Parashat Vaetchanan - Fourth Aliyah

The aliyah opens with Moshe’s call: “shema Yisrael et hachukim ve’et hamishpatim” (Hear, Israel, the statutes and the laws, Deuteronomy 5:1), not merely a general command but a personal invitation to listen deeply. Moshe reminds the people that the covenant at Chorev is not a historical tale about distant ancestors, it stands here and now: “itanu anachnu eleh foh hayom kulanu chayim” (with us, we who are all here alive today, Deuteronomy 5:3).

He describes the awesome revelation: face to face with God, the fire burning, the divine voice heard. And Moshe, as intermediary, conveys the word of God, not because God is distant, but because Israel feared the fire and did not go up the mountain.

Here the Ten Commandments are given again, the foundations of faith and morality. The accepted division is five and five. The first five are between a person and God: faith in the one God, the prohibition of serving idols or making an image, honoring God’s name, keeping Shabbat, and honoring one’s parents. Honoring parents seems at first glance to belong among the commandments between people, but the Gemara teaches that its place is precisely here: “Scripture equated the honoring of father and mother with the honoring of the Omnipresent” (Kiddushin 30b). The last five are between a person and their fellow: the prohibitions of murder, adultery, theft, false testimony, and coveting, and with coveting it is not only the act but even the inner desire.

The command “Shamor et yom haShabbat lekadsho” (Keep the day of Shabbat to sanctify it, Deuteronomy 5:12) appears here in wording different from that in the book of Shemot. Rashi addresses this: “And in the first ones He says ‘Remember.’ Both were spoken in a single utterance and in a single word, and were heard in a single hearing” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 5:12). The emphasis here is the dimension of freedom: just as you went out from the house of bondage, so too your servant and your animal shall rest. Shabbat is a space of equality and compassion.

Moshe reminds us that the covenant is not memory alone, but a daily commitment. The Ten Commandments are not merely a “religious” code of law, but the foundation for a life of holiness, morality and responsibility. So too on Shabbat, where rest is not only relaxation but living testimony to faith, to freedom, and to values that stand above time.