Parashat Ki Tavo 5782

The Gemara interprets the word hasket in this verse homiletically, as an acronym of the words as, make, and kat, group. Form [asu] many groups [kitot] and study Torah, for the Torah is only acquired through study in a group.

The Gemara offers an alternative explanation of this verse: “Keep silence [hasket] and hear, Israel”; break [kattetu] yourselves over words of the Torah. This is in accordance with the opinion of Reish Lakish, as Reish Lakish said: From where is it derived that matters of Torah are only retained by one who kills himself over it? As it is stated: “This is the Torah: When one dies in a tent” (Numbers 19:14); true Torah study demands the total devotion of one who is willing to dedicate his life in the tent of Torah.

(1) Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov entered and expounded: “Moses and the priests, the Levites, spoke to all Israel, saying: Pay attention and hear Israel, this day you have become a people [to the Lord your God]” (Deuteronomy 27:9). Was it that day that they received the Torah? Had it not been forty years already since they received the Torah, and you say “this day”? Rather, it teaches that since Moses reviewed the Torah for them and they received it welcomingly, the Torah ascribed them credit as though they had received it that day from Mount Sinai. That is why it is stated: “This day you have become a people to the Lord your God.”

1. And Moses said. And the levitical priests and so on. To understand this case, we'll start with the difference between the covenant at Horeb (which is Mount Sinai) and the covenant on the plains of Moab. The difference is that at Mount Sinai it was God who caused the Israelites to want to receive the Torah, by sending Moses to tell them only the good things. And God appeared to them on Mount Sinai as thunder and lightening and a heavy cloud, which caused fear to be grow in them, as is written, "And Moses said... "let there be fear of God upon your faces so that you do not sin." For this reason, they said only "all that God said we will do" in the manner that one who acts out of fear will say that he will do all that he is commanded. And they will not say, "we hear" because one doing something from fear does not want to understand the plan for his actions. Only after they heard the ten commandments and the laws in parashat mishpatim and after Moses reads the book of the covenant to the people, then they will say, "we will do and we will hear." For at the beginning they acted only from fear but they also listened and began to see and understand the reason for the commandments and they began also to awaken themselves and become closer to the Torah of God.

But the covenant on the plains of Moab was after Moses said all the words of the Torah which we mentioned above, that they devoted themselves to cling to God and they desired greatly to receive all the Torah. As a result of their awakening, God promised them again all the things which God had promised early on Mount Sinai. Thus, for them, the "hearing" coming before the "doing" and the "hearing" was "understanding." This is always the case for one who acts act of love - when he hears a commandment from a place of love, he tries to know the purpose of the desire for his love for the commandment and what benefit he will find in this act so that he will be able to fulfill every aspect of the desire for his love, not so that he will know if he this desire is reasonable he will do it and if not he won't.

Hascat and hear Israel. That they should listen and understand, as is the way of a servant acting out of love.

This very day when Moses finished the recitation of the Torah.

You have become the people of your God YHWH. You, yourselves, have received the yoke of his kingship with love and clung to it because by means of the recitation of the Torah they had entered into a covenant on the plains of Moab.