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.
Nachas...
The first Jewish President of America was elected.
Naturally, his first step was to call his Mother:
"Mama, I've won the elections, you've got to come to the inauguration!"
"I don't know. What would I wear?"
"Don't worry, Mama, I'm going to be president, I can send you a personal dressmaker"
"But I only eat kosher food"
"Mama, I am going to be the president, I can get you kosher food"
"But how will I get there?"
Naturally, his first step was to call his Mother:
"Mama, I've won the elections, you've got to come to the inauguration!"
"I don't know. What would I wear?"
"Don't worry, Mama, I'm going to be president, I can send you a personal dressmaker"
"But I only eat kosher food"
"Mama, I am going to be the president, I can get you kosher food"
"But how will I get there?"
Stages in Giving the Torah
The fifth of the Five Books of Moses is Deuteronomy -- Devarim in Hebrew.
In certain ways the Book of Deuteronomy differs from the other four books of the Torah. Every word of Torah is Divine, a communication from G-d to humanity. Nonetheless, within the Torah itself there are different ways in which this communication is expressed.
The first four books of the Torah are written in the third person, describing how G-d created the world and chose the descendants of Abraham to be a sacred nation, the Jewish people. How G-d took them out of slavery and gave them the Torah, and how they traveled through the desert for forty years, towards the Promised Land. These books have a spiritual, ethereal quality.
In certain ways the Book of Deuteronomy differs from the other four books of the Torah. Every word of Torah is Divine, a communication from G-d to humanity. Nonetheless, within the Torah itself there are different ways in which this communication is expressed.
The first four books of the Torah are written in the third person, describing how G-d created the world and chose the descendants of Abraham to be a sacred nation, the Jewish people. How G-d took them out of slavery and gave them the Torah, and how they traveled through the desert for forty years, towards the Promised Land. These books have a spiritual, ethereal quality.
Journeys
"Journeys," the name of the last Torah reading in the Book of Numbers, could well be the title of our people's history. Wandering through wilderness or civilizations, voluntarily or by expulsion, is part of the biography of virtually every Jew alive today, or of his parents or grandparents. From where do a people derive the stamina of spirit to survive these endless, often tragic, wanderings?
When Israel left Egypt, their forty years in the desert were not spent in aimless wanderings. Their every move was "by the word of G-d," the Torah tells us. Torah teaches the doctrine of individual providence, of G-d's interest and concern with every individual. Torah rejects the thought of G-d's abandoning anyone to the caprice of an indifferent fate or the hazards of "nature."
When Israel left Egypt, their forty years in the desert were not spent in aimless wanderings. Their every move was "by the word of G-d," the Torah tells us. Torah teaches the doctrine of individual providence, of G-d's interest and concern with every individual. Torah rejects the thought of G-d's abandoning anyone to the caprice of an indifferent fate or the hazards of "nature."
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