Shlomo's Thoughts on the Torah

There is a debate which is more important: Doing the commandments or being spiritual.  The Jerusalem Talmud addressed this debate in the 3rd Century CE and concludes that your actions are more important than your beliefs therefore we should follow the commandments even if we do not believe in God.

Many people go on genealogy sites to see who their ancestors were and are proud of them.  The question that the Torah asks is would they be proud of you.  Live your life so that they would be.

This week's portion starts with the commandment to bring tithes to the Temple.  When this is done the person bringing the tithes makes a declaration of how grateful they are.  This is one of the most important lessons that we can teach.  We should all be grateful for the blessings that God has bestowed on us.

In the curses that we receive if we do not follow the Torah is that we will become an average people.  While there is nothing wrong with being average it is not a great accomplishment either.  The Torah wants us to be above average in our moral and ethical behavior.

The admonition of having accurate weights & measures is a warning against dishonest business practices.  It is immediately followed by a warning about Amelek.  The two are related.  Amelek is looking for weakness in society.  This is brought on by being dishonest and causing dissention in society.

We are admonished not to let the body of a person convicted of a capital offense hang overnight.  This is so the family will not be shamed.  It is assumed that the family is embarrassed by the actions of the criminal.  We don't have to rub in.

The Torah admonishes us not to blame the father for the son's sins and not to blame the son for the father's sins.  This underscores a major concept that we are responsible for our own actions.  Not to blame others.

One of the commandments this week is that we are required to put a fence around the roof of a building.  We do this because we assume that a person will go up on the roof and fall off.  Our job to prevent, as much as possible people harming themselves through stupid actions.

The commandment to return a lost object to its owner is an important underpinning of a good society.  If your find something, it is up to you to return it.  We do this not only for society but for our spiritual well-being.

In this week’s portion we discuss behavior in battle. We might think that a soldier in combat might get a pass for immoral behavior due to the unique nature of being in battle. The Torah says no. He still has to behave within certain bounds.

The Torah states "Justice, Justice you will seek."  Note that it does not say "you will do justice only that you will seek it.  This means that while we are imperfect humans and will make mistakes, we will do our best to bring justice.

In this week's portion we learn about the Biblical limits on the king.  It is no accident that they match the limitations imposed on the American presidency in the US Constitution.  It is important to remember that the most quoted book at the Constitutional Convention was the Book of Deuteronomy.

We are commanded to seek justice to the best of our abilities

The injunction is to avoid the evil ways of idolatry

This week’s portion states that our goal is to seek justice. It commands judges to avoid the trap of favoring the wealthy or the poor.

In the second paragraph of the Shma we see that if we want to be like all other nations, we will suffer the fate of those nations.  If we want to be exceptional, we have to teach our youth why we should be exceptional.

It is interesting that the word used for you in the Ten Commandments is in the singular.  The Torah is pointing out that society is made up of individuals and it is in our hands what kind of society we want to live in.

Moses stresses that what we consider civil laws are really religiously basted law.  That if the basis of law in a society is not God, then the laws will break down and the results will be a dictatorship or anarchy, as we see from the difference in the results of the American and French Revolutions.

The first three Commandments are tied together.  They warn that God is the supreme being and anything else is idolatry.  A that even religion can become an idol.

The 10th Commandment is against covetness.  This is important because there are always people who have more than we do.  We get jealous of them.  Why do they have what they have & we do not.  We do not see what they had to do to get where they are.

The version of the 10 Commandments recited this week is slightly different from the original version.  In this week's version we have the word "keep" rather than "remember".  If we do not keep that Sabbath, then there is nothing to remember.  If we do not remember, then there is nothing to keep.

The Talmud states that the Temple was destroyed because the Jews kept the letter of the law.  This is understood that they were more worried about the minutia of the law and forgot about the spirit that the law was to imbue.

On the 9thof Av we recall the story of the 10 rabbis murdered by the Romans.  The reason that the Romans give for why they murdered the 10 rabbis is the sale of Joseph by the brothers.  What is interesting is that this was a sin of man against fellow man, not against God.

When we look at the literature of the 9th of Av, we notice that the Romans and Babylonians are barely mentioned.  The real reason for the disaster is placed on the bad moral and ethical behavior of the Jews.

The sin of the spies is recounted in this week's portion.  The real sin that they committed was twofold.  The lacked faith in God being able to help them in conquering the Land of Israel and they lacked faith in themselves.