ושמרת משמרתו, “you shall keep His charge.” Nachmanides understands these words to mean that we must maintain an attitude of reverence and fear even, which will ensure that we will not sin. Having previously commanded us to love Him (G’d), Moses now commands us to fear Him, as familiarity of the beloved might cause the beloved to sin inadvertently. This fear/reverence relationship covers all the various types of commandments in the Torah. Alternatively, this may be a command by Moses to emulate G’d in our relationship with creatures of whom G’d has demonstrated that He is especially solicitous. He declared His concern for the poor, the orphan and the widow, so we must relate to them with equal concern. He practices the virtues of being merciful; hence we, His creatures, must learn to practice that same virtue.

אשר הציף את מי הים סוף על פניהם...ויאבדם ה' עד היום הזה, “Who poured the waters of the Sea of Reeds upon their faces…and He wiped them out until this day.” Nachmanides agonises over the meaning of the words עד היום הזה, “until this day.” After all, all the Egyptians who perished in the sea remain dead forever. What does any of this have to do with “היום הזה”? It is possible that Moses by speaking of היום הזה, reverts to the loss of horses and riders that the Egyptians experienced at that time 40 years ago, and which to the best of his knowledge had not been made good until the time when he was speaking. As a result of that stunning military defeat, according to Moses, Egypt had become relegated to being a “third rate kingdom.” Ibn Ezra understands Moses to mean that never since that time until now did there arise among the Egyptians personalities of impressive stature as Egypt had produced many of while the Israelites were still in that country. This would have been a fitting punishment for a people who in spite of being blessed with an abundance of riches allowed themselves to descend to unparalleled depths of depravity. They reached a zenith in their wickedness when they set out in pursuit of a nation that had been redeemed by the Creator Himself, personally.

ואשר עשה לדתן ואבירם, “and what He has done to Datan and Aviram, etc.” Moses does not mention what G’d had done to Korach and his family and followers and how heavenly fire consumed the 250 people offering incense. The sin of those people who had encroached on privileges reserved for the priests was such that it is irredeemable even after death. History has shown that King Uzziah who tried to arrogate similar privileges to himself, was similarly stricken. What had happened to those 250 men therefore was not something unique to the generation of the Israelites in the desert; this is why Moses did not mention it as such at this time. [Compare Chronicles II chapter 26. Uzziah only became stricken with leprosy, was not burned by heavenly fire, according to that report. Perhaps the fact that he was stricken after having been specifically warned was sufficient of a miracle for Moses in the opinion of our author to compare his fate to that of the 250 men who had heeded Moses’ dare to offer incense. Ed.]

לא כארץ מצרים היא אשר יצאתם משם, “it is not like the land of Egypt from which you have departed.” According to Nachmanides, the plain meaning of these words is meant as a warning to the people to be careful to observe the commandments of the Torah in that land as that land depends on rainfall, not like Egypt; therefore, non observance would lead G’d to withhold the necessary rainfall at the appropriate times. Moses impresses all this upon the people a second time in the second paragraph of the קריאת שמע that commences with verse 13 in this chapter. Moses refers to the land of Egypt and what goes on there to remind them that although it is easy for the Creator to arrest the flow of the river Nile if He so desires, and to thereby bring to an immediate end the prosperity of that land and its inhabitants, He does not interfere with His natural law without severe provocation. To interfere with the rainfall in the land of Canaan represents far less of an interference with natural law than arresting the flow of the river Nile, hence the people of Israel better be on their guard not to provoke G’d. Moreover, He Who had to go out of His way to enable the Israelites to be liberated from bondage by a number of miracles, would not hesitate to respond if the people for whom He had taken all this trouble were to show themselves ungrateful by violating His rules of conduct.

בכל לבבכם ובכל נפשכם, “with all your heart and all your soul.” Rashi points out that Moses had already warned the people individually to do just that, whereas now he warns them to love G’d with all their collective hearts and with all their collective souls (hence the plural endings in both words). Nachmanides explains the matter as follows: G’d is not prepared to perform miracles at all times, especially when it comes to interference with the amount of rain required and the season at which the rain descends. He does not, on account of a few individuals deviate from His laws, re-arrange all of nature, so that the sinner’s field is not irrigated and the fields of the righteous enjoy abundant rainfall, although the two fields are adjoining. Therefore, in this paragraph Moses addresses the people as a unit when exhorting them to love G’d with all their hearts and souls, whereas in the first paragraph of the קריאת שמע when he addressed them as individuals he did not threaten what would happen if some individual were not to follow his instructions. He will however, address that problem in chapter 29 17-19. As a rule, G’d reserves miracles for extreme situations, such as total perversion of the people or total righteousness. The former will produce recognisable unnatural catastrophes, whereas the latter will produce extraordinary and recognizable bounty by G’d, the Provider.

ואכלת ושבעת, “you will eat and be satisfied.” According to Ibn Ezra these words refer to the previous words (verse 14) דגנך, ותירושך, ויצהרך, “your grain, your wine, and your oil,” rather than to the more recent words עשב בשדך, “the grass in your field.” Nachmanides writes that the correct interpretation is that the words ואכלת ושבעת refer to the both דגן, תירושך, ויצהרך as well as to עשב בשדך. They even refer to the livestock mentioned in our verse as בהמתך. The Sifri interprets this as meaning that when your livestock has enough to eat, then your land will be able to provide the harvest it is meant to provide. Another possible approach is that the word ובהמתך does not refer to what you will eat, but to the fact that your livestock will produce its young, just as the soil will produce its yield.

ושמתם את דברי אלה, “You will place these words of Mine, etc.” Rashi explains that Moses means that even after you will be exiled, when the prompt fulfillment of the promise we just read is not likely, you are not free from the obligation to observe those commandments of the Torah that are not tied to residence in the Holy Land. Nachmanides writes that it is obvious that those commandments that are to be fulfilled with our bodies, as opposed to with our land, remain applicable also in the Diaspora, but the Sifri writes that this obligation is derived from this verse. In other words, according to that interpretation our verse serves as a בנין אב type of interpretation. Just as when it comes to thanking the Lord for having received our food and blessing Him, this is an obligation that applies wherever we find ourselves, so other commandments that are capable of fulfillment all over the globe remain in force also during periods of exile. It is possible, that from the perspective of the plain meaning of the text, the פשט, that Moses implies that the father should speak about these aspects of the Torah to his children, just as Moses had commanded in the parallel paragraph of the קריאת שמע in Deut. 6,7 that the father must teach the Torah diligently to his children and seize every opportunity at home and outside, by day and by night to inculcate these precepts in his children’s minds and hearts. Moses adds the words כימי השמים על הארץ, “like the days of the heaven over the earth,” to remind us that this is an ongoing obligation, one without a time limit.

כי אם שמור תשמרון, “For if you will diligently observe, etc.” Ibn Ezra writes that this paragraph too refers to what has been written previously when Moses warned that non-observance of the commandments will lead to exile from the Holy Land. He adds here, by implication, that if these commandments are not observed, there will be no need for an exile as the people will not take over that land in the first place. If you neglect the commandments after you have established yourselves there, your tenure will be short-lived.

ולדבקה בו, “and to cleave to Him;” Ibn Ezra sees in these words the ultimate objective of Torah observance and love of Hashem, i.e. if you will observe all the commandments in the right spirit, you will achieve the closest relationship with Hashem that it is possible for a human being to have, the relationship known as דבקות, cleaving to Him. Nachmanides understands these words as a warning, one of the types of warnings against worshipping idols. He bases this on Joshua 23,7-8 where Joshua juxtaposes pursuit of idols with cleaving to Hashem exclusively. In that paragraph of the Book of Joshua we read as follows: “and without intermingling with these nations that are left among you. Do not utter the names of their gods or swear an oath by them; do not serve them or bow down to them. But ‘hold fast,’ to the Lord your G’d, בו תדבקון, as you have done to this day.” Moses, according to Nachmanides, does not aim at what the select few are capable of achieving in the search for closeness to G’d, but he speaks about the minimum that every Jew must strive for. It is possible that the reason why Moses introduced the term דבקות here is because by striving for this kind of closeness one concentrates on G’d and what His expectations are of His creatures, so much that one does not have time or desire to explore other religions and what the nations of the world see in them that they pursue those deities. This would again be parallel to Moses’ exhortation to speak to one’s children of the Torah during all hours of the day and night, and in all localities, barring places reserved for excreting. The positive of what we are to do, is matched by the negative, as for instance in the verses quoted from the Book of Joshua. Nachmanides suggests that an ideal relationship with Hashem could be that when one speaks to fellow humans one does so only from the lips outwards, whereas one’s heart, and one’s mind is still tuned in to Hashem, simultaneously. He speculates further that possibly these elitists among us have reached a level of spirituality that can be compared to the wish we express at every funeral that the soul of the departed be enfolded by what our sages have described as צרור החיים, the bundle of eternal life. [Compare Samuel I 25,29, Avigail’s wish to David, and Maimonides’ comment in his hilchot TeshuvahEd] The words כאשר עשיתם עד היום הזה may be Moses’ way of describing the intimate relationship that existed between G’d and His people, who received a daily portion of heavenly bread, a supply of meat, apparently materializing miraculously, a well that moved with them every step of the way so that drinking water was always at hand in the desert, etc. Joshua, who speaks to the people after these miracles have ceased and the people have begun to live a “normal” life, exhorts them not to forego the intimate relationship with Hashem that had been forged during the years in the desert.

כל המקום אשר תדרוך כף רגלכם בו לכם הוא, “Every place where the sole of your foot will tread will become yours;” According to our sages (Sifri on our verse) Moses assured the people of two distinctly separate promises here. 1) Any place the Israelites felt they wanted to conquer would not be denied them. Having done so, the commandments of the Torah would apply in any of the lands conquered as the people were under an obligation to conquer the lands as far as the river Euphrates. Secondly, there is another promise,

לא יתיצב איש בפניכם, “no one will stand up against you;” neither in the land of Canaan, nor in the surrounding countries will you encounter serious opposition. As far as the opinion expressed by some scholars, that David’s conquest of Syria was in the category of a private conquest, not part of the commandment to conquer the land promised to the patriarchs, the reason is that the campaign had not first been approved by the urim vetumim in the breastplate of the High Priest, this was only because he had not yet conquered all the territory belonging to the seven Canaanite tribes. (Compare Gittin 47*)*

ראה אנכי נותן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה, “See, I present before you this day, a blessing and a curse.” According to the plain meaning of the text, the פשט, the reason why Moses suddenly switches to the singular mode when addressing the whole people, is that he is addressing each one of them as individuals. Some commentators feel that Moses’ words, in this instance, were addressed to Joshua, and that he charged Joshua with blessing the people when they would cross the Jordan. Still other commentators feel that all the blessings and curses in the Book of Deuteronomy are expressed in singular mode, there is therefore nothing unusual here. A different approach altogether, concentrating on the choice of the introductory word ראה, “See!” describes the different manner between how Moses approaches the Israelites’ choice of their fate to that of the nations at large. When one engages in drawing lots for something, one exercises extreme caution to ensure that neither of the lots is visible to the parties participating in the draw. Moses, in outlining the choices before the Jewish people, makes sure that they can see clearly the choices at each one’s disposal. He therefore urges them to choose “life,” which is equated with “blessing.” He, so to speak, invites the people to let him place his hands on “blessing,” by their choosing to opt for performance of G’d’s commandments. He underlines this even more by not phrasing their choice as “iffy,” i.e. with the word אם, i.e. “if you do so and so you will receive a blessing,” but as something definitive, i.e. אשר תשמעון, “that you will hearken, etc.” The term אשר is also reminiscent of the word אשרי, “hail to.” Moses implies that he already hails them for having chosen correctly.

ונתתה את הברכה על הר גריזים, “you shall deliver the blessing to Mount Gerizim;” Rashi writes: כתרגומו, meaning that he agrees with Onkelos’ translation of the word הברכה as “the ones pronouncing the blessing, i.e. the Levites.” Nachmanides does not agree. He argues that seeing that Moses had as yet not instructed the Levites to pronounce these blessings, how could they be the subjects in this verse? He feels therefore that the meaning of our verse is that Moses encourages the people to choose the path of blessing (instead of the path that leads to a curse). This is why he first warned of the alternative in verse 28, explaining that the curse would result from failure to heed the laws of the Torah. Moses commanded that the blessing be dispensed on Mount Gerizim, i.e. that there they would bless the people that hearken to the commandments of Hashem, whereas the ones failing to do so would be cursed on Mount Eyval. It is also possible that all the tribes would be blessed, conditionally, and all the tribes would be cursed conditionally. Another scenario could be that the Levites pronounced both the blessings and the curses, or even that a single person pronounced both the blessings and the curses. After that (27,12) Moses explained which tribes were to position themselves on which of the two mountains at that time, and all had to confirm both the blessings and the curses by answering “Amen” when they heard same. The reason why this whole procedure is reported in two sections, part here and part in chapter 27, is that Moses had introduced it here when the people were not on location, whereas in chapter 27 he is at pains to point out that this procedure is to be one of the very first commandments performed as soon as the people had crossed the river Jordan.

ושמרתם לעשות את כל החוקים ואת המשפטים, “you are to carefully perform all the statutes and all the social laws.” Here too, Moses mentions the statutes and social laws ahead of other types of legislation. When mentioning these laws in details, he deals first with the need to abolish all traces of idol-worship, just as he had done in Parshat Vaetchanan.