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Yeshivat Har Etzion Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash (Internet Address: Office@Etzion.Org.Il) Yeshivat Har Etzion Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash (Internet address: [email protected]) ********************************************************* all His statutes and His God require of you, but to PARASHAT HASHAVUA commandments, which I fear the Lord your God, to ********************************************************* command you – you, and walk in all His ways, and to PARASHAT EKEV your child, and your child’s love Him, and to serve the ********************************************************* child, all the days of your Lord your God with all your life, and that your days may heart and with all your soul, be prolonged. to keep the IN LOVING MEMORY OF commandments of the Lord, and His statutes, Jeffrey Paul Friedman which I command you this Hear, therefore, O Israel, day, for your good. August 15, 1968 – July 29, 2012 and take care to do it, that (11:9) That you may it may be well with you, and prolong your days in the that you may increase land, which the Lord swore לע"נ mightily, as the Lord, God to your fathers to give to of your fathers has spoken them and to their seed, a יהודה פנחס בן הרב שרגא פייוועל to you, a land flowing with land flowing with milk and .milk and honey. honey כ"ב אב תשכ"ח – י אב תשע"ב (6:6-9) And these words, (11:18-20) And you shall which I command you this lay up these, My words, in ת.נ.צ.ב.ה day, shall be in your heart. your heart and in your soul, ****************************************************************** And you shall teach them and bind them for a sign diligently to your children, upon your hand, and they and shall speak of them shall be as frontlets The Expanded Shema when you sit in your house, between your eyes. And By Rav Yoel bin-Nun and when you walk by the you shall teach them to way, and when you lie your children, speaking of down, and when you rise them when you sit in your Keriat Shema, the twice-daily creed, is a focal up. And you shall bind house, and when you walk point of our prayers, with its first two paragraphs, Shema them for a sign upon your by the way, when you lie and Ve-haya im Shamoa, coming from Sefer Devarim: arm, and they shall be as down, and when you rise 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 respectively. These two passages frontlets between your up. And you shall write share thematic elements and details (especially in their eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of conclusions), their recitation being biblically mandated, as them upon the doorposts of your house, and within your well as their inscription in tefillin and mezuzot. In addition, your house, and within your gates. they bookend the “commandments of faith” – the mitzvot gates. concerning love, fear, and service of God, and concerning the eradication of anything relating to idolatry upon The correspondence between the two units is entering the land inhabited by the Seven Nations. clearly apparent, with the latter unit expanding on the former. Before we delve into what comes in between, let This latter point is readily apparent if we read the us consider the clear connections between these two expanded text of Shema (Devarim 6) along with the units and the opening statement of the Ten expanded text of Ve-haya im Shamoa (10:12–11:25). In Commandments. both units, we find the commandments to be aware of and to acknowledge God, to love and to fear Him; as well as Rav Mordechai Breuer zt”l1 notes the two warnings against idolatry. accepted ways of reading this opening statement (in accordance with the tradition of Israel and the tradition of Expanded Shema Expanded Ve-haya im Babylonia, respectively): ta’am tachton (lower cantillation) Shamoa and ta’am elyon (upper cantillation). According to the (6:5) And you shall love the (11:1) Therefore you shall former, the opening sentence reads, Lord your God love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, and I am the Lord your God Who brought you out of His statutes, and His the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage – judgments, and His you shall not have other gods before Me. with all your heart and with commandments, always. all your soul and with all (11:13) …to love the Lord The exact meaning of “you shall not have other your substance. your God, and to serve Him gods” is a spiritual prohibition on accepting any other with all your heart and with divinity, even only conceptually, in one’s mind.2 Thus the all your soul… verse in its entirety deals with the molding of awareness (6:13) You shall fear the (10:20) You shall fear the and consciousness. Only in the verses that follow is there Lord your God, and serve Lord your God; Him shall Him, and you shall swear you serve, and to Him you by His Name. shall hold fast, and swear 1 Pirkei Mikraot, Alon Shevut 5769, chapter 10, pp. 142-157, and by His Name. see my book (with Rav Shaul Baruchi), Mikraot, Parashat (6:2-3) That you may fear (10:12-13) And now, Israel, Yitro, pp. 172-182. 2 See Ramban’s commentary on this command (5:6) based on the Lord your God, to keep what does the Lord your Targum Onkelos. Yeshivat Har Etzion Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash (Internet address: [email protected]) an explicit prohibition against fashioning any idol or deity, which includes the prohibition of doubting God or image, bowing down to them, or serving other deities. testing Him. Since a person is able to sin by merely thinking about other gods as actual deities, even without actually Once we reach chapter 7, we immediately find fashioning any god or bowing down to it, and conversely the transition to the struggle against actual idolatry, the he is able to sin by making an idol or image (and even, ban on covenants or marital ties with the pagan nations in heaven forfend, bowing down before it) without actually Kena’an, and the obligation to eradicate anything related recognizing its divinity, it is clear that each of these to their worship. It is therefore clear that the mitzvot which prohibitions stands on its own. (Indeed, Rambam counts appear after the Ten Commandments are listed in the these, in his Sefer Ha-mitzvot, as four separate same order. The Ten Commandments are the main prohibitions.3) The main distinction between “You shall categories, as it were, while the mitzvot that follow are not have other gods” and “You shall not fashion… you subcategories.7 The first of the Ten Commandments is shall not bow down to them, nor serve them” is the oriented in its entirety to molding consciousness and difference between the spiritual prohibition of accepting awareness, and it is then broken down into the mitzvot of another divinity in one’s consciousness and the practical faith in the spiritual realm – including the warnings and prohibitions against fashioning an idol or image, prohibitions included in the First Commandment. These prostrating oneself to or serving other gods. are neither positive nor negative mitzvot, but rather mitzvot that tell us: Know and be aware and remember Even a cursory glance at Devarim 6 makes it Love and fear and serve Guard yourself against immediately clear that the unit is focused on the sphere of forgetting, against foreign influences, and against consciousness, starting from the commandment of God’s doubting and testing. Oneness (“The Lord our God, the Lord is One”) through the commands to love God, to fear Him, and to serve Rav Breuer z”l goes on to demonstrate a Him, and to swear [only] in His Name, up to the warnings different reading (according to the Babylonian tradition, in this chapter – three in number4 – which likewise known as ta’am elyon), according to which the first concern consciousness: Commandment consists only of “I am the Lord your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house 1. “Guard yourself lest you forget the Lord Who of bondage”8 – while all four prohibitions that follow9 brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the belong to the Second Commandment, which concerns house of bondage” (6:12); idolatry: from the prohibition of accepting any other 2. “You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of divinity in thought, to the prohibitions on foreign influences the nations that are round about you” (6:14); and doubts; to prohibitions on actual fashioning and 3. “You shall not try the Lord our God, as You tried service of deities. Him at Massa” (6:16). It turns out that this reading, too, is anchored in All three prohibitions pertain to the sphere of the list of mitzvot that appears in the unit of Shema and consciousness: You shall not forget; you shall not allow the verses that follow, up to the end of verse 13, all of foreign influences5; you shall not put God to a test. The which come to mold our consciousness through positive first two correspond precisely to the two parts of the guidance: Know and recognize and remember Love opening verse of the Ten Commandments: You shall not and fear and serve Guard yourself against forgetting. forget the Lord Who brought you out of Egypt, and you Indeed, this warning in verse 12 represents decisive proof shall not go after other gods. that the first Commandment, “I am the Lord your God”,10 is a command that obligates action: it demands This suggests that chapter 6 in its entirety – the knowledge and remembering, since it is accompanied by introduction, the Shema, and the units immediately its own prohibition: “Guard yourself lest you forget the preceding and following it6 – correspond precisely to the Lord Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the first of the Ten Commandments (following the ta’am house of bondage.” Any attempt11 to interpret the tachton), the crux of which is acceptance of God’s Commandment, “I am the Lord your God” as merely an Kingship alone, the remembrance of God having brought introduction to the prohibitions of “You shall have no other us out of Egypt, our love and fear and service of Him, and the prohibition of thought or consciousness of any foreign 7 This is echoed in the forbidden labors of Shabbat; see Mishna, Shabbat, chapter 7.
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