בעת ההיא אמר ה' אלי "פסל לך", in spite of all my prayers, the repair, the reconstitution of what had been damaged, proved to be incomplete,for the substitution for the first set of Tablets was not something made by G’d Himself, and this is why He commanded me: פסל לך, “carve it out by yourself!”

ובני ישראל נסעו , even though they had seen that the prayer of a righteous person may prove a protection for the members of his generation so that it is most appropriate to mourn his death, in this instance we find that the Israelites in their search for water journeyed on without delay, not a word being said about their taking time out to mourn the passing of Aaron. This is the meaning of the construction: “there Aaron died, was buried…and Eleazar became High Priest in his stead.” They neither took time out to mourn Aaron nor did they celebrate the appointment of a new High Priest, a position which made that person the interlocutor on their behalf. Rather, משם נסעו הגדגודה, to graze their sheep;

ומן הגדגודה יטבת, ארץ נחלי מים, for all the locations mentioned had water which was adequate for the needs of their livestock. Still, they paid no heed to the damage they had incurred by the death of a righteous man such as Aaron, neither to his honour, nor to the dishonour they had caused themselves by allowing the passing of a man of such caliber to go by unnoticed. [Numbers 20,28-29 reports Aaron’s death as well as the fact that the entire community of Israel bewailed his death for thirty days. Ed.]

בעת ההיא הבדיל, after G’d had already set aside the tribe of Levi as the tribe to perform the holy service in the Temple so that you are not deemed worthy for this task, my prayer was not effective enough except to prevent G’d from destroying you, so that He said to me: “arise and make them journey, and be in front of the people!” (verse 11) The expression is used in the same sense as in Numbers 10,2)

ויבואו ויירשו את הארץ אשר נשבעתי, if not for G’d’s oath you would not have merited to inherit it due to your excessive rebelliousness.

ועתה ישראל, seeing that this is the situation as of now, it is up to you to try and repair the damage caused by your iniquities from here on in. First and foremost, try and be clear about what it is that the Lord asks of you, expects of you: מה ה' אלוקיך שואל מעמך, He does not ask these things because He is in need of them, seeing the whole earth and all of the celestial regions are all His. כי אם ליראה, you can do this by simply realising His greatness;

ולאהבה אותו, this will also be a natural result if only you reflect on all the goodness you have experienced at His hand. לטוב לך, all of this G’d asks only for your own good, so that you will qualify for eternal life in the hereafter.

הן לה' אלוקיך השמים...והארץ, the fact that He owns the entire universe is convincing proof that whatever He asks of you is only for your own good, not for His, seeing that He has everything. The phenomena in the heavens and on earth are indestructible, permanent, and if you observed that at times they performed out of character to their nature, this was only because I, G’d, made them perform so in your interest. However, G’d was fond of your forefathers

רק באבותיך חשק, and this is why He performed miracles which interfered with natural law; these miracles were for your benefit, but were orchestrated only because of His fondness for them. Clearly, G’d’s purpose must have been that there should arise on earth someone even more perfect than any other creature, i.e. a perfect human being, one that realises his full potential, will resemble Me to the maximum extent that a creature can resemble its Creator, i.e. בצלמנו כדמותנו (Genesis 1,26).

ומלתם את ערלת לבבכם, therefore, it is appropriate that you remove the “foreskin,” prejudices with which your intelligence is afflicted, so that you will realise the errors you have made in your world outlook based on false premises.

וערפכם לא תקשו עוד, so that you will no longer be stiff-necked, a condition which prevents you from truly recognising your Creator and how evil it is to turn your back on Him.

Once you removed this “foreskin,” you will recognize that כי ה' אלוקיכם הוא אלוקי האלוקים, the eternal One Who will outlast anything as He is not made of any physical raw material so that He can outlast even materials that are not composites of other elements. [It is an axiom among philosophers of the author’s time that amalgams, phenomena which combine within them several elements, are by definition not durable, as just as these elements had to be fused to bring the final product into existence, this process will reverse itself in due cause, something we know as “dying.” Ed.]

ואדוני האדונים, the supreme leader; the “leaders” referred to are the celestial bodies, especially those that even to the naked eye appear as performing a recognisable orbit. The “leaders” are the ones perceived as guiding and dictating the respective orbits of these celestial bodies. They are performing like different parts of a clockwork, so that when each performs its assigned function, the whole, i.e. the clock, becomes a reliable instrument telling time. [my metaphor. Ed.]

הא-ל הגדול, the like of whom in greatness is not found among any creatures claiming greatness.

הגבור, the One Who, single-handedly, ensures the continued existence of everything, as per Nechemyah 9,6 ואתה מחיה את כולם, “and You keep all of them alive.”

והנורא, supervising His creatures’ activities in order to mete out reward and punishment. Seeing that this is so, it behooves us to be in constant awe of Him.

אשר לא ישא פנים, does not treat a deviant with leniency just because his father was righteous. This is so in spite of the fact that He confers benefits on the descendants of a righteous father for many generations to his descendants.

ולא יקח שוחד, He does not offset a merit against a demerit, a sin; or in the words of our sages: “a good deed performed does not extinguish the sin committed.” (Nachmanides Moses tells the people all this so that they should not reassure themselves that they can wipe the slate clean by performing good deeds after having committed sins and thus escape the retribution they deserve for the sins committed. The only way the slate can be wiped clean is by genuine repentance.

היא תהלתך, your glory consists in the privilege of being a servant of a Being Who rules the entire cosmos.