This week’s Torah Portion covers Deuteronomy 32:1–52. This is our second-to-last reading in Deuteronomy, which means we are almost to the finish line in our goal to read the first five books of the Bible in one year. The portions are getting shorter each week because we are also in the middle of the High…
This week we are reading a double Torah portion. The reading portions are called Nitzavim and Vayelech, and together they cover Deuteronomy 29:10–31:30. They capture Moses’s final charge to the assembled Israelites as his life nears its end. For the last time as their leader, Moses exhorts them to commit themselves to an enduring covenant…
We are nearing the end of our yearlong Torah reading cycle. Over the last ten months, we have worked our way through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Now, we only have nine chapters left in Deuteronomy. This week’s Torah portion covers Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19. It is named Ki Tetze, which translates to “When you go out.”…
This week’s Torah portion covers Deuteronomy 11:26 to 16:17. The Torah portion is called Re’eh, which is the imperative to look. It begins, “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse” (11:26). Until now, many of the laws of the covenant have seemed abstract. They were instructions for purging idols from…
This week’s Torah portion covers Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11. It is called Va’etchanan, which translates to “I pleaded,” because it begins with Moses pleading with God for permission to cross the Jordan River. Deuteronomy 3:22–25 records Moses saying: At that time, I pleaded with the Lord: “Sovereign Lord, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand.…
We have finally made it to the last book of the Torah. Deuteronomy is Moses’s magnum opus, his farewell speeches to the people he has led out of Egypt and into the wilderness. They are finally at the cusp of entering the promised land, and what Moses and everyone with him understand is that he…