We at last begin Deuteronomy, and immediately things open from the commentary to make it clear that this book is partially about chewing out the Israelites, which explains a lot in retrospect.
Honestly, there's not too much we got into this night that wasn't rehashing some previous discussions since we were missing a few people, but also because the first three chapters are mostly just Moses recounting the journey of the Israelites as well as several of their conquests against the Ammorites et al. Only so much to say that isn't further commentary on the parts where they annihilated cities and their people which is, as noted previously, Not Ideal. There was a weird bit of play and counterplay though, where the sages observed that Moses offered peace before taking other action after the example of G-d offering the Torah to Abraham's other lineages first even though they knew they'd decline, but we also see a recurrance of the phrasing that "g-d hardened their hearts" which doesn't get nearly the amount of analysis as with Pharaoh.
We did get to read the haftarah this week, which was the opening chapter of Isaiah. It seemed to us that it was paired with this week because it's also a rebuke to Israel, though in this case for things including idolatry and neglecting the widow and the orphan. Also always interesting to see how poetic the literary prophets can be; there are some stock metaphors that get used a lot even in modernity, but there's some interesting stuff in there descriptively.
So, commentaries.
Ibn Ezra identifies for us a metaphor
Rashi, when discussing why Moses did something that was good in his sight but not explicitly in G-d's, gives us some business acumen
He then starts posting about projecting on your friends in a real callout none of us were expecting
Ibn Ezra also refers to his explanation of beatdowns
One of the conquered peoples was led by a man by the name of Og; he was a giant, and we have discerned that his bed is roughly the size of two king mattresses laid end to end, a very important thing to know. It's always an omer is a tenth of an ephah hours in jennachat torah studies.
There was also a description in the haftarah from Rashi discussing the meaning of soundness, which struck me in a way I cannot entirely explain and wish to share
I will say though, it was kinda hard to get through the haftarah because several verses in I couldn't stop thinking of the dril tweet about the horses
we’re back to the final book of the torah, and moses’s final address to the people before his death. the tone is understandably kind of different, because it’s written as speech.
we noted last year that what we could discuss about this portion was a lot of rehashing of things from previous books—which makes sense, since a lot of this part is moses summarizing their journey so far and what it means, and also how the people were stiff-necked and kept drawing g-d’s ire because we have to talk about that constantly because that’s the story of the torah in large part.
we did take particular note of one thing: moses states that g-d hardened the heart of king sihon when the israelites asked to pass through peaceably, which we noted wasn’t really mentioned in previous recountings of that episode, which feels like an explicit attempt to draw a narrative parallel there
also the sages have some really funny arguments about things such as bees and what they mean for battles, and what getting beaten down means in specifics.
since it went pretty fast, we got into the haftarah, wherein isaiah rebukes israel for abandoning g-d and pursuing corruption, calls for change, and warns the nations of their ultimate downfalls (but also talks about the potential for redemption). we always get into “how is this related to the main portion,” and this one feels like a kind of interesting… both refrain (about how the people Israel are always getting into trouble) and also bookend (about the direction that this nation they’re about to found might end up, looking to the future).
this also prompted a discussion among us about the cycle of lamenting society’s descent into sin and iniquity and poor behavior—both in the tanakh as well as just. in literally every society? or at least, someone always seems to be doing that, whether they’re right or not. it was also noteworthy to us that the text mentions that the sacrifices are still being observed, and yet just doing that isn’t sufficient to be a good and just society.
"this is like g-d being like, oh, so you want to smoke cigarettes [in response to the people’s desire for a king]? smoke this entire pack of kings" —chavurah member pleroma
local chavurah opinion: kings bad
chavurah member @geostatonary linked the prophets as an interesting read while we were talking about the way prophets tend to be both hearkening back to the past in a kind of conservative way but also sounding the call toward a more just society, during which pleroma also remarked that “this is just dark souls”