[Is this declaration possible?  Yes, only in a ideal Torah-centric society that focuses on other-centeredness, that gives special treatment for the disadvantaged in society: the widows and orphans, the stranger; which requires that original landowners be given back their land on Jubilee year and that debts be cancelled on sabbatical year.   Does such an […]

[Really . . . has a god of any religion ever prescribed the diet of his devotees? None but the One True God who is creator of every living thing, Who designed some to be fit for human consumption; yet even with such permitted animals, there is a ban on what part is not to […]

[In time and culture and religious practices, we are so far removed from the ‘idolatrous’ foreign nations being referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures: we don’t offer our children and young virgins at the altar of the gods of our creation or imagination, we do not indulge in the ‘abominations’ that Israel’s God YHWH wanted […]

[Commentary from our excellent source book: Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; translation is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.–Admin1.]   Deuteronomy/Davarim 11 1-9.  LET PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF GOD’S WONDROUS DEEDS ON BEHALF OF ISRAEL LEAD TO LOVE AND OBEDIENCE   1 So you are to love YHVH your God,  you are to keep his charge, […]

[Commentary from our excellent source book: Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; translation is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.–Admin1.]   Deuteronomy/Davarim 10 RESULTS OF MOSES’ INTERVENTION The grant of the Second Tables; the institution of the priestly and Levitical services; and the permission to march onward and take possession of Canaan.   1 At that time […]

[Commentary from the best of Jewish minds are collected in our excellent resource book Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; translation is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1.]   Deuteronomy/Davarim 9 WARNING AGAINST SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS Israel’s victories over the Canaanites are due not to any exceptional merits of Israel, but to the wickedness of those nations, and because of […]

[Commentary from Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz, the best compilation of Jewish interpreters of their own Hebrew Scriptures; translation is different from our translation of choice, EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1.]   Deuteronomy/Davarim 8 FATHERLY DISCIPLINE OF GOD–THE LESSONS OF THE WILDERNESS The long wandering in the Wilderness had been designed to teach Israel humility and […]

[Commentary from the best of Jewish minds, collected in an excellent resource: Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; our translation of choice is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses..—Admin1]   Deuteronomy/Davarim 7 Observance of the Fundamental Laws–the Ten Commandments and Shema–demands avoidance of intermarriage, and the destruction of all idolatrous worship in the Promised Land.   1 […]

[Continuing our featured resource, commentary from the best of Jewish minds all in one book, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, titled Pentateuchs and Haftorahs; our translation of choice is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses—Admin 1.]   THE SHEMA THE ONENESS OF GOD AND ISRAEL’S UNDIVIDED LOYALTY TO HIM   Deuteronomy/Davarim 6 1 Now this is the […]