Tag Archives: Deuteronomy

August 7, 2024 · 11:38 pm

just war

parshat devarim – deuteronomy 1-2

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded in front of a live audience on Clubhouse. The book of Deuteronomy known as the Second Torah, is not only spoken in the first-person voice of Moses but is also a reworking and reinterpretation of earlier events. This is nowhere more apparent then in the retelling of the story of the spies where, in our disruptive reading, the spies and their generation are not blamed for being too meek, but rather…. for being too militaristic.

Sefaria source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/582307

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s parsha is Devarim. The book of Deuteronomy known as the Second Torah, is not only spoken in the first-person voice of Moses but is also a reworking and reinterpretation of earlier events. This is nowhere more apparent than in the retelling of the story of the spies where, in our disruptive reading, the spies and their generation are not blamed for being too meek, but rather…. for being too militaristic. In this week where an escalation in the current war is like a dark cloud above… join us for … just war.

So, Rabbi, we’re doing another book, the fifth book.

I can’t believe another year is coming to an end.

It’s a great book.

I mean, it’s so much different than the first four books, so this is going to be fun.

It is, and I have to say, you and I both know, if you have an opinion, if you have an interpretation, you’re going to find it in one of the rabbinic texts.

And tonight, I have to say, I come as close to saying that I found, I came across an interpretation that to me is intuitive, and I haven’t really found anyone who goes that way.

So I want you to play a little bit the devil’s advocate, and really, for sure, tell me if I’m off the derech, so to speak, off the road, because I am going to go down in a different direction.

As I said, we’re going to be a little disruptive in our reading of how Moses retells the story of the spies, the scouts, the mirage limbs.

So are you ready?

I’m ready, I’m ready.

So you’re going to play the devil’s advocate, right?

I’m ready.

Sounds good.

Okay, so we are in Deuteronomy 1, and God spoke to us at Horeb saying, You have stayed long enough at this mountain.

It is clear from the get-go that Deuteronomy is if it’s about anything, it’s about it’s time to go into the land.

Start out and make your way to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Aravah, the hill country, the Shefala, the Negev, the sea coast, the land of the Canaanites and the Lebanon, as far as the great river and the river of Euphrates.

See, I place this land at your disposal.

Go take possession of the land that God swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to assign to them and to their heirs after them.

So, you know, Rabbi, I’m a big believer in Shenayim Mikra Echad Targum.

I study my Chumash with my Rashi.

So, all of a sudden, I get to this verse, and Rashi says, go in and possess the land.

He says, there was no one who will contest the matter, and you will not need to wage war.

Indeed, had they not sent the spies, but had trusted in God’s promise, they would not have needed weapons of war.

And this is based, as always, on the rabbinic texts, in this case, the Sifrei Devarim 7

So, Rashi takes very close look, and it says, Ureshu et-H’aretz, … Yerusha, as you know, is an inheritance.

It doesn’t say conquer the land, it says inherit the land.

And Rashi, based on the Sifrei, says, this is a dig.

This is saying that had this plan worked out according to the plan, there would be no reason to conquer the land.

And so I said to myself, OK, that’s an interesting Rashi.

And as I said in the intro, we have to be very careful when the Book of Devaram recounts an episode, because as Everett Fox writes in his introduction, this is all about reworking of earlier material.

This is all about reinterpreting it and repositioning it.

And it’s interesting that we start out with what you would say is Moses’ seminal stories.

And what does he talk about?

He talks about choosing the leaders.

This is a part we’re not really going to touch in tonight.

But you can see an absolute retelling of what we all consider and associate with Jethro, that Jethro said to Moses either before the giving of the Torah or after the giving of the Torah.

You can’t do this all by yourself.

You have to appoint judges.

In this rendering of it, there is no Jethro.

But the main thing is, it’s seminal.

And some people say that Moses makes a slight change.

Instead of people who are fearful of God, he says we’re going to appoint wise people.

But be that as it may, we’re getting to see what the important stories, the seminal stories are for Moses.

So that is one.

And the next one is the sending of the spies with all the disastrous consequences.

Now, I would ask you, Rabbi, you would ask me, what is the seminal sin of the Jewish people?

I think we would all say the Che ha Egel, the golden calf.

I think we would.

Right.

Okay, go on.

I mean, I have something to say about this, but I want to hear yours.

No, no, no.

I want to hear right from the get-go, why do you think, is it significant that Moses picked these two stories to re-render or repeat?

And where was he going with them?

So my read of this is that the reason Moses chooses the story of the Miraglim, it doesn’t answer your whole thing, but that he chooses the story of the Miraglim, is because in Moses’ mind, the reason Moses was punished was for the Miraglim.

Now, that’s not really true, because what he’s punished for is the fact that he hit the rock.

But he seems to say in this description that God got angry at all of us, including me, and that’s why I was punished.

And I think that’s his real issue here.

I love the fact that you link it to Moses not going into the Promised Land.

That’s the only thing he cares about.

In verse 37, it says, בִּגְלַלְכֶ֖ם לֵאמֹ֑ר גַּם־אַתָּ֖ה לֹא־תָבֹ֥א שָֽׁם׃
God got angry at me because of you, and he said, גם אתה לא תבו שם, that you won’t enter the land.

That is not true.

We know that it’s not true.

Nowhere in the story of the spies does God get angry at Moses.

This is Moses’ kind of reflecting at the end of his life about what went wrong.

And he says, it couldn’t be the hitting of the rock that went wrong.

That wasn’t important enough.

You know, the spies, that was a bad thing.

And it must be that it’s your fault.

Had you guys not screwed up, then I’d be going into the land.

That’s my read.

Now, I can’t explain the first piece.

I guess the first piece has to do with Moses.

It made his life easier, something like that.

You mean the first piece is appointing, rehashing, there’s appointing of judges and magistrates and all that.

I mean, I think that maybe I could embellish what you just said is Moses is thinking about two things.

He’s thinking about why he didn’t go, and he’s thinking about what tools do they need that they’re going without me.

And maybe that’s where he’s focused on setting up the bureaucracy, if you will, to make sure that there’s leadership going forward.

But I think you’re right.

Everything has to be from the perspective of Moses.

So I think what you just said is a perfect segue to how this renders it, the spies, from the get-go differently.

In Deuteronomy 1.22, it says, Then all of you came to me and said, Let us send agents ahead to reconnoiter the land for us, and bring back word on the route we shall take in the cities we shall come to.

I approved of the plan.

So I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, that this is different than the way the story is rendered in Numbers.

And it fits exactly into what you were saying.

Moses is, in a sense, taking blame for it.

While as in the Numbers edition, it was they came and Moses talked to God, and God said, let them send the spies.

Here, Moses is linking this to himself.

You think there’s something there?

I mean, that’s my point, right?

I mean, you’re making it a little differently, but that’s the point.

The point is that it’s about Moses.

The whole Book of Devarim is about Moses, right?

Is how Moses thinks about his lot.

And he feels at the end of this whole story that his lot is an unfair lot.

Cool.

So again, getting back to what I was saying, that first Rashi that says, if there had been no sin of the maraglim, of the spies, we would not even need an army to take possession or repossession of our land.

If you noticed a second ago when I read verse 22, he says, go reconnoiter the land for us and bring back word on the route we shall follow and the cities we shall come to.

Nothing about spying it out, seeing their if there were walls or how big the defense system was.

Literally, in Moses’ mind, getting back to him accepting the blame, but he’s also saying, but I wasn’t sending them to see if it was possible.

I was telling them, go figure it out because we’ve got to pick up all of our tents, we got to make a right, we got to make a left, we got to go north, we got to go south.

Find us the best route we can take.

He says, I approved the plan and I selected our 12 participants.

They made for the Hill Country, they took some of the fruit of the land with them and brought it down to us, and they gave us this report.

It is a good land that our God is giving us.

Then it says, yet you refused to go up and flouted the command of your God.

You sulked in your tents and said, it is out of hatred for us that God brought us out of the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites to wipe us out.

What kind of place are we going to?

Our brothers have taken the heart out of us saying, we shall, there are people stronger, taller than we are.

So now he gets into the standard thing, where for whatever reason the Scouts interpret the purpose or at least the outcome of their trip, that some of them came back with a bad report and took the heart out of them.

I said to you, have no dread or fear of them.

None other than your God who goes before you will fight for you.

Elohechem ha’olech lefnechem hu’yelachem lechem.

God is going to fight for you, just as He did for you in Egypt, right?

The Jews didn’t lead a revolt in Egypt.

They didn’t go against the Egyptians in Egypt before your very eyes.

And in the wilderness, where you saw how your God carried you as a householder, carries his son all the way that you traveled until you came to this place.

So it is kind of fascinating, it once you put on the lens of that original Rashi based on the Sifrei, that there is this tension here between, and this even wasn’t supposed to be a battle.

If there was going to be a battle, it was going to be God waging the battle.

This was going to be like Yitziat Mitzrayim, this is going to be Knesset le Eretz Yisrael.

It’s interesting how war and not war is playing out here.

And the motifs that it uses, again focuses a little bit on this generation of the Exodus.

That literally grew up knowing miracles happen.

We left Egypt, we can go into this land.

Yet for all of that, you have no faith in your God.

God who goes before you on your journeys to scout the place where you are to encamp, in fire by night and cloud by day, you should have just relied on God.

God heard your loud complaint and became angry and he vowed, not one of those involved in this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, none except Caleb, son of Yifunah.

He shall see it and to him and his descendants will I give the land on which he set foot, because he remained loyal.

I mean, he could have said Joshua too.

I think the assumption is it’s Caleb and Joshua.

Right.

I mean, the commentaries all talk about that, right?

That’s a good point.

It doesn’t mention Moses.

In a sense, it’s almost saying as though Moses also had the mentality of the generation of the Exodus.

After all, he was one who when they left Egypt, he didn’t start that revolution.

He relied on God to do it for him.

And so it says, because of you, God was incensed with me too, getting to your point.

Moses is now saying, and I suffered because of this, saying, you shall not enter it either.

Joshua, son of Nun who attends you, he shall enter it, imbue him with strength.

So this is kind of interesting that Caleb goes on his own right, and Joshua is actually vicarious.

He’s representing Moses.

He’s his student.

And it says, more ever, your little ones who said you would be afraid for their lives, they will go in.

As for you, turn about and march into the wilderness by the way of the Sea of Reeds.

Okay.

End of story.

Except in 41 it says, you replied to me saying we stand guilty before God, we will go up now and fight just as our God commanded us.

So now all of a sudden you get a bunch of them who are admitting their guilt.

Their guilt that they are feeling is that they should have attacked when God told them to attack.

Again, there’s a lot of mixed messaging going on here, and they decide that the right thing to do is to now take up arms and attack.

So the men among you each girded yourself with war gear and recklessly started for the hill country.

We are going to go up and we are going to fight.

But God said to me, warn them, do not go up and do not fight since I am not in your midst, else you’ll be routed by your enemies.

V’lo tilchamu, do not fight.

I spoke to you, but you would not listen.

You flouted God’s commands and willfully marched into the hill country.

Then the Amorites who have lived in those hills came out against you like so many bees and chased you, and they crushed you at Hormah in Seir.

Again, you wept before God, but God would not hear your cry or give ear to you.

So this part of the story is much more embellished in Devarim than it was in Numbers.

In Numbers, it was just a few lines.

Here it goes into great details that these guys misread or try to make up for where they had failed before.

They interpreted their failure before they should have fought.

Now they were going to fight.

And again, we always associate the Chet of the Meraglim, the Sin of the Spies, with tears.

Rav Kook famously said, it says in Numbers, you cried for no reason, now you will suffer for no reason.

But here we have crying twice.

Once they cried when they were punished that they wouldn’t go into the land.

And now they cry again when they went to war and they were defeated.

I think that adding all of this stuff about fighting, especially in light of the Sifrei is very impactful.

And it almost, I wouldn’t say it’s an argument between pacifism and fighting because that is reading too much into it.

But it certainly is about when is the proper time to fight and when is not.

But before I let you comment, let’s go to Deuteronomy 2, also in our Parsha.

And they talks about at length, Moses now says what you need to do.

And again, he’s operating under the assumption, and this is not Rashi and this is not the Sifrei, (this is verses in the Trah) oh that they can get into the land without fighting.

So he says, go up from the Sea of Reeds, and he says, you have been skirting this hill country.

He says, go to the descendants of Asor who live in Seir.

They will be afraid of you.

You be very careful not to provoke them.

For I will not give you of their land so much as a foot can tread on.

I have given the hill country of Seir as a possession to Asor.

He’s saying, you can’t take other people’s possessions.

You’re going to take your own.

Don’t provoke them.

What food you eat, you shall obtain from them for money.

Even the water you drink, you shall procure for them for money.

Indeed, and he goes on to talk about, now he said, do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war.

He’s talking about three different tribes that the Jews should try to make peace with, the Jews should try to get license to transfer over their property, and don’t shake the boat, don’t rattle the sword, do it peacefully.

And he goes up now, cross the Wadi Zared, so we cross the Wadi Zared.

The time that we spent in travel from Kadesh Barnea, until we cross the Wadi Zared was 38 years.

And then he says, until that whole generation of warriors had perished from the camp.

Rabbi, here is the punchline.

He is referring to the generation of the Exodus, that we always call the generation of the Exodus, the ones that sent the scouts who came back and gave a bad report and they decided they didn’t have the gumption to attack.

He is calling them a generation of warriors who had perished from the camp of God.

Indeed, the hand of God struck them to root them out from the camp until they were finished.

When all the warriors among the people had died old, all the people of the world died in the name of the people.

This just blew me away.

I had never focused on this characterization of the Midbar generation, the generation of the Exodus, as a generation of warriors.

And clearly what he’s focused on, Rabbi, is not the beginning of the story, it’s the end of the story.

It’s when they said, my God, we just lost such an opportunity with these spies and listening to them, let’s take up arms and attack.

That is how he characterized the generation.

And if you put it into context about all of this narrative, about don’t get the people of Eisav excited, don’t provoke the people of Moab, it’s pretty clear that whether he’s a pacifist or whether he is simply saying, there’s a time for war and you people are just warriors.

You’re like surgeons who only know how to solve a problem with a scalpel.

Okay, I’m open.

I’m listening.

Now, good.

I like that a lot.

That’s fantastic to notice that.

How does that have to do with Moses?

How does that relate to my little thing that Moses was concerned about his spot?

So, if you read it this way, Moses took offense with not the beginning of the story, but the second part of the story.

The second part of the story is how they reacted to the crisis that they created.

If the story had ended where they cried in their tents, who knows what would have happened?

But Moses is focused on the fact that these people then took to arms, and again, it fits into what he’s saying now.

He’s telling them, you’re a new generation.

Be nice to the neighbors.

Go through their lands.

Don’t provoke them.

I mean, in a sense, you can only make the assumption, and then maybe the assumption is, to answer your question, if it takes military arms to take the land, then maybe Moses really is a slave of the generation of the Exodus.

Maybe he wasn’t ready to do it.

Because if you look at it now, you kind of have a binary.

Either the generation of the Exodus were pitiful cowards who lacked faith, or they were people who reacted to their failure to stand up and be men at the right time, and were men of milchamah who could only wage war out of weakness.

I don’t know.

That’s the way I’m looking at it now.

We got a lot more interpretations to go through.

But it does make it fascinating that he calls them Anshea Milchamah, which is the last thing that you and I would call them.

Right.

I mean, there is a question whether it’s good or bad to be Anshea Milchamah.

It means Anshea Milchamah is descriptive.

It’s not complimentary or critical, exactly.

It is descriptive.

But what you’re saying is, therefore, that it’s not as though he’s saying, you the Anshea Milchamah are being cursed for bad people.

By virtue of being Anshea Milchamah.

That is exactly what I’m saying.

It’s not clear.

So let’s go through the classical text.

Because I said, I didn’t find anyone who was in line with my thinking.

Before we go to any other text, let’s go to Joshua.

Joshua 5-6 says, For the Israelites had traveled into the wilderness forty years, until the entire nation, the men of military age who had left Egypt had perished because they had not obeyed God.

Now, I have to say, if you read the Hebrew, it says, Yes, forty years had passed, the people of Israel, in the desert, until the day of all the people of war who had left Egypt.

He uses the same word, it is the translator, who translates, the people of war, which means people of war, to people of military age.

So, I can’t even bring Joshua as a proof, but I will say that this is the standard rabbinic interpretation.

If you look at Bechor Roshur, he says, Anshei Milchama, citizens of age for war from 20 years and older.

If you look at Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, on the Chumash, he says, Anshei Milchama, those who were of military age at the time the scouts were sent, and who should therefore have been active in the planned occupation of the land at the time, but who shied away from this task out of God-forgotten faintheartedness.

So he takes this and turns it on its head.

He’s like saying, you are someone who had the ability to attack, and you were a coward.

And he’s kind of rubbing it in.

But you have to admit, Rabbi, that he is, he’s touching on the question.

He definitely sees the…

Yeah, I mean, he’s aware of the issue.

He’s aware of the issue.

The Eitz Chaim says, generation of warriors, literally people of battle.

Ironically, says the Eitz Chaim, that name is given to those who quarreled constantly with God and with Moses in the wilderness, not to their children who will actually conquer the promised land.

Ultimately, Israel’s quarrels with God and with each other prove a greater obstacle than an external foe.

So again, the Eitz Chaim is saying something similar to Hirsch.

There’s an irony here.

You’re calling people who are ultimately wimps, you’re calling them Anshei Milchama, either because they were of age, they could afford, either because they shagged their destiny of fighting.

But there is no question that there is a very, very strong irony here.

What I will say in my defense is that if you read it in context and you read the long narrative that talks about pacifying all of the neighbors as you go in to be your yoresh, to inherit the land, putting that in the context of Ansh-e-Milchama is like saying, and you wouldn’t do that.

You would go to the top of the hill and you would have attacked.

Right.

I mean, clearly Moses is distinguishing between the two generations, isn’t he?

I mean, but the question is, what’s the ultimate point?

What is Moses trying to say?

And why is this the lead story in the Book of Devarim?

Isn’t that the question?

So I started by saying that everything about Devarim is about entering the land.

And so you could clearly make the case that entering the land, you want to know whether it’s a yerusha, otherwise known as an entitlement, or is it something that you have to fight for?

And so it’s not surprising that these are the issues that Moses is grappling with.

And in a sense, getting back to what you were saying, you know, this is from Moses’ perspective, and we are watching Moses deal with these issues.

We’re watching him repaint and recast the prior generation, and we’re watching him give advice to the current generation.

And you have to say, as you read it, you got to question, where is Moses on all this?

Does he…

Right, well, that’s what I want to know.

That’s my question.

Where is Moses on all this?

You know, the…

And I think this, I did this in another episode.

The Halutzim, the early Zionists, they took a song, they celebrated those people who went to the top of the hill.

Those people who at the Ansh-e-milkhamah, they clearly interpreted this story from Devarim as saying, yes, they were Anshe-milkhamah, they were fighters, and that’s a good thing.

It’s clear that when Moses is referring to them, either as you say, he’s simply characterizing them, but I find that hard to believe.

I think that in the context, he is saying it in a derogatory fashion, and you get an insight…

Has to be, right?

I agree with you, by the way.

I mean, you told me to play devil’s advocate, so I was playing devil’s advocate, but there’s no question he’s being critical.

He’s being derogatory.

So we don’t have a lot of time left.

I think as the clouds of war are above us, and all of us are saying we’ve been in a war for nine months.

Now we went ahead and we assassinated someone from Hamas in Iran, and we all felt good about that because, number one, it shows how powerful Israel is, how it still has it.

We still have it, right?

We still have our mojo.

It puts Iran on notice that we can do as we will in Iran.

But as the dust settles, now we wonder, so how does that affect the negotiations that we took out this person?

And how does that affect what’s going to happen in terms of opening up another front?

And so I think this way that Moses is dealing with milchamah, the way that the other interpreters are dealing with it, the way that the Halutzim deal with it, make us think about war, and it’s not just black and white.

And these are questions of leadership.

And maybe that’s why Moses was so intent on making sure that we have a way of appointing leaders and sub-leaders.

You know, there are questions in the text about a Milchemet Mitzvah and a Milchemet Reshut, an obligatory war and a war that is not necessary.

For a people that was without a country for 2,000 years, we have a very rich tradition that starts, I would argue, from the discussion that we’re having right now, about thinking very carefully, not necessarily that war is bad or that peace is good or that we can always rely on God or that we always have to say, Kochem v’yotsem yodai, but that it is my hand that has rung me this victory.

But these are issues, especially during the 3 weeks, that we are invited to be part of this conversation.

And I just found the richness of the way that the story has been retold and the way it makes us confront the questions that we are facing today of when to make war and when to trigger a response and when to rattle one’s saber.

Unfortunately, all of this is much too close to heart.

But here we are.

Great read.

I play a little devil’s advocate, but I end by saying great read.

Shabbat shalom, everybody.

And we look forward to seeing you next week.

Have an easy fast, a meaningful Tisha B’av, and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Be well, everybody.

Shabbat shalom, everyone.

And let us pray that the only milchamah that we will be discussing today and this week are the Anshe Milchamah in Devarim and that God will watch over us and our leaders will show wisdom and that we will be protected and that there will be, in the near future, peace in our land.

Shabbat shalom.

Listen to previous episodes:

Tisha B’Av Came Early This Year

Eleven Days from Horeb

A Second Torah

Tisha B’Av and the Birth of Anti-Semitism

The Tisha B’Av Syndrome

Eleven Days from Horeb

parshat devarim, deuteronomy 1

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse. Moses tries to (re)formulate the message of the Torah for a new generation which did not know the Exodus. The founders of the State of Israel chose not to write a constitution and we wonder if and how the ideals of those who established the State of Israel can guide a new generation.

Sefaria Source Sheet:

Eleven Days from Horeb | Sefaria
Parshat Devarim – Moses tries to formulate the message of the Torah for a new generation which did not know the Exodus and we wonder if and how the ideals of those who established the State of Israel can guide a new generation.

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s parsha is Devarim. This week we also heard Israel’s President address the congress and describe the shared vision of the two nation’s Founding Fathers and how those visions are being challenged. The Book of Deuteronomy is Moses’ attempt to re-introduce the vision of the Exodus to a new generation. So listen carefully to this week’s episode: Eleven Days from Horeb.

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Sefaria Source Sheet:

Eleven Days from Horeb | Sefaria
Parshat Devarim – Moses tries to formulate the message of the Torah for a new generation which did not know the Exodus and we wonder if and how the ideals of those who established the State of Israel can guide a new generation.

Listen to last year’s episode: A Second Torah

A Second Torah

parshat devarim, devarim 1

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded on Clubhouse on August 4th 2022. The fifth book of the Five Books of Moses is called Mishneh Torah which means the Second Torah or the Repetition of the Torah. We use this as an opportunity to explore how the Torah has been renewed and rediscovered over time.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/422607

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz, we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday at 8:00pm Eastern and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. The fifth book of the Five Books of Moses is called Deuteronomy in Greek and referred to as Mishneh Torah in Hebrew… both of which mean the Second Torah or the Replayed Torah. Join us as we explore how the Torah has been renewed and rediscovered over time. So put on your headphones and set up your turntable as we spin… A Second Torah.

Well, welcome! I wasn’t prepared to celebrate Simchat Torah in the middle of the summer. But the truth is, at the end of last week’s podcast Rabbi, you reminded us that it was a Hazak Hazak moment, we had finished the book of Numbers. And really, if you take a few verses from Deuteronomy; Devarim that we’re gonna start reading today, and you put on the end of Moses’ career, you really have finished the whole Torah, it is a complete literary unit. And that is why so many people hear a different voice in the book of Deuteronomy. And why as I said in the intro, even the name that we refer to it literally means the second or repeated law in Greek. And we’ll see in a second to that it’s also called Mishneh Torah. Similar to Lechem Mishneh, which is the two pieces of bread or mana that they got before Shabbat, Mishneh is like shenayim, it’s repeat its turn it’s dual. So let’s just jump in to verse 1: 1 in Deuteronomy, which is where the other name of Deuteronomy comes from. And it says אֵ֣לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֗ים These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan. So the Hebrew books, our names for them, are very similar to the names we give the parshiot. Pretty much, you just take the first word that comes up. And that’s why we have Bereshit and Vayikra. And so that’s really, without any significance or meaning, why the other name for the book that we’re starting today is Devarim. But it does already kind of tickle my fancy by saying, These are the words that Moses addressed on the other side of the Jordan, already, it’s changing the voice of the whole book that we’re going to hear, which is ultimately a bunch of sermons in the voice of Moses. I think that’s kind of fascinating. And I think it’s so important that we have that in mind as we read it because it really does…… And we’re going to take a few examples today in our own parsha about how the voice is different. But it is kind of radical. It’s a new start today. mazal Tov, Simchas Torah. Here we are. Fantastic, can’t wait to begin.

Geoffrey Stern 03:29

So, the word that מִשְׁנֵ֨ה הַתּוֹרָ֤ה comes from is actually a few chapters ahead in 17: 18. And it talks about this ceremony where the king not only had to write the Torah, but he had to also read it. And it says in 17: 18, when he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this teaching written for him on a scroll by the priests. And it refers to מִשְׁנֵ֨ה הַתּוֹרָ֤ה the second the re-learning. I mean, we know the word Mishnah. From our how we refer to the Oral Law of Yehuda HaNasi, which we’ll see in a second is also a repetition, is a repeat of the Torah. So, everything here has to do with how this is unique on the one hand, but how it’s also a reflection and a redux, so to speak, on what we heard at Sinai, and so even if you look at our portion, it says in Deuteronomy, 1: 6, our God spoke to us at Horeb saying, you have stayed long enough at this mountain. So, if you look at the Hebrew it says ה’ אֱלֹקֵ֛ינוּ דִּבֶּ֥ר אֵלֵ֖ינוּ בְּחֹרֵ֣ב all of a sudden it’s a different tense. You pointed out a number of podcasts earlier Rabbi how in every blessing, we change our tense. And here you have ה’ אֱלֹקֵ֛ינוּ. and it’s not a quote of a blessing or a quote of a verse. It’s actually Moses saying: and this is what God said to us. He’s talking to the people of Israel directly. And I must say, I was struck by the fact that he says a few times in this week’s parsha רַב־לָכֶ֥ם, you stayed at Sinai too much. And of course, we know רַב־לָכֶ֥ם that’s gonna be next year’s podcast, because I don’t know if he was rubbing in it or not. But let’s keep on track here. It says in Deuteronomy, and our portion 1: 22, in his recounting the history, the recent history, and it says, then all of you came to me and said, Let us send agents ahead to recontour the land for us, and bring back word on the route we shall follow, and the cities we shall come to, and I approved of the plan. And so I selected from among you, 12 participants. I mean, it’s almost as though God didn’t play a part in Numbers. 13: 1. it says God spoke to Moses saying, Send the agents to scout the land of Canaan. It’s almost as though we’re reading the notes on a video or the outtakes or the editors or the producers edition. Are you struck by that the way I am?

Adam Mintz 06:35

Yeah, I mean, So first of all, the Mishnah Torah, the book of Devarim is written in Moses, his voice, that’s really the point you made of ה’ אֱלֹקֵ֛ינוּ Moses is the one who’s speaking. That’s different than the rest of the Torah. The rest of the Torah is in the voice of the narrator, Vayomer Hashem el Moshe Laymor, right most of the Torah is a third party and God spoke to Moshe but in Devarim in Mishneh Torah it’s in Moses, his voice ה’ אֱלֹקֵ֛ינוּ, he’s telling the people our God spoke to us. It really makes it very personal. And actually, it’s not this week’s parisha next week’s Parsha, where we see V’etchana Hashem, that Moses begged God to let him enter the land. It’s really the last time that Moses begs God to enter the land. It’s clear from this first person, you know, dialogue of Moshe, that it’s really a tragedy that he’s not given the opportunity to enter the land. Yeah, the voice thing is absolutely fascinating. I think the other thing is if we look at the word Mishneh Torah in the in the rabbinic literature, this is not an interpretation. This is literally what it was called. So if you look at the Sifrei Devarim, when it deals with the requirement that I mentioned before of the King having to write a Sefer Torah it says this tells me only of the Mishnah Torah meaning the book of Devarim where do we derive that the mitzvah also applies to the rest of the Torah? So it was so common language common nature, that when it says Mishnah Torah it meant that book of Devarim, that now the rabbis are asking, how do we know the king has to write a complete Sefer Torah and so it learns it from a another source. But then it says So why was it written Mishneh Torah if in fact, you have to write the whole Torah. And then it says, because in the days of Ezra, they are destined to change the script. So now we’re starting to get a little bit of a sense, and you know, me, Rabbi, I always try to combine what contemporary critical scientific thinkers say about our Torah and rabbis. And we’ll see very soon that there are many modern-day scholars who believe that the whole book of Devarim was written in the time of Ezra, and it’s made for the people returning to the land. But here we have in the Talmud itself, this sense that the book of Devarim, all of a sudden, was written in בכתב אשורית in this different script. And so you definitely get a sense that even the rabbi’s understood that not only was there something different here, but the language, the language was different. And let me just quote a little bit more from the Talmud in Sanhedrin that says that he had to write the second Mishneh Torah it says because the script is apt to be changed. וכתב את משנה התורה הזאת כתב הראוי להשתנות למה נקרא אשורית and of course להשתנות is very similar to Ma Nishtana, how will it be changed? So why is this script called Ashurite? Because it ascended with the Jewish people from Assur when they returned from their exile in Babylonia. So the rabbis are in no shape or form agreeing the biblical critics who said that this thing was written at a later date in the exile coming back from the exile. But what they are saying is, at least it was written or rewritten in a script that came from the exile. And maybe because it was talking specifically to the people coming back from the exile, you know, some of the ideas in Devarim that are different is it really focuses on getting rid of the idles on monotheism, it focuses on returning to the ways. So I just see a confluence here that we really don’t have to disagree, we can all look at it, specifically from a traditional or a scientific perspective, but come up with the same conclusion. That’s great. I love that, you know, because it’s so difficult to know what that means that it’s written in a different hand and a different formation of the letters. What does that mean? But of course, what it means is that it was written for a different group, it was written for the people who were returning to the land and exactly what you said, you know, the idea of anti-idolatry. While it does appear, it appears in the 10 commandments. It’s not a theme of the first four books of the Torah. And all of a sudden, in the book of Devarim, they are literally obsessed with idolatry. And clearly what they’re worried about is they’re worried about this, these people who are idle worshipers, right? That’s what it’s about.

Geoffrey Stern 11:56

Yep, absolutely. And now I’m going to quote from Ramban, Nachmanides in his introduction to the book of Devarim. And again, he is recognizing the difference. He says, this book is known to constitute a review of the Torah, in which Moses our teacher explains to the generation entering the land, most of the commandments of the Torah, that pertain to Israelites as opposed to priests, he does not mention anything relative to the law of the priests, neither about the performance of the offerings, nor the ritual purity of the priests and their functions, having already explained those matters to them. He goes on to say, Thus, there are in this book many admonitions regarding idolatry, that follow one after another, as well as chastisements, and a sound of terror, casting upon them the fear of all the punishments for the transgressions. Additionally, he proclaims commandments, which have not been previously mentioned at all. So here, it’s kind of fascinating. He’s making a major move now, on the one hand, he’s saying that, in agreement with what we were talking about, that this is for people returning to the land are coming to the land for the first time. And it really is focused not on all of this cultic stuff, but on getting rid of idolatry. But now he makes a fascinating move. And he says, There are new commandments here. And he says, Now all these laws had in fact been declared to Moses, either on Sinai, or in the tent of meeting. He is talking about the book of Devarim is the first inkling, the first insight we have to an Oral law, because we are now hearing about things in the book of Devarim that we didn’t hear before. But Ramban is claiming they were said before, this was a total revelation to me as I prepared this week.

Adam Mintz 13:56

That’s a great thing. I mean, you know, that’s kind you know, the tension about how exactly the Torah was given, you know, up to now, the Torah has basically been a chronological history of the Jewish people, every once in a while, you have some Rashi, saying, you know, this story is out of order. But more or less, it’s a chronological history of the Jews. And all of a sudden, now you have this reflection of Moshe, it’s not exactly clear when this reflection happens, and how it kind of plays itself out. For instance, in this week’s Parsha, you have a retelling of the story of the spies. It’s the same story, but you know, when Moses tells it, it’s a slightly different story than when the Torah originally told him. When the Torah originally told it. It seems like Moses sent the spies but when, but when we’ve retold it this week, it sounds more like the people sent the spies you know, Moses changes it a little bit to kind of take some of the blame away from himself. It really plays Moses as a very human character, which is fantastic.

Geoffrey Stern 15:08

You know, I’m gonna, kind of continuing what you’re saying and combine it with what I just heard the Ramban say. The Rambam said that there are new laws here that not were not invented here they were given before in the tent of meeting, and they oral until they were written down into the rim. But what you were saying was something fascinating because what you’re saying is that Midrash was also put into divine because isn’t it? Midrash? When you describe the same event slightly differently? I mean, isn’t that what our Aggadata is all about? Isn’t that what all the lore and legend of Judaism is all about? It’s about taking the original story of the spies. And then we packaging it. We citing it. And I think if that’s what you were saying, I’m with you, 100%. It’s really amazing.

Adam Mintz 16:03

That’s exactly what I’m saying. It is it’s a restaging of some of the stories in next week’s parsha, you have the 10 commandments, even the 10 commandments, can you believe it? The 10 commandments are not exactly the same. For instance, the commandment about Shabbat when it first appeared in the book of Exodus, it said Zachor et Yom haShabbat, you should, you should remember the day of Shabbat, and in next week, parachuters Shamor, you should guard and they say zachor means the positive ways of observing Shabbat and making kiddush and eating food and all those things. And next week, we have the negative commandments of Shabbat, which is so interesting. I just want to make a point, which is not related to this, but I said, I marked down and I was gonna say it, you know, this week, I think it’s important to mention something. And that is that this week, Shabbat goes into Tisha B’Ab the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, the day in which we commemorate the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. And what’s interesting is and it relates to our Torah reading as well. What’s interesting is that actually, the ninth of Ab on the calendar is is Saturday. It’s Saturday, it’s not Sunday, but we don’t observe Tisha B’Ab on Shabbat, we push it off to Sunday, Shabbat, the observance of Shabbat, the idea that you eat and you enjoy that beats out the mourning of Tisha B’Ab. And that’s a great our religion believes that celebration beats out morning. And I think that’s a very powerful kind of idea. The only fast day that actually can be observed on Shabbat is Yom Kippur. You can fast on Yom Kippur on Shabbat. That’s different because Yom Kippur is not considered to be a sad day. It’s a serious day. But it’s not a sad day. But Tisha B’Ab is a sad day. We don’t have sad days on Shabbat. That’s why I know Orna just finished Shiva. But if the Shiva were to were to conflict with a holiday, then actually the Shiva is canceled on behalf of the holiday, because celebration always beats morning in Judaism. So I think that’s a nice lesson, especially for this Shabbat this week.

Geoffrey Stern 18:31

I think it’s an amazing lesson. And it’s a wonderful segue into what I want to talk about now in terms of picking up on where Ramban left off. I’ve already alluded to the fact that Mishnah Torah has in it the word Mishnah, which is the Oral law, written down by Rob Yehuda HaNasi, after the destruction of the temple, after Yohanan, ben Zakkai, decided that it was more important to give the Jews a future with a Yavneh and it’s wise men. And so in a sense, there’s a total connection between what we’re talking about today, whether it’s in the book of Devarim of Deuteronomy, or later in the mission of made by Yehuda HaNasi. To the fact that life takes precedence and where that life is, is in the living dynamic traditions that we have that are constantly being renewed, replayed, and reflected. So I think that the the person who took the word Mishnah Torah and made it the most famous was a medieval scholar named Maimonides and Maimonides did something very radical. He took all the laws of the Talmud, and instead of requiring that every Jew be learned and enough to go through all of the spins and tails and curves of the Talmud, he codified it. And he made it into an indexed …. a phonebook of Jewish law, if you will. And that was considered very radical. And he called it Mishnah Torah. And he wrote an introduction to the Mishnah Torah, that basically gives the history of Torah being renewed. And so in the introduction, he says, All the word that I commanded you ye shall observe to do is written in Deuteronomy 13: 1 and he says, this is the source of the oral law that we know in the Torah, because it relates to this word, that there was an oral tradition. And he said that Joshua likewise continued throughout his lifetime to study it orally. So we have this book of Devarim, which according to the Ramban is already the beginning of writing down in oral tradition, but certainly preserving it. And then he goes to Rabbi Yohanan, son of Zakkai, had these five disciples, and He passed it on to them, and then Rabbi Gamaliel, the elder, and then it finally gets to our holy master, Yehuda, HaNasi, Judah, the prince, who compiled the Mishnah. And it says, Our Holy Master compiled the Mishna. From the days of Moses our Master till our Holy Master (Judah the Prince) no text book of the Oral Torah for public instruction had been issued, the practice theretofore being for the president of a tribunal or a prophet who flourished in a given generation to keep privately written memoranda of his Masters’ oral teachings, out of which he, in turn, instructed the public. So Maimonides goes into detail how actually, there was not only this tradition, but a very strong tradition to the extent of almost being a prohibition against writing all of these things down. And then he explains that Yehuda HaNasi realized that the people were being dispersed, the temple had been destroyed. so that the Oral Torah be not forgotten from the midst of Israel. But why did our Holy Master thus, and did not leave the matter as it was heretofore? Because he observed that the number of students continued to decrease, whereas the volume of oppression continued to increase with renewed strength; that the Roman Empire continued to spread out its boundaries in the world and conquer, whereas Israel continued to drift aimlessly and follow extremes, he, therefore, compiled one book, a handy volume for all, so that they may study it even in haste and not forget it. And his whole lifetime, he sat together with the members of his tribunal and gave public instruction in the Mishna. So really, if you want to talk about the connection between this week’s Parsha and, Tisha B’Ab, it’s all here. It’s the dialectic between preserving, rewriting and renewing our tradition, and the oppression that was so representative by the Romans. So he goes into very great detail about what Rav Yehuda HaaNasi did. But of course, the punch line, because this is the introduction to his revolutionary book. He says, Therefore, I Moses son of Maimon of Spain, girded up my loins and supporting myself upon the rock, bless it be he made a comprehensive study of all of these books. And he goes on to explain what he’s going to be doing in his book, because he knew it was controversial. And I think it’s a wonderful history of how the oral tradition and the renewal of the written tradition have been renewed in order to let us survive.

Adam Mintz 23:59

So that’s beautiful. The Rambam says in his Mishnah Torah, that basically you a Jewish library, only needs two books. It needs a Torah, and it needs a Mishneh Torah. So, he actually saw his mission, a Torah, his Encyclopedia of Judaism, as a Mishneh Torah, the way the book of Devarim is a Mishneh Torah, which is kind of a summary of the Torah, so it’s not just that he’s borrowing the phrase, he’s actually using it in exactly the same way, which is an amazing thing. And he was criticized, because he was they thought that he was too arrogant actually. They said, Who are you to say that you don’t need any other books except for the Torah and your Mishneh Torah? What about the whole tradition of books? What about the whole tradition of scholarship? Why don’t you need that and Maimonides basically thought that the average person that he would distill all the law for the average person. And the average person did not need any other books. It’s an amazing idea.

Geoffrey Stern 25:08

I mean, I love the fact that you, you reference how controversial it was, but also the hubris involved or as we Jews say in Latin, the chutzpah of it all. I mean, if you look at his language, he writes the whole scope of pure language and concise style. the Oral Torah be entirely methodical in the mouth of everybody, without query and without repartee, without the contentious thus of one and such of another, but clear text, cohesive, correct, in harmony with the law which is defined out of all these existing compilations and commentaries from the days of our Holy Master till now; … so that all laws be open to young and old, whether they be laws concerning each and every commandment. He is basically saying, he sounds almost like someone standing up and saying, I have a new gadget, it’s going to replace everything in the house. It can do anything you want. And he writes it in this manner after this long introduction. But he introduces this concept of, you need to have a little bit of chutzpah to do this. And we all know, in his mind anyway, that Yehudah HaNasi needed Chutzpa to do it. He needed to stand up against people who were saying he was giving up on Jerusalem, he was giving up on the temple. It’s fascinating especially when we look at people in our history, who stand up and go against the current and how they are criticized. Here are individuals and books that were written because of them that were radical in their day, and ultimately played a role because I don’t think that Maimonides at the end of the day was correct. The last thing we would want would be to throw away the Talmud and all of that’s involved in it and just look at his homogenized processed product. But nonetheless, he founded Jewish law in a way that the people own the law and that the Shulchan Orach could be written and that people could find out what was the right path to take for decentralized Judaism.

Adam Mintz 27:24

Yeah, so what you just said is very interesting. The Rambam was wrong. That’s absolutely right. The Rambam was wrong. We couldn’t have managed with just the Torah, and the Mishneh Torah, and Maimonides’ encyclopedia. It’s interesting what he thought, right? I mean, what do you mean, the Rambam is wrong. He was pretty smart. He’s probably was as smart as we are. So why was he wrong? I think he was wrong, because he underestimated the Jewish mind. And the commitment of the people. He kind of shortchanged everybody, he said, you know what, they’re not going to really study the Talmud. They’re not going to really study the other commentaries. Let me write a book that’s easily understandable, that’s accessible. We have the phrase today we use user-friendly, right? Well, let me give them a book that’s user-friendly. And basically, we don’t need user-friendly all the time, we can work hard, right, the way you put together your Sefaria Sheets, you know, people have been putting together Sefaria sheets for generations. Now, they didn’t have Sefaria. It wasn’t as easy in the old days. But the same idea of going to the different sources and seeing the variety of opinion, is really the richness of the tradition. But in a way, that’s a sophistication, right? to be able to understand the richness of tradition based on different traditions is actually kind of sophisticated. And Rambam says, you know, I’m not sure that everybody is so sophisticated. It’s an interesting discussion. It’s an interesting debate. So you say the Rambam was wrong, but he wasn’t just that he was wrong. He had a very specific view, which turned out not to be correct, because, we’re better than the Rambam thought.

Geoffrey Stern 29:05

Well, and, you know, maybe it’s as trivial as he didn’t have a vision of the printing press. You know?

Adam Mintz 29:12

How could he possibly, right?

Geoffrey Stern 29:13

So when I say he’s wrong, I don’t think he’s wrong in writing the Mishneh Torah, the Mishneh Torah is a brilliant work. We both agree upon that. But I think you’re right, we can disagree about whether his prognosis for the Jewish people who ultimately has its own genius inside of it was shortchanged. You know, I’d like to end because as you say, we are right in front of Tisha B’Ab and the destruction that that involves is, you know, to say that really in Kings, there is a story about a scroll that is found by in the times of King Josiah and many people, including the rabbinic authorities believe that they found the scroll of the Mishnah Torah amongst the rubble. And I have that vision here. I also have the vision of Yohanan, ben Zakkai, who had to be smuggled out of Jerusalem because there was zealots surrounding it. And they didn’t want anybody to compromise their vision of martyrdom. And he put himself in a coffin so that he could be smuggled out and create Yavneh V’Chachamecha; Yavneh and it’s wise men, and I look at these two visions of finding a scroll the destructed part of the temple, the desecrated part of the temple, and of this coffin going out, and both of them have to do with rewriting the book in a new way in a new day. And I think that ultimately is the positive vision that we need to take away from Tisha B’Ab that brings us into the Nachamu and the 15th of Ab that we spoke of last week.

Adam Mintz 31:07

Right and we definitely will. So, we look forward next week, I will be in Be’er Sheva, I’m officiating at a wedding so we will do a lunch and learn at noon next Thursday. So, look forward to seeing everybody new next Thursday. Want to wish everybody a Shabbat Shalom, enjoy the beginning of the Devarim. I think we showed some of the richness of the text and of the discussion of the whole topic of Mishneh Torah. Have an easy fast, everybody and we look forward on the other side to a time of Nachamu and of good things. Shabbat shalom, everybody be well. Shabbat Shalom Rabbi have a nesia tova, a good trip to the holy city of Be’er Sheva and to everyone else. Let’s all enjoy this new book, seen through a new lens. Shabbat Shalom.