The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

These are the words with which Moshe spoke harshly to the Jewish people “in the desert” (complaints about the deprivations of the desert) , “on the plains” (orgiastic idolatrous indulgence with the Moabite women), “facing the Red Sea” (complaint about their seemingly inevitable death at the hands of the onrushing Egyptians as the sea was splitting), between “Paran” (the staging ground of the spies) and “Smeared and White” (complaints about the manna) and “courtyards (the place of the rebellion of Korach) and “Plenty of Gold” (the calf, of course). You’ve just seen Rashi’s reading of the first verse of Devarim. Taking his cue from the words of Rabbi Shimon in the Midrash – “we’ve gone through the entire Tanach and we haven’t found such place-names”, Rashi explains that what are presented in the form of place-names are actually veiled references to the great transgressions of the people over the last forty years. Moshe is reminding a new generation, poised to enter the Land, of their his...

This shabbat we begin the last of the chumashim, the concluding fifth, Devarim, meaning, of course, "words". Everyone knows (borrowed from Reb Shlomo, when he was saying something that practically no one knew until it struck them deep, and then, they KNEW) that Hashem plays a great joke on Moshe, quoting him as saying "I'm not a man of words" ( Lo ish devarim anochi ) in attempting to refuse the offer that cannot be refused in Shemot. So Hashem sets Moshe up to deliver a thirty-day discourse - practically the entirely of Sefer Devarim - which begins with the words, "these are the words which MOSHE spoke..." ( Eleh hadevarim asher diber Moshe ). I wish to look with you at ONE of those words which Moshe spoke. The word and its associations are well-known, so consider this merely a reminder. In beginning his recounting of the trek through the desert to this younger generation (those not killed off in the desert during the forty years), Moshe says tha...