Devarim

Yes, late again. Maybe I should make it a policy to be one week behind. Then I wouldn’t be late all the time.

Devarim is the first parsha in the Book of Deuteronomy. The entire parsha is an extended recap of Exodus and Numbers, like that hour-long special they showed before the Lost series finale. Much of it is told in first person by Moses. It’s an extended monologue: “And then God said this, and we did that, and I said this, and you did that, and ...” “And I said to you at that time, saying, 'I cannot carry you alone.’” (1:9) “ How can I bear your trouble, your burden, and your strife all by myself?” (1:12) And then you pissed God off, and He punished you like so, and I pissed God off, and he punished me, and these are all the people we displaced, and so as to justify our exterminating them I’ll mention how those peoples were in the land because they’d come in and exterminated the people who lived there before them, who had done the same to the people who lived before them. And here we are, back in the bloodbath.