The Torah is against anarchy, as shown by the flood, and totalitarianism as shown by the story of the Tower of Babel. The Torah wants us to live in society govern by laws that guarantee our freedom.

Unlike the pagan flood stories, the Biblical story God was upset at man’s sins. That Noah was chosen to save mankind was due to his being a righteous person.

The snake enticed Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He did so by using language that sounded good but was really deceitful. This is the game plan of all evil people. They use deceitful language to convince the gullible.

We celebrate the holiday of Sukkot and tomorrow we will be celebrating the holiday of Simhat Torah. We celebrate even more with the return of the hostages to their homes.

Sukkot is a happy holiday. It is the close of the holiday season for month of Tishri. We start off very serious asking God for forgiveness for our sins. God only decides on Simhat Torah because then we show if we really meant what we said on Yom Kippur.

On the holiday of Sukkot we realize how dependent we are on God. That we should strive to make our lives better but that, in God is in charge.

Charge

In the portion of the week Moses receives his final command. To ascend Mt. Nebo and see the land that he will not enter it. This is to teach us that just as Moses prepared Joshua to lead, we have to prepare the next generation.

God wants us to do our job. He wants to see the effort we do in keeping the commandments. Just like when we crossed the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea). Before He split the waters someone had to jump in.

Yom Kipper we stand before God promising to be better. The real test comes a few days later when we have the holiday of Sukkot, in which we are commanded to be happy. Can we keep our promise to be better when we are having a good time.