In Praise Of The Book Of Deuteronomy

The current Torah readings for Shabbat are from the Book of Deuteronomy, which encapsulates much of what Judaism is about – ethical teachings and a guide for the living – and a riposte against antisemites and anti-Zionists. Let’s face it: If the proverbial Martian would appear on Earth and search for a monotheistic religion, he would select Christianity over Judaism because of its two fundamental teachings. Jesus is God incarnate  and the emphasis on love of human beings. This is sharply contrasted with the apparent distant God of Judaism and the apparent de-emphasis of love in the Hebrew Bible. (Much of Islam, in the Koran and Hadith, the sayings and acts of its prophet Muhammad, is derived from Judaism.)

This is a false reading of the Torah (Pentateuch). Numerous are the expressions of ”Hashem, your God” and often the reference to the ”God of your forefathers.” A personal God with which Jews have an intense bond. While the New Testament preaches love in generalities and parables, such as the noted one of the Good Samaritan, the Torah focuses on the nitty-gritty of human relationships. Deuteronomy is replete with mitzvot such as to give charity, harvest gifts to the poor, to keep honest weights and measures in business, to return a lost item, and workers’ rights. The Book is also concerned with health and safety, such as  guarding one’s body and soul (Deuteronomy 4:9) and preventing needless accidents (Deuteronomy 22:8), having a covered latrine outside an army camp for cleanliness (Deuteronomy 23:13-14), prohibiting wasteful destruction of fruit trees and objects (Deuteronomy 20:19), and animal welfare (Deuteronomy 22:10). As they say,” God is in the details.”

A mitzvah that should resonate today because of the crisis of the homeless dying in Western cities is in Deuteronomy 21:7. If a dead person is found in a field, Jewish elders would recite in a public ritual they were not culpable of murder – of course not guilty of murder, but even of sending off the traveler without food or escort.

The New Testament even demands to love one’s enemies. Does that mean one lets a brutal murderer go free? In the Torah love is tempered with justice. A memorable precept is ”Justice, justice shalt thou pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). As is God’s love for society’s vulnerable ones, the widow, the orphan and stranger, repeated often in the Torah, including Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy decries hubris (Deuteronomy 8:17-18), a lesson learned in the tragedy of the Yom Kippur War. The importance of appreciating the good someone does for you is the basis for allowing the grandson of an Egyptian convert to marry a Jew (Deuteronomy 23:8). Although Egyptians harshly persecuted the Israelites, they provided a haven for Jacob and his family.

Anti-Zionists claim that Zionism is based on the whims of a capricious God who gave away the Land of Israel to the Jews. Deuteronomy, however, emphasizes that it is rooted in a covenant with obligations to morality and God. Moreover, while the borders of Israel were generous, there were limits. The Israelites were forbidden to seize the land inheritance of the nations of Edom, Moab and Ammon (Deuteronomy 2:5, 9, 19).

Contrary to outsiders’ impression that Judaism is oppressive filled with numerous rituals and rules, it is supposed to be a religion of joy (Deuteronomy 28:47). And the Torah is a song (Deuteronomy 31:19). The famous British historian Arnold Toynbee described Jews as a ”fossil” civilization. Did he ever read the verse in Deuteronomy 4:4: ”And you who cling to Hashem, your God, you are all alive today,” recited every Shabbat,  generation to generation, before the Torah reading in Orthodox shuls? Jews are an eternal people.

What can we learn from Deuteronomy to apply to today’s situation in Israel? Certainly the angry divisions among Jews are a perversion of the goal of the unity of the tribes of Israel (Deuteronomy 33:5). Indeed, the second-to-last mitzvah in the Torah is hakhel (Deuteronomy 31:10-13), when all the Jewish people came together once every seven years to listen to the king read from Deuteronomy. The blessing of God is that Jews should be ”as a head and not as a tail” (Deuteronomy 28:13). Not like today when Israel is reactive to threats from foreign nations and not proactive.

 Two powerful universal teachings are the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:6-18), central to Western civilization, and the command to ”choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19) in a world that normalizes bloodshed and destruction.

An important caveat: In ultra-Orthodox Judaism the ethical teachings apply only to Jews. Another caveat, against misinterpretation: When two men fight and the wife of one grabs the other’s genitals, ”you shall cut off her hand”  (Deuteronomy 25:12). Our sages interpret this in financial terms. Similarly, in the case of the rebellious son who incurs the death penalty (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), our sages say this never was nor will be. The passage is to signify the importance of teaching values to children.

Deuteronomy veers from curses to blessings. Deuteronomy 31:18 describes the double concealment of God when Jews sin, which perhaps explains God’s invisibility during the Holocaust and other calamities for Jews. At the end of Deuteronomy, God showed Moses the expanse of the Land of Israel. The classic commentator Rashi provides an eschatological interpretation of the description of the width of Israel. God showed Moses all that will occur for the Jews until the day of the resurrection of the dead. An inspirational coda to the Book of Deuteronomy.