Parshat Va’etchanan – Shabbat Nachamu – Tu B’Av
Let’s start with Nachamu – a Shabbat named for its haftara. Here’s a riddle to ask your Shabbat guests: What Shabbatot are named for their haftara?
Nachamu is one. Last week’s Chazon is another. Shabbat Shuva. Shabbat HaGadol. That’s four.
What about being named for the Maftir? Shekalim, Zachor, Parah, HaChodesh. Another four.
What Shabbatot are named from their regular Torah reading? Shabbat Bereishit and Shabbat Shira. I think that’s it.
Arm yourselves with the answers and make your guests squirm. But not too much – give hints to help them.
Parshat Va’etchanan is always the Shabbat immediately following Tisha B’Av. Interestingly, this year (and most years) we read part of Va’etchanan last Shabbat at Mincha (as usual) and on Monday and Thursday mornings (again, as usual). On Shabbat, we read the whole sedra, of course. But we also read part of Va’etchanan this past Sunday, on Tisha B’Av morning.
Va’etchanan has 122 pesukim, putting it towards the bottom of the top third of the 54 sedras, pasuk-wise. Its rank rises to 10th place for words and letters, because its pesukim are larger than average. And because of more than average blank spaces in a Sefer Torah – due to many parshiyot (which are separated from each other with blank space) – it rises to number 7 (of the 54) line-wise. The sedra takes up 249 lines in a Sefer Torah.
As far as sedra stats go, it gets more interesting with the count of mitzvot. Officially, there are 12 mitzvot (of the 613 mitzvot of the Torah) in Parshat Va’etchanan. That might not seem like that many, but only 17 sedras have a double-digit mitzvah count. Add to this that Va’etchanan is a good example of a sedra which contains significantly more mitzvot than the official number indicates (there are a number of other sedras like this).
For example, the second presentation of the Aseret HaDibrot is in Va’etchanan. I hope you, dear reader, realize that calling the Aseret HaDibrot the Ten Commandments is a misleading term. The Torah itself refers to the Ten as the Aseret HaDevarim, so the Ten Sayings or Utterances is more accurate. Even the fancy term of Greek origin works well – the Decalogue. Deca means 10 and logos means word or saying. The Ten Words or the Ten Sayings (or the Ten Statements) all work better than the Ten Commandments. (No offense to Charlton Heston, Yul Brenner, or Edward G. Robinson.)
The Aseret HaDibrot consist of 13 pesukim (both in Yitro and in Va’etchanan), and contain 14 mitzvot in the Yitro text and 15 mitzvot in the Va’etchanan text. The 14 mitzvot are counted from Yitro, but they are just as much in Va’etchanan, though not counted again here.
The 15th mitzvah of the Big Ten (as we sometimes call it) is V’lo Tit-aveh – not to lust after that which your fellow has. Those words do not appear in the Yitro text. So 14 mitzvot are counted from Yitro and are repeated in Va’etchanan, and V’lo Tit-aveh is counted from Va’etchanan.
With just adding the 14 mitzvot from the Decalogue, we’re up to 26 mitzvot in the sedra, and there are more.
On a different note: I recently saw a statistic, which I had seen in the past, that 22% of all Nobel laureates were Jewish, even though Jews make up only a fifth of a percent of the world’s population. This brought to mind the pesukim in this week’s sedra (Devarim 4:5-6): “Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as Hashem, my G-d, commanded me, to do so in the midst of the land to which you are coming to possess. And you shall keep [them] and do [them], for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples…”
On a different note, Moshe Rabbeinu seems to be anxious and insistent about warning the people about avodah zarah (idolatry). Specifically, he says to the people (and all of us, as well) that during the Revelation at Sinai, we had heard G-d’s voice but did not see any image of Him. (I would add that as human beings, we have a difficult time dealing with the invisible, intangible characteristics of Hashem.) So be very careful not to worship images of any sort. (It seems that it is a temptation to do so, not necessarily to replace G-d but even to give oneself a physical focus for worship.)
Then he adds (4:19): “And lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, which Hashem your G-d assigned to all peoples under the entire heaven, and be drawn away to prostrate yourselves before them and worship them…”
Rambam, in the first chapter of his Hilchot Avodah Zarah, says that the beginning of the turn away from proper belief in G-d began in the third generation of the world, with the idea that the sun was a high-ranking minister of G-d, so powerful in the sky, giving light and warmth and life – and it followed that a way of honoring G-d would be to venerate His “Prime Minister.”
With the warning against venerating the heavenly bodies, perhaps one would think that looking at the sky and studying the heavenly bodies might not be a good idea.
Comes the navi Yeshayahu in this week’s haftara and says (40:26): “Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these, who takes out their host by number; all of them He calls by name; because of His great might and because He is strong in power; no one is missing.”
Pondering the heavenly bodies, studying them and nature in general, can be a way of getting to know the Creator better and appreciating all that He did and does for us.
Now a word about Tu B’Av. The last Mishna in Taanit tells us that there were no more joyous holidays in Judaism than Tu B’Av and Yom Kippur.
Without going into all the reasons that have been attached to Tu B’Av, let me choose one of numerical interest. According to our Tradition, not only was it decreed that the adult male population of the generation of the Midbar should wander for 40 years and die out without entering the Holy Land (except for Yehoshua and Kalev), but they actually died on Tisha B’Av – about 15,000 each year. In the final year of wandering, the remaining 15,000 were prepared to die on Tisha B’Av. They dug graves and slept in them, not expecting to wake up in the morning. When to did wake up, they assumed that they had erred in counting the days of the month. It was when the moon of that month (Av) was full that they realized that G-d had commuted their sentences (so to speak). Thus, that day – the 15th of Av – became a day of celebration and thanks for the 15,000 who were spared. (See the CALnotes link on philotorah.co for more on Tu B’Av.)
Have an extra special Shabbat Shalom as we begin the period of nechama (comfort) following the days of mourning for Jerusalem.
