With the book of Deuteronomy, the entire biblical project becomes lucid and reaches its culmination. Deuteronomy is the last act of the Jewish people’s drama before becoming a nation in its own land, and it forms the context of all that follows. It is the deepest and most remarkable statement of what Judaism is about, and it is no less relevant today than it was then. If anything, it is more so.
Among other things, the book tells us what Judaism is not. It is not a drama about the salvation of the soul and the rescue of humanity from the lingering effects of original sin. Indeed there is nothing in the Hebrew Bible about original sin, nor does the idea accord with its theology, according to which we are punished for our own sins and not for those of distant ancestors like Adam and Eve.1 At the very most, the Bible talks about visiting the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation,2 not about doing so for hundreds of generations. Deuteronomy is not Christianity.
Nor is it Islam. The term Islam, meaning “submission” or “surrender” to the will of God, does not exist as a concept in Judaism at all. Strikingly in a religion that contains 613 commands, there is no Hebrew word that means obedience. The closest equivalent - shema - means not obedience but rather hearing, listening, striving to understand, internalising, and responding in deed. The very tone and texture of Deuteronomy is directed not at blind obedience but at the contrary: it is a sustained attempt to help the people understand why it is that God wants them to behave in the way that He does, not for His sake, but for theirs.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - Covenant & Conversation. A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible. Deuteronomy: Renewal of the Sinai Covenant
The Goldstein Edition
Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, Koren Publishers Jerusalem Ltd., New Milford, Jerusalem, 2019. - 328 pp.
ISBN 978-1-59264-024-9, hardcover
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - Covenant & Conversation. A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible. Deuteronomy: Renewal of the Sinai Covenant - Contents
Deuteronomy: Covenant Society
DEVARIM
- The Teacher as Hero
- The World We Make with Words
- Counsel for the Defence
- Tzedek: Justice Tempered by Compassion
- Profits and Prophets
VA’ETHANAN
- In the Eyes of the Nations
- The Politics of Responsibility
- The Meanings of Shema
- Listening Is an Art
- Why Is the Jewish People So Small?
EKEV
- The Politics of Memory
- The Morality of Love
- A Nation of Educators
- Geography and Destiny
- Greatness and Humility
RE’EH
- The Politics of Freedom
- Collective Joy
- The Untranslatable Virtue
- The Psychology of Dignity
- Insecurity and Joy
SHOFETIM
- The Three Crowns
- True and False Prophets
- Monarchy: An Ambivalent Institution
- Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears a Crown
- The Ecological Imperative
KITETZEH
- Love Is Not Enough
- Stubborn and Rebellious Sons
- Animal Welfare
- Letting Go
- Rehabilitation of Offenders
- Hate: Curable and Incurable
KI TAVO
- History and Memory
- Listening and Moral Growth
- The Blessing and the Curse
- The Greatest Challenge
- Covenant and Conversation
NITZAVIM
- Why Be Jewish ?
- Two Concepts of Teshuva
- Not in Heaven
- Not Beyond the Sea
- The Fourteenth Principle of Faith
VAYELEKH
- Leadership: Consensus or Command?
- To Renew Our Days
- The Heart, the Home, the Text
- The Torah as God’s Song
HAAZINU
- The Spirituality of Song
- Let My Teaching Drop as Rain
- The Faith of God
- A Warped and Twisted Generation
- Vengeance
VEZOT HABERAKHA
- The Love of Nations
- The Inheritance That Belongs to All
- Moses the Man
- To Live Is to Serve
- Mortality
- End Without an Ending
Категории:
Благодарю сайт за публикацию:
