Torah Portion of the Week

Va'etchanan ואתחנן

Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11

Parshat Va'etchanan ('And I pleaded') contains some of the most foundational passages in all of Judaism. Moses recounts his impassioned plea to enter the Land — denied by God, who instead allows him only to view it from Mount Pisgah. He then delivers a sweeping oration on the uniqueness of Israel's covenant: no nation has ever heard God speak from fire and survived, nor has any god attempted to take a nation from within another nation by trials, signs, and wonders. The parsha includes the repetition of the Ten Commandments, the first paragraph of the Shema ('Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One'), the commands of tefillin and mezuzah, and urgent warnings against idolatry and intermarriage — all framed by Moses' plea that the next generation internalize what their parents witnessed at Sinai and transmit it faithfully to their children.


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Prophetic Reading

Haftarah הפטרה

Isaiah 40:1–40:26

ישעיהו

"Comfort, comfort My people" — the first of the Seven Haftarot of Consolation after Tisha B'Av. Isaiah's words of comfort echo Moses' plea for God's mercy in the parsha.




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