Va’etchanan (I Pleaded) D’Varim (Deut.) 3:23-7:11
Torah Portion: Va’etchanan (I Pleaded)D’Varim(Deut.) 3:23-7:11
Haftorah Reading: Isaiah 40:1-26
Today we read an epic Torah portion. We read again the Shema and the Ten Commandments. We also read a brief passage with high implications for the way we are to live a moral life in our day.
To begin with, I want us to look at Deut. 5:30. This verse tells us, “In all the way that the L-rd you G-d has commanded you, you shall walk.” I want to use this verse as a jumping off place for our study tonight. What does this verse say to us about our daily walk?
Ekev (Following) D’Varim (Deut.) 7:12-11:25
Torah Portion Ekev (Following) D’Varim (Deut.) 7:12-11:25
Haftorah Reading: Yesha’yahu (Isaiah) 49:14-51:3
Tonight I want us to look at a couple of places in this Torah portion to find what we can hear that will help us in our daily walk with the Father. First, I want to draw your attention to my second question of the week. What is the prominent verb we read over and over in the Book of Devarim/Deut.? In verse 9:1 we hear the Shema in Hebrew. I believe we have talked of this word before but I want us to go over it in some depth today. This word appears over 90 times in this book of the Bible. It can be seen as the key to understanding what Moshe is communicating to the people in his last speech before his death. First, I want us to have a clear understanding of the word Shema. In Hebrew it is used to mean “to hear, to listen, to pay attention, to understand to internalize or to respond.” It is the closest word in biblical Hebrew to express the term, “to obey.” Sometimes for us, as part of the western culture, hearing is not something that we do naturally on a deep level. The sense we us most often is seeing. This is a hold over from the Greek influence in our lives. We see this in our language, I see, foresight, hindsight, insight, vision and phrases such as “it appears.” These are only a few of the ways sight dominates our thoughts and language. By contrast Hebrew the world of Moshe and Yeshua was immersed in hearing, really hearing. It was a culture of the ear more than the eye. We read this word “Shema” or one of its derivatives used to express proof of a certain point like, come and hear, hear from this, he could not hear it.