of the Written Law and the Oral Law, is the most politically-incorrect “book” (Hebrew: “sefer” [ספר]; plural “sefarim” [ספרים]) that now exists, or which has ever existed.

Written Torah is composed of the Five Books of Moshe: Sefarim Bereshit [בראשית], Shemot [שמות], Vayyiqra [ויקרא], Bamidbar [במדבר], and Debarim [דברים].  The names of these sefarim are often mistranslated as “Genesis,” “Exodus,” Leviticus,” “Numbers,” and “Deuteronomy,” respectively.  Of the Five Books of Moshe, all of which are politically-incorrect to some extent or another, Sefer Debarim [דברים] is the most politically-incorrect of all.

In Biblical Hebrew, Sefer Debarim [ספר דברים] is referred to as “Mishneh Torah” [משנה תורה], meaning “repetition of the Torah.”  However, Moshe Rabbeinu (Moshe our teacher [משה רבינו]) “did not merely repeat everything that HaShem had commanded, but reiterated how HaShem had commanded” performance of the misvot (commandments [מצוות]).  Hirsch, Rav Samson Raphael, The Hirsch Chumash, 2 (italics original).

“However, the repetition of the Torah and the explanation of the Torah do not constitute the [entirety] content of the book of Debarim.”  Id., at 2-3 (italics original).  We know this because “of the more than one hundred misvot [which] are contained in the book of Debarim, more than seventy are new [and not] contained in the preceding books.”  Id., at 3 (italics original).

​In chapter 16 (vv. 1-17), the Torah reiterates the misvot of the festivals.  In this reiteration, only פסח [“Pesah,” aka: “Passover”], שבועות [“Shavout,” aka: Festival of Weeks], and סוכות [“Sukkot,” aka: Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles)] are mentioned.  When we compare this section to the section on the festivals in Vayyiqra 23, we immediately notice that Scripture here [in Sefer Debarim] does not repeat שבת [“Shabbat,” aka: Sabbath], ראש השנה [lit. “head of the year,” aka: יום תרועה (lit. “Day or Rejoicing” or Day of Shofar Blowing], יום כיפור [lit. Day of Atonement], [or] שמיני עצרת [lit. “Eighth [Day of] Assembly;” Festival which occurs on the day immediately following the seventh day of Sukkot)].
 
The common denominator of these four festivals [that are not [restated in Sefer Debarim] is that their meaning derives primarily from [an individual’s relationship with] HaShem.  It was therefore possible to fully observe [the four festivals that are not restated in Sefer Debarim] even during the wilderness period, and [the Israelites’] settling in [their] own land hardly made a difference in their observance.  Not so [with] פסח [“Pesah,” aka: “Passover”], שבועות [“Shavout,” aka: Festival of Weeks], and סוכות [“Sukkot,” aka: Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles)].  One aspect of their significance – their association with the soil and its seasonal cycle – will become relevant only after the conquest of the Land.  What’s more, on the festival of סוכות [“Sukkot,” aka: Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles)], even the historical meaning מצווה סוכה [Misva Sukkah] – as a reminder of the huts in the wilderness – will apply only after the transition from the huts of the wilderness to the fields and the cities [of Eretz Yisrael].  So too, מצווה לולב [Misva Lulav] could hardly have been observed in the wilderness.  Finally, on all three [of the restated] festivals, the duty of undertaking a pilgrimage up to the Sanctury applies, obligating the nation to congregate in the Sanctury, which is its focal point.  Obviously, this misva could be fulfilled only after the nation had dispersed throughout its Land, for in the wilderness [the Israelites were] grouped around the [Mishkan] at all times.
 
It seems highly probable that, during the last weeks [prior to entry] into the Land, Moshe reviewed the entire Torah and expounded all its commandments, and in the framework of this review, he also reviewed the misvot of the festivals; however, it was not שבת [“Shabbat,” aka: Sabbath], ראש השנה [lit. “head of the year,” aka: יום תרועה (lit. “Day or Rejoicing” or Day of Shofar Blowing], יום כיפור [lit. Day of Atonement], [or] שמיני עצרת [lit. “Eighth [Day of] Assembly;” Festival which occurs on the day immediately following the seventh day of Sukkot)], but only פסח [“Pesah,” aka: “Passover”], שבועות [“Shavout,” aka: Festival of Weeks], and סוכות [“Sukkot,” aka: Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles)] that were recorded again in the Written Law, for only the observance of these festivals was affected by circumstances resulting from the conquest of the Land.

Id., at 4.

In other words, Moshe Rabbeinu, in his Mishneh Torah, his repetition of the Torah which we refer to simply as “Sefer Debarim,” was communicating to the Israelites that they were about to enter a new a new phase, a new era, of Jewish history, that era being national existence and independence.  After entering into Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish people would no longer have HaShem’s Divine Presence, or miracles, to guide them.  The Jewish people would now have to establish a national government and govern themselves, hopefully, in accordance with the Torah.

Consistent with this transition away from the wilderness, when HaShem’s Devine Presence was always with the Jewish people, to an independent national existence in Eretz Yisrael, the words of Sefer Debarim, unlike the words contained in the other Four Books of the Torah, are not the direct words of HaShem, but rather, are the words of Moshe Rabbeinu, who was telling over to the Jewish people what HaShem had told him.

What we are “witnessing” through the progression from the first Four Books of the Torah, to Sefer Debarim, and then through the rest of Tanakh, is nothing less than HaShem, our Father in Heaven, “raising” his Children, the Jewish people, from infants in Egypt, to teenagers in the Wilderness, to adults in Eretz Yisrael; that is, to adults who are expected to implement and live by the lessons taught to them by their Father, during their childhood.

Just as many other young adults, the “young adults” who consisted of the Jewish people who crossed the River Yarden [נהר הירדן] and entered Eretz Yisra’el, either did not fully learn, or more likely, did not fully internalize or appreciate, the lessons that were given over to them by their Father.

The Torah in general, and Sefer Debarim in particular, articulates values and a Code of Conduct for living which contradicts almost all of the concepts which are held dear by Western “civilization.”  On a personal level, the Torah prescribes rules for marriage and family life; rules for the preservation of life, from young to old; rules for personal self-defense; and, among many others; rules relating to grooming, appearance, and mutilation of one’s body.

On a national level, which is our current focus, we see that Moshe Rabbeinu – our teacher – taught us, the Jewish people, our Father’s rules for national Jewish governance.  Like our Father’s rules for the governance of our individual lives, our Father’s rules for national governance likewise run counter to concepts which are held dear by Western “civilization.”  Take, for example, “conquest.”  The Torah commands the Jewish people to conquer Eretz Yisra’el.  Then there is “democracy” and “equal rights.”  The Torah both forbids the Jewish people to grant gentiles citizenship in Medinat Yisra’el (the State of Israel) and commands the Jewish people to expel from Eretz Yisra’el those gentiles who claim a right to the Land.  Despite clear warnings in the Torah and our Sages of what will happen if we, the Jewish people, do not heed these laws of national Jewish governance, Medinat Yisra’el, through its politicians and electorate, have failed to implement our Father’s lessons.

For example, at Har Sinai, when the Torah was given to the Jewish people, HaShem said,

​Beware of what I command you today.  Behold, I drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite, and the Jebusite.  Be vigilant lest you seal a covenant with the inhabitant[s] of the land to which you are to come, lest it be a snare among you.  Rather, you shall break apart their alters, smash their pillars, and cut down its sacred trees.
 
For you shall not prostrate yourself to an alien god, for the very name of HaShem is “Jealous One;” He is a jealous God. . . .
 
You shall not make for yourselves molten gods.

Shemot 34:11-17.

The commentator Maimonides (the Rambam) wrote:

​We were commanded to occupy the Land that HaShem gave our ancestors, Abraham, Yizhaq, and Ya’aqov.  We must not abandon it to any other nation, or leave it desolate.  HaShem said, “Clear out the Land and live in it, since it is to you that I am giving the Land to occupy.”  Bamidbar 33:53-54. . . .
 
So effusively did our Sages speak of living in Eretz Yisra’el, that the Talmud states, “Whoever leaves Eretz Yisra’el and dwells outside of it should be viewed as an idolater, as it says, ‘They have driven me out this day, that I serve other gods.’”  T.B. Masekhet Ketubot 110b, quoting I Shemu’el 26:19.  This, and other such expressions in this regard, find their source in our having been commanded to occupy the Land and dwell in it.  It is, thus, a positive precept for all time, and every single Jew is obligated in this, even during the exile, as the Talmud is known to state in many places.

Sefer HaMitzvot, Mitzvah 4.

In Parashat Mas’e, we learn that “HaShem spoke to Moshe in the plains of Moab, by the Yarden, , near Yereho, saying, ‘Speak to the Children of Yisra’el and say to them: When you cross the Yarden [river] into Eretz Kena’an [Eretz Yisra’el], you shall drive out all of the inhabitants of the Land before you. . . .”  Bamidbar 33:50-52.

Likewise, in Parashat Shofetim, we are told that “But from the cities of these peoples that HaShem, your G-d gives you as an inheritance, you shall not allow any person to live.  Rather, you shall utterly destroy them. . . .”  Debarim 20:16-17.

The Or HaChaim wrote that:

Even though the Torah says in Debarim 20:16 that “you must not allow a single soul [of the Kena’anite nations to remain in Eretz Yisra’el], . . . the Torah does not speak of [only] the seven Kena’anite nations[,] but [also] about others who lived among them.  This is the reason the Torah chose its words carefully, i.e., “all the ones who dwell in the land,” that the Israelites were to drive out even those people who lived there who were not members of the seven [Kena’anite] nations.

Or HaChaim, commentary to Bamidbar 33:52.

Likewise, Abarbanel said:

​Shemot 34:11-12 informs us that since HaShem is driving out the [Canaanite] nations, it would be improper for Yisra’el to forge a covenant with them.  If a nobleman helps someone by fighting that person’s battles and banishing that person’s enemies, it would be immoral for that person to make peace with [those enemies] without [first obtaining the] nobleman’s permission.  So, too, with Hashem driving out Yisra’el’s enemies, it is immoral for Yisra’el to enter into a treaty with them, for that would profane HaShem’s Glory. This is especially true considering that the treaty will not succeed.  Because Yisra’el dispossessed them of what they believe to have been their land, there is no doubt that they will constantly seek to defeat and destroy Yisra’el.  This is why it said, “[the Land] to which you are coming.”  Since Yisra’el came to that Land and took it from its inhabitants, and because they feel that the Land has been stolen from them, how will they make a covenant of friendship with you?  Rather the opposite will occur: “they will be a snare among you.”  When war strikes you, they will join your enemies and fight you.

Abarbanel, Commentary on Shemot 34:11-12.

Just as the Torah promised, the Arabs are today a “snare among” the Jewish people because we have “seal[ed] a covenant with” them simply by allowing them to remain in Eretz Yisra’el.

The reason which is often given for the failure to govern Medinat Yisra’el in accordance with the commands of the Torah is that to do so, that is, to limit citizenship to Jews and, among other things, to expel gentiles who claim a right to the Land, would somehow be “immoral.”  This answer, however, is simply illogical and absurd, as it is our Father in Heaven, none other than HaShem Himself, who determines what is moral and what is immoral and it is HaShem himself that commanded the Jewish People to expel from Eretz Yisra’el all who contest Jewish ownership of, and sovereignty over, the Land.

As human beings, we can, and should, try to understand HaShem’s decrees.  However, our obligation is to abide by those decrees, regardless of whether we understand them.

May we, the Jewish people, learn, accept, and implement HaShem’s will, just as it is written in The Most Politically-Incorrect Book Ever.

שבת שלום
Shabbat Shalom!

---

LIKE WHAT YOU JUST READ?
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!

---

NOT JEWISH?
CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ON BECOMING A NOAHIDE

---

​Copyright © The Israel Foundation.  All Rights Reserved.