Sep 4, 2014 | Torat Devorah
The Torah chooses to teach us the great value of human dignity via the moment of man’s greatest humiliation. “When a man is legally sentenced to death and executed, you must then hang him on a gallows” (Deuteronomy 21:22). The Torah is not discussing a righteous person here, but a sinner. Furthermore, we are not dealing with a live individual, but the corpse that remains after death. What individual could be more deserving of humiliation than this? “He was like dust during his lifetime, what more so after his death.” Yet it is precisely via this undeserving corpse that the Torah chooses to teach us the great value of the dignity of man, God’s creation. “You may not allow his body to remain on the gallows overnight… since a person who has been hanged is a curse to God” (Ibid. 23). (more…)
Aug 28, 2014 | Torat Devorah
“When you go out to the battle to meet your enemy…the officers shall speak to the people, saying: ‘Who is the man who has built a new house and not inaugurated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man will inaugurate it. Who is the man who has planted a vineyard and not redeemed it? Let him go…lest he die in the war and another man redeem it. Who is the man who had betrothed a woman and not taken her to be his wife? Let him go…lest he die in the war another man take her….’ ” (20:1-8) (more…)
Aug 22, 2014 | Torat Devorah
“Do not harden your heart and do not close your hand from your impoverished brother” (15:7). The mitzvah of tzedakah requires that we open our hearts and hands to help those in need. Not surprisingly, most successful fundraising today is done by playing to people’s emotions: pictures of terror victims, a starving child or a cancer survivor are the (legitimate) “props” used to raise funds. Giving a well-reasoned intellectual argument as to why a cause should be supported is nice, but unlikely to inspire a donor to dig deep in his pockets. A picture of one tsunami victim will raise millions more dollars than anonymous pleas to relieve the suffering of hundreds of thousands of faceless victims. (more…)
Aug 7, 2014 | Torat Devorah
Prayer is central to the spiritual life of the individual Jew and the religious life of the Jewish community. It’s not surprising, then, that, according to the Midrash, the Torah uses ten different expressions to denote praying. In our parasha, Moses pleads with God to rescind His earlier decree and allow him to enter the Promised Land. His prayer, the Rabbis tell us, was of a particular type; it fell exclusively within the category of tachanunim (supplications). (more…)
Aug 2, 2014 | Torat Devorah
Perhaps the greatest difference between the book of Devarim, which we begin this Shabbat, and the other four books of the Torah is the switch in modality. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers describe a story as it unfolds. The characters of these books experience these events as they occur in the moment.
Not so the book of Devarim. This book begins in a completely different way. (more…)
