Author: Shlomo Bar-Ayal

It is no accident that the portion of the Torah known as Devarim is read the Shabbat before the 9th of Av. The 9th of Av teaches us what happens when our leaders do not lead, when we engage in baseless hatred and when we lose trust in God.

One of the messages of the Torah is that we have to be humble. Humility does not mean that we may never stand up for ourselves. It means that we have to acknowledge that God is running the world and wants us to be moral and ethical.

Justice should be blind to the monetary and/or social status of the people who come before the court. Otherwise, society would break down into anarchy.

True leadership means that there be transparency. That a leader remember that he is a servant of the people, not the other way around.

Moses recounts the sin of the scouts. The problem was two-fold: they were afraid that they would lose their status as leaders of the people, and they couldn’t understand that the purpose was to work the while keeping the Torah

The Book of Deuteronomy is Moses recounting all the events that happened from the leaving of Egypt to them getting ready to enter the land. Why recount this? To remind us that God wants us to be moral and ethical people.

Getting Ready For Our Mission – In this week’s portion we are commanded to be a holy, unified and just society. When our society is built on these three pillars, there is nothing that can defeat us.

The cities of refuge were for those who killed accidentally. It was a way of punishing them as well protecting them. They had to stay there until the High Priest dies. The reason for this is that the people’s spirituality was expressed though the High Priest. If he did his job correctly then the accident would not have occurred.

The setting of boundaries is important for any society. Without them then we turn into anarchy with no limits on what is permitted and what is not. The Torah gives us boundaries both physical & moral. Both for Jews and non-Jews.

In this week’s portion the Jews get the command to destroy Midian. This was not revenge for what they did but a judgement that caused others to sin, which is worse than committing then since yourself.