QUESTIONS AND COMMENTARY ON PARASHAT VA'ETCHANNAN

1. Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

What is the connection between declaring our allegiance to God through the words of the Shema and teaching words of Torah to our children? How important is this mitzva? Are we only responsible for teaching our own children Torah?

Rabbi Sobel

The concept of monotheism is at the heart of our faith and is the foundational principle on which the Torah rests. When we recite the words of the Shema, we bear testimony to the fact that there is only one God and take the yoke of his Kingship upon ourselves. To worship and serve other gods is a chillul Hashem (a desecration of the Lord's Name) and a violation of the covenant God made with our ancestors. Tisha B'Av reminds us of the serious consequences of idolatry, for on account of this sin in year 586 B.C.E, the first Temple was destroyed and our people went into exile (b. Yoma 4b).

But how is the sin of idolatry connected to the commandment to teach our children the Torah? Commenting on this question the Zohar writes:

A man must teach his children Torah, as it is written, "and you will teach them diligently to the children"; and if he does not teach them Torah and mitzvot, it is as if he had made a graven image for him, and his in violation of "you shall not make a graven image," etc.

By not teaching our children the way of Torah, we increase the odds that they will follow false gods and commit sins that are tantamount to idolatry like sexual immorality and bloodshed. The Torah and Brit Hadasha are the best safeguards to ensure against these transgressions that led to our first exile. 

In addition, by raising our children apart from the wisdom and direction of God's Word, we turn our children into idols, i.e. objects of worship. By making our kids the center of our lives instead of God and God's Word, we wind up worshipping our children instead of our Creator. Many of us are all too familiar with well meaning parents who idolize their children, worship the ground they walk on, and who place their children's wishes over the directly revealed will of God found in the Torah and Brit Hadasha. As a new parent, I recognize how easy it is to fall into this trap. We must be diligent to guard against it.

The importance and value of teaching Torah to our children cannot be overstated. Abraham is considered one of the first great heroes of the Hebrew Bible and is even given the distinct honor of being called "the friend of God" (Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23). But why was Abraham considered so great and precious in God's sight?  The Torah in part answers this question for us when it states:

For I have known him (singled him out), in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.

Genesis 18:19

Thus, Abraham was considered praiseworthy in the sight of God and was granted the privilege of being "known" and "singled out" by God because the Lord knew that he would be diligent in teaching his children the way of "righteousness and justice." If we aspire to be a faithful friend and servant of God like our father Abraham, we should make it our primary goal in life to teach our children the way of Torah and Messiah. 

2. The first Shabbat after Tisha B'Av is called Shabbat Nachamu. The special name for this Shabbat is derived from the opening words of this week's haftara - Isaiah 40:1-26. What does the Hebrew word nachamu mean and why is this haftara always read after Tisha B'Av?

Rabbi Kaplan

This week's haftara begins with the resounding phrase nachamu, nachamu ammi "Comfort, o comfort, my people" (Isaiah 40:1). These words of comfort and hope were spoken by God through the prophet at the end of Judah's exile in Babylon (ca. 538 BCE). This double nachamu (a plural imperative form of the root nun, chet, mem) is said in response to Daughter Zion's plea that there is no one to comfort her (see Lamentations 1:16, 17, 21) after her children have been taken into captivity. Daughter Zion's plea is read on Tisha B'Av as a part of the reading of Lamentations (Eicha). Thus the reading of these words from Isaiah 40 becomes God's annual response to the grief and mourning we expressed through our fasting and prayer on Tisha B'Av earlier in the week.

As there were three special haftarot in the weeks leading up to Tisha B'av (known as the "Three of Admonition" telata' de-puranuta'), so the reading of Isaiah 40 opens a cycle of seven Sabbaths of consolation or comfort (nechemta') on which haftarot taken from the  later portion of the book of Isaiah (chapters 40-66) are read. This cycle of prophecies of comfort and consolation invites us, like it invited our exiled ancestors to a renewed life of faithfulness to God, Torah, and Messiah as well as commitment to the Jewish people. At the core of this renewed life is the story of redemption from Egypt, from Babylon, and from sin and death. As Isaiah 40:10-11 invites us,

Behold, the Lord GOD comes in might and his arm wins triumph for him. See, his reward is with him, his recompense before him. Like a shepherd he pastures his flock; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in his bosom. Gently he drives the mother sheep.

This message of consolation for Daughter Zion/Jerusalem and her children, the Jewish people, stands at the heart of the Brit Chadasha and the message of Yeshua. In his teaching on Torah, Yeshua says, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). Likewise before Yeshua's departure, he promises to send a Comforter who is the Ruach HaQodesh (John 14:16-26). Interestingly the word for Comforter comes from the same root (parakaleo) as the word used to translate nachamu in the Septuagint (the common name for a series of Greek translations of the Tanakh). 

Yeshua's shaliach (emissary), Shaul, also understood God's work of comfort as being central to the besora (good news). He writes in the opening of his second letter to the messianic community in Corinth:

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord, Yeshua the Messiah, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them who are in any trouble, by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Messiah abound in us, so our consolation is abundant through Messiah. If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation. If we are being comforted, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. Our hope for you is unshaken, knowing, that as you are partakers of our sufferings, so shall you be also of our consolation.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7