ואזנים לשמוע עד היום הזה, “and ears with which to hear until this day.” This day is included in that statement.

למען תדעו כי אני ה' אלוקיכם, in order that you will know that I am the Lord your G-d.” Moses had not spoken these words (i.e. at his own initiative), but from the words: ואלך אתכם at the beginning of verse 4, until the end of this Parshah, we are reading G-d’s word, as our sages have already explained on Exodus 32,13, in respect of the words: וכל הארץ הזאת אשר אמרתי, “and this whole land of which I have spoken;” we would actually have expected there the word: אמרת, “which You spoke of,” as Moses had been the speaker at the beginning of that verse.” The truth is that as far as there we read the words of the student, from there on we read the words of the Teacher.

ושמרתם את דברי הברית הזאת, “observe therefore the words of this covenant;” you are obligated to do so in light of all the favours the Lord has done for you as recorded earlier.

אתם נצבים היום כולכם, “you are standing this day all of you;” all of you regardless of your social standing in the community are equally standing facing the Lord, in order to enter into the new covenant. (see verse 11). This had already been announced by Moses in the verses of our chapter leading up to this point.

ראשיכם, זקניכם, the leaders of your tribes; who are these leaders? זקניכם ושוטריכם, “your elders and your appointed officials;”

מחוטב עציך, “including the hewers of wood, i.e. male servants;”

עד שואב מימיך, “including the drawers of your water, i.e. female servants.”

לעברך, “so that you will participate,” (note the singular mode) i.e. all as if you were one single person.

כורת עמך היום, “which He concludes with you this day.” No one can ever claim that he had not been present at that time and had confirmed accepting the covenant. This was the last time the entire nation would be present at the same spot simultaneously, as after the land had been distributed to the tribes, the elderly and the mothers who had just given birth, as well as any sick people could not be expected to come to Jerusalem on the festivals designated for the annual pilgrimages.

אשר ישבו בארץ מצרים, “who had dwelled in the land of Egypt;” together with the ones who had still dwelled in the land of Egypt (who had been minors at the time of the Exodus) and who had experienced all that you have witnessed during the last forty years in the desert, etc. The decree to die in the desert had applied only to males who had been twenty years of age at the time of the Exodus, and had not been older than 60 years at the time when it was issued.

פן יש בכם שרש פורה ראש ולענה, “lest there be amongst you a root that bears gall and wormwood. “

את דברי האלה הזאת, “the words of this curse.” This is a reference to the curses pronounced at Mount Eyval, in chapter 27, 15-26.

והתברך, “and he blesses himself, i.e. he reassures himself; he considers himself immune from these curses (by interpreting them as applicable only to the community, not to individuals.)

כי בשרירות לבי אלך, “even though I do my own thing,” i.e. I ignore rules meant for others.

למען ספות הרוה, “the irrigated plants will be swept away with the dried out ones.” He feels that if the community has sinned and G-d will punish them, it makes no difference that he adds a few extra sins which he as an individual indulges in. [He denied G-d’s supervision of individuals who are sinful, as otherwise the community would be made to pay for the sins of each individual. We can perhaps understand this logic as the deluge swept away everyone and they could not all have been equally guilty. He also distinguishes between sins that are due to the evil urge, such as indulging in forbidden but tasty food, and others such as not wearing garments with a mixture of wool and linen, which did not require him to resist temptation. Ed.] An alternate interpretation of the line: למען ספות הרוה את הצמאה; he cannot wait until violation of Torah laws becomes popular, so that he may indulge in it openly rather than secretly and make an outcast of himself. In the meantime he has to suffer like a plant suffers that is not irrigated. He may even have restrained himself from sinning although harbouring a fervent desire to do so as he is afraid of being caught and convicted. The Torah appears to compare the righteous to the well watered plant, and the sinner or potential sinner, to the plant that thirsts for water. (Compare Yehudah Halevi quoted by Ibn Ezra)

והבדילו, “and the Lord shall separate him, etc;” his punishment will correspond to the principle of the punishment matching the sin. He used his individualism as a way to escape punishment; as a retribution he will be singled out for punishment while G-d is not (yet) dealing with communally committed sins.

לרעה, “for evil;” this had to be spelled out as G-d also singles out people “for good,” when the occasion justifies this. A well known example is the tribe of Levi, who, as the only tribe not to worship the golden calf, was rewarded by being singled out to become a special tribe.

ואמר הדור הארון, “and the next generation will say, etc.” Moses refers to a generation that had not yet been born at the time when this covenant was entered into by the Jewish people.

והנכרי אשר מארץ רחוקה, “as well as a stranger who had come from a distant land;” and had not heard about the solemn covenant; he will be astounded at the desolation in the land of Israel between the Jewish people and their G-d; the people around who knew about this covenant and its having breached by the Jewish people will not be surprised at all at what happened to this nation and its land.

גפרית ומלח שרפה כל ארצה, “all of its land having become salt and brimstone;” what is the connection between salt and brimstone? Nothing can withstand fire better than salt, and nothing can be destroyed more totally that when it is treated with brimstone. The Torah means to tell you that if the Israelites had remained loyal to their covenant, they could have withstood any attempt at destruction as salt can withstand it; seeing that they had not, they were destroyed utterly as if they had been rubbed out with brimstone. Brimstone destroys even what the fire had not been able to destroy.

ומלח, “and salt;” the Torah had reported that the wife of Lot who had failed to obey the instruction of the angel not to look back, was turned in a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19,26(

שרפה כל ארצה, “its whole land is as if burned.” Is it conceivable that G-d would become so angry on account of a sin committed by a single individual? The fact is that the destruction of the area occupied by the Ten tribes and the population being sent into exile, had nothing to do with an individual’s sins, but with erection of public idols, two golden calves built to block the route to Jerusalem during the lifetime of Solomon’s son Rechavam, hundreds of years before theKingdom of the Ten Tribes went into exile and the idol erected by Michah, and the appointment as Levites by people not born to members of that tribe. (Judges chapter 8,33) The latter phenomena happened already prior to the time of the prophet Samuel and the dynasty of David/Solomon, long before the Kingdom of Solomon was divided.

הנסתרות לה' אלוקינו, “sins committed in the privacy of one’s home, (which could not be witnessed and brought to court) will be taken care of by the Lord our G-d;” this had to be stated specifically in light of what we read in verse 18 about individuals who feel safe from punishment for their personal sins in periods when the community at large is Torahobservant.

לה׳ אלוקינו, “it is His duty to punish sins committed in places inaccessible to witnesses.”

והנגלות, ”but the sins committed publicly, etc,” dealing with deliberate sins committed in full view of the public must be dealt with by the judiciary by both you and your children, as otherwise such phenomena cannot be eradicated from your midst. This law becomes effective from the moment the Jewish people will cross the river Jordan. From that moment on their acceptance of the covenant with G-d meant that each individual Jew shared in the responsibility for the conduct of each fellow Jew. From that moment on we also became responsible. In order that you should not say that this approach applies forever (under all circumstances), the words והנגלות לנו ולבנינו, “and the publicly committed sins are also the responsibility of us and our children,” have been dotted, i. e. as long as we observe that part of the law, by letting our judiciary punish sinners of sins committed in public, G-d will take care of those that were committed secretly.[The dots, wherever they appear, have been added by learned scribes long after the Torah had been given, i.e. have been added by human initiative. There are dots only on ten letters, whereas there are eleven sins that were listed in the list of curses as being typical of sins committed secretly in Deuteronomy chapter 27, commencing with verse 15. This is deliberate in order to avoid giving the impression that we are telling G-d how to administer His laws. This is also the reason why the dots which we would have expected over the words לה' אלוקינו, where they would have made more sense, appear instead over the words לנו ולבנינו, Ed.]

הנסתרות לה' אלוקינו, when the prophet Isaiah, at the end of describing the idyllic state of mankind on earth after the arrival of the Messiah, states that G-d will also select priests and Levites from among the gentile nations,(Isaiah 66,13) this is also something reserved for G-d’s judgment, covered by the line הנסתרות לה' אלוקינו, “that there are hidden matters which only G-d is aware of,” not man.