Deuteronomy
The Book of Deuteronomy (Devarim) is the fifth and final book of the Torah with 11 weekly portions. Moses' farewell address to Israel before entering the Promised Land, reviewing commandments, retelling key events, and preparing the nation for life in the Land.
Parashat Vayelech - Third Aliyah
The strengthening moves from all Israel to Joshua himself: Moses calls him before the eyes of the whole people and places on him the responsibility to bring Israel into the land, recalling that God goes before him. At the close Moses writes the Torah and gives it to the priests, the sons of Levi, and to the elders of Israel.
Parashat Vayelech - Second Aliyah
Moses goes on strengthening Israel for the entry into the land: what was done to Sihon and Og is the example of what will happen with the nations in the land. Alongside the promise, the responsibility to act according to the whole commandment is stressed, and the aliyah closes with be strong and courageous, because God goes with the people and will not fail them or forsake them.
Parashat Nitzavim - Seventh Aliyah
The last aliyah of the parasha sets out a clear choice between life and good and death and evil. The way to life is bound to loving God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments, and Moses calls the heavens and the earth as witnesses and points explicitly to choosing life.
Parashat Vayelech - First Aliyah
The aliyah opens at a moment of leadership transition: Moses is a hundred and twenty years old and will not cross the Jordan, but the point of confidence passes to God who goes over before the people, and Joshua is presented as the one who continues the practical leadership.
Parashat Nitzavim - Sixth Aliyah
The aliyah deals with the nearness of the commandment: it is not too wondrous and it is not far off, there is no need to go up to the heavens and no need to cross the sea. The peak is the statement that the thing is very near to a person, in their mouth and in their heart, to do it.
Parashat Nitzavim - Fifth Aliyah
The aliyah continues the process of return: the curses pass to the enemies who pursued Israel, Israel come back to listen to the voice of God, and a renewed abundance is described in the work of the hands, the fruit of the womb, the cattle and the ground. At the end the Torah returns to the foundation, a return to God with all the heart and all the soul.
Parashat Nitzavim - Fourth Aliyah
The aliyah deals with the moment after the crisis: a person takes to heart what they have been through, returns to God and listens to his voice, and from there come the gathering of the dispersed from all the nations, the return to the land, and finally the circumcision of the heart that makes whole love possible.
Parashat Nitzavim - Third Aliyah
The aliyah turns the gaze toward the danger of idolatry and describes it as something that begins in a heart that turns away. From there it moves to the national future, to a desolate land and to a later generation that asks how it came to this, and it ends with the distinction between the hidden things and the revealed ones.
Parashat Nitzavim - Second Aliyah
The second aliyah explains why the covenant is being made: to establish Israel as a people and for God to be their God, as he swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Right after that Moses extends it beyond those standing there and says that it is made also with whoever is not here with us today.
Parashat Nitzavim - First Aliyah
The first aliyah of Nitzavim opens with an assembly in which the whole people is standing: heads, elders and officers alongside the children, the women and the stranger, from the woodcutter to the water drawer. Three verses that are mostly a list of who is present, and from them it emerges that the covenant is made with the entire people and not with its representatives.
Parashat Ki Tavo - Seventh Aliyah
The seventh aliyah of Ki Tavo asks all Israel to look back: Egypt, forty years in the wilderness in which the clothes did not wear out, and the victory over Sihon and Og. Moses says that only today were they given a heart to know, and from there comes the demand to turn memory into keeping and doing.
Parashat Ki Tavo - Sixth Aliyah
The sixth aliyah of Ki Tavo completes the blessings and moves into the rebuke. The blessing covers storehouse, field, family, cattle and rain, and facing it come curses that touch exactly the same areas, up to siege, continuous fear and dispersion among the nations. All of it is sealed as the words of the covenant made in the land of Moab.
Parashat Nitzavim - Insights and Questions
Parashat Nitzavim stands a whole people in a covenant, reaches exile and collapse, and from there turns to repentance, to the commandment that is not in heaven and to choosing life. Insights on a covenant made also with those not yet born, on repentance that begins in the heart, and on the personal decision at the end of the parasha, plus 25 questions for study and discussion.
Parashat Vayelech - Insights and Questions
Parashat Vayelech is a farewell that is busy with the future: Moses at a hundred and twenty strengthens Joshua before all Israel, writes the Torah and hands it on, sets the commandment of Hakhel, and receives the knowledge that the people will still fail. Insights on a leader who knows how to let go, on courage that does not cancel fear, and on the one letter that separates tavo from tavi, plus 25 questions for study and discussion.
Parashat Ki Tavo - Fifth Aliyah
The fifth aliyah of Ki Tavo deals with the ceremony of blessing and curse. Six tribes stand on Mount Gerizim and six on Mount Eival, the people answer amen after each of the twelve curses, and from there the aliyah moves to the blessings that cover the city, the field, the home and the road.
Parashat Ki Tavo - Fourth Aliyah
The fourth aliyah of Ki Tavo deals with what is done immediately upon crossing the Jordan. Israel set up large stones and write on them the words of the Torah clearly and well, build on Mount Eival an altar of whole stones, and declare that on this day they have become a people to God their God.
Parashat Ki Tavo - Third Aliyah
The third aliyah of Ki Tavo deals with the covenant between Israel and God. The commandments do not remain external knowledge but are done with all the heart and all the soul, Israel take upon themselves to walk in His ways, and He sets them apart as a treasured people destined for praise, for name, and for glory.
Parashat Ki Tavo - Second Aliyah
The second aliyah of Ki Tavo deals with the year of the tithe. A person gives to the Levite, the stranger, the orphan and the widow until they eat and are satisfied, declares before God that he has cleared the holy portion out of the house and has not forgotten, and asks for blessing upon Israel and upon the land.
Parashat Ki Tavo - First Aliyah
The first aliyah of Ki Tavo deals with bringing the first fruits. A person takes from the first of the fruit of the ground, brings it up to the place that God will choose, tells before the priest the story of the people from the fathers until the land, and rejoices in all the good together with the Levite and the stranger.
Parashat Ki Tetze - Seventh Aliyah
The seventh aliyah of Ki Tetze holds together the poor hired worker, the stranger, the orphan and the widow, the limit on lashes and the weights of the marketplace, and closes with the memory of Amalek, who struck precisely at the stragglers left behind.
Parashat Ki Tetze - Sixth Aliyah
The sixth aliyah of Ki Tetze deals with power that has a limit: a first year of marriage from which no one is taken to the army, tools of livelihood that may not be taken as a pledge, the severity of kidnapping, and a lender who may not enter the borrower's house.
Parashat Ki Tavo - Insights and Questions
Ki Tavo begins with a basket of fruit and ends with a national covenant, blessings and rebuke. Insights on first fruits, the tithe of the poor, the ceremony on Mount Gerizim and Mount Eival, and on the gap between feet that reached the land and a heart that arrived there.
Parashat Ki Tetze - Fifth Aliyah
The fifth aliyah of Ki Tetze deals with boundaries. First with boundaries of property, what may be eaten from another's vineyard and what already counts as taking, and then with the boundaries of a marriage bond that has ended.
Parashat Ki Tetze - Fourth Aliyah
The fourth aliyah of Ki Tetze distinguishes historical memory from hatred for all generations, demands holiness even in the most bodily details, protects a slave who has escaped, and closes with the power of speech.
Parashat Ki Tetze - Third Aliyah
The third aliyah of Ki Tetze opens with a parapet on the roof, moves to laws of separation, to injury to a good name and to the laws of a young woman, and closes with who enters the congregation. The common line is responsibility and boundaries.
Parashat Ki Tetze - Second Aliyah
The second aliyah of Ki Tetze moves between a death sentence, returning a lost object, helping someone who has fallen, and sending away the mother bird, and ties them with one line: a person's power is limited.
Parashat Ki Tetze - First Aliyah
The first aliyah of Ki Tetze looks like three unrelated commandments. Rashi reads them as one sequence: a captive taken in desire, a hated wife, and a son judged for what he will become.
Parashat Shoftim - Seventh Aliyah
The seventh aliyah of Shoftim opens every war with a call for peace, forbids destroying a fruit tree even under siege, and closes with the broken-necked calf over a corpse whose killer no one knows.
Parashat Shoftim - Sixth Aliyah
The sixth aliyah of Shoftim moves from the boundary stone to the boundaries of justice, rules that one witness decides nothing and that a false witness is punished as he schemed, and then goes out to war and deals first with the heart.
Parashat Ki Tetze - Insights and Questions
Ki Tetze looks like a pile of unrelated commandments, but it asks one question: what does a moral person look like precisely when he holds power, money or an advantage over someone else?
Parashat Shoftim - Fifth Aliyah
The fifth aliyah of Shoftim shuts the door on soothsayers and opens it to true prophecy, and sets up the cities of refuge as the infrastructure that keeps innocent blood from being shed.
Parashat Shoftim - Fourth Aliyah
The fourth aliyah of Shoftim sets the Levite who comes to serve with all the desire of his soul and receives an equal portion against the prohibitions of sorcery and divination, and closes with being wholehearted with God.
Parashat Shoftim - Third Aliyah
The third aliyah of Shoftim sets out an exceptional model: the tribe of Levi with no inheritance, a livelihood drawn from the sacred, the priestly gifts, and being chosen to stand and serve all the days.
Parashat Shoftim - Second Aliyah
The second aliyah of Shoftim defines a monarchy under limits: who is fit to reign, three brakes on power over horses, wives and wealth, and a Torah scroll the king writes and reads all the days of his life.
Parashat Shoftim - First Aliyah
The first aliyah of Shoftim sets up a justice system in every gate: appointing judges and officers, the prohibitions on the judge, the pursuit of justice, and going up to the place God will choose when a case is too hard for the local court.
Parashat Re'eh - Seventh Aliyah
The firstborn's sanctity, the three pilgrimage festivals and a joy that is public by definition: Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot bind time, place and person, and no one appears before God empty-handed.
Parashat Re'eh - Sixth Aliyah
Shemitah as a social reset: between the vision of no needy and a reality that never ceases, the open hand, and the freed slave sent away with provision, not empty-handed.
Parashat Shoftim - Insights and Questions
Parashat Shoftim builds a complete system for dealing with power: judge, king, prophet, witnesses and army, each immediately given its brakes. And beneath the surface: who rules the heart of the one who rules?
Parashat Re'eh - Fifth Aliyah
The fifth aliyah turns yield into spiritual force: a tithe eaten before God at the chosen place, converted to money when the road is long, and a safety net every three years for the Levite, the stranger, the orphan and the widow.
Parashat Re'eh - Fourth Aliyah
The fourth aliyah opens with a declaration of identity and a limit on wounding the body in mourning, then moves to the table: the signs of permitted animals, fish and birds, and the prohibition of cooking a kid in its mother's milk.
Parashat Re'eh - Third Aliyah
The third aliyah of Re'eh sets out tests of loyalty: do not add and do not subtract, do not follow a sign that points toward other gods, and investigate thoroughly before acting.
Parashat Re'eh - Second Aliyah
The second aliyah of Re'eh sets down one center of gravity: the place where God will make His name dwell. Around it stand the offerings, the joy of the whole household, and the red line of the blood.
Parashat Re'eh - First Aliyah
The first aliyah of Re'eh puts a choice on the table: blessing and curse, Mount Gerizim and Mount Eival, the dismantling of foreign places, and the building of one center where you eat and rejoice before God.
Parashat Ekev - Seventh Aliyah
The end of the parasha translates spirit into geography: love, walking and cleaving become steps across the land, and the frightened question about the sons of Anak is turned completely around.
Parashat Ekev - Sixth Aliyah
Two farming pictures set side by side: a land watered by foot, and a land that drinks from the rain of heaven. The sixth aliyah ties climate to faith, and from there to tefillin, mezuzah and the teaching of children.
Parashat Re'eh - Insights and Questions
The parasha opens on a moment of choice: blessing and curse are set before you. From there it shapes life in the land, and beneath the list of commandments lies a single story: how you build a free society out of people who came out of slavery.
Parashat Ekev - Fifth Aliyah
The fifth aliyah narrows everything down to four: awe, walking, love and service. From there it moves to the circumcision of the heart, to justice for the orphan and the widow and love of the stranger, and to the testimony of a generation that saw with its own eyes.
What does "circumcise the foreskin of your heart" mean in Parashat Ekev?
Circumcising the heart is not a one time act but an ongoing removal of layers: ego, stubbornness, forgetfulness of the good, and knowledge that never touches daily life. A reading of Deuteronomy 10:16.
Parashat Ekev - Fourth Aliyah
After the shattering of the tablets a second door opens: carve tablets, make an ark, and prepare a place for what is about to return. The fourth aliyah adds to this a journey, a change of generations, the mission of Levi, and the order to rise and lead again.
Parashat Ekev - Third Aliyah
The third aliyah removes the self-flattering story: it is not by your righteousness that you come to inherit. Moshe lays out a travel log of Chorev and the calf and the shattered tablets, and closes with a prayer that stands in the breach for the people and for Aharon.
Parashat Ekev - Second Aliyah
The second aliyah of Ekev describes a slippery slope: satisfaction, building, possessions, and then a proud heart and forgetting. Against it stand the wilderness as an old teacher, memory as a protective wall, and the knowledge that the one who crosses ahead of the camp is not our own strength.
Parashat Ekev - First Aliyah
Ekev opens with a promise: listening gives birth to covenant, love and abundance. Facing it stand two counterweights, courage against fear and a pace of little by little. The wilderness and the manna teach that abundance is a platform for memory and thanks, not a destination.
Parashat Vaetchanan - Seventh Aliyah
Before the entry into the land Moshe warns about the seven nations: no covenant, no intermarriage, and the dismantling of their places of worship. The choice of Israel rests not on size or strength but on God's love and the oath sworn to the fathers.
Parashat Vaetchanan - Sixth Aliyah
The aliyah delivers the Shema: the oneness of God, love with all the heart and soul, teaching one's children, tefillin and mezuzah, a warning against forgetting amid abundance, and an answer to the child's question that begins with a story rather than an explanation.
Parashat Ekev - Insights and Questions
The real test begins when everything succeeds. Parashat Ekev warns of the forgetting that comes with plenty, recalls the manna and the golden calf, and teaches that the second tablets were born only after the break.
Parashat Vaetchanan - Fifth Aliyah
The aliyah closes the revelation at Sinai with a voice that never ceased, and turns to the people's request that Moshe be their emissary. God affirms their request, voices a longing that this awe remain in their hearts, and commands Moshe to teach them the commandments before they enter the land.
Parashat Vaetchanan - Fourth Aliyah
Moshe calls the people to listen and reminds them that the covenant at Chorev stands here and now. The Ten Commandments are given again, five between a person and God and five between a person and their fellow, with Shabbat at the center as a memory of freedom.
Parashat Vaetchanan - Third Aliyah
Moshe sets apart three cities of refuge east of the Jordan, a place of shelter for one who kills unintentionally until he stands trial. A solemn introduction to the Torah itself follows, and the aliyah closes with a description of the land that was conquered.
Parashat Vaetchanan - Second Aliyah
The people stand at the threshold of the land, and Moshe delivers his parting words: keep and study the Torah, remember Sinai, and beware of idolatry. Between the warning of exile and the promise of return, the aliyah closes with the knowledge that there is none besides Him.
Parashat Vaetchanan - First Aliyah
The aliyah opens with Moshe's moving prayer, asking to cross the Jordan and see the good land. The request is not granted, Moshe is commanded to strengthen Yehoshua, and the people hear a fundamental principle: do not add to the commandments and do not take away from them.
Parashat Devarim - Seventh Aliyah
Moshe describes the division of the eastern side of the Jordan among Reuven, Gad, and half the tribe of Menasheh, the condition to cross as vanguard before their brothers in the war over the land, and the words of encouragement to Yehoshua: what God did to Sichon and Og He will do to all the kingdoms, for He fights for Israel.
Parashat Devarim - Sixth Aliyah
In this aliyah we are in the midst of the wars that opened the conquest of the eastern side of the Jordan: the battle against Sichon king of Cheshbon and after it the battle against Og king of Bashan. A complete victory, the conquest of fortified cities, and the beginning of the settlement of Reuven, Gad, and half of Menasheh.
Parashat Vaetchanan - Insights and Questions
Moshe stands within touching distance of the land, pleads to cross over, and the answer is no. From here a spiritual testament is born: strengthening Yehoshua, the covenant of Chorev and the Ten Commandments, the warning of plenty and forgetting, the Shema, and the way back even from the farthest place. When the dream stops, the mission continues.
Parashat Devarim - Fifth Aliyah
Moshe continues to describe the journey through the wilderness, around Edom, Moab, and Ammon. Three nations close to Israel that must not be fought, and a deep foundation for the Torah's view of boundaries: not everything accessible may be taken. Then the miracle of forty years without lack, and the approach to Sichon king of Cheshbon.
Parashat Devarim - Fourth Aliyah
One of the most painful points of the wilderness journey. After the sin of the spies, Israel is punished and forbidden to enter, then tries to repair it through its own initiative and go up to fight. But without the backing of God's will the attempt fails, and they sit in Kadesh many days.
Parashat Devarim - Third Aliyah
Just before entering the land, Moshe returns to the sin of the spies. The report from the field was positive, yet fear and negative talk seeped into the hearts and the people refused to go up. Against them all, Caleb recalls the opposite path: loyalty and courage.
Parashat Devarim - Second Aliyah
Facing the people, Moshe recalls the appointment of judges and the principles of justice, revealing the weight of leadership: humility on one side, responsibility and the courage to do justice on the other.
Parashat Devarim - First Aliyah
At the gateway to the promised land, Moshe halts the people and opens his farewell address. Not a battle and not a miracle, but the last words of a faithful shepherd, placing in the people's hands the tools to survive and to succeed.
Parashat Devarim - Insights and Questions
Parashat Devarim opens the fifth book with Moshe's farewell address on the edge of the land. He returns to the appointment of the judges, to Kadesh Barnea and to the fear that paralyzed an entire generation, and teaches the new generation that the very same memory can become a prison or a road map. When the past becomes a compass.
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