[Avodah] The Tochacha of Vayelech

[Arie Folger]

RAM wrote:
> We should write the Shira, and teach it and learn it, and it will be a
> witness for us. And then, even when we eat, and are sated, and got fat, the
> Shira will testify for us.
>
> What's going on? Beside the original mitzvah to write the Shira in the
> first part of Devarim 31:19, the Shira is mentioned another three times in
> the following pesukim. Something significant is being talked about, and
> somehow, I'm missing the point.
>
> My guess is that - especially if the Shira refers to the whole Torah - then
> perhaps it is telling us that learning Torah will bring us back to Hashem.
> But somehow I think there's something more going on. And if the Shira is
> Haazinu, then I'm totally lost.

That tokhekhah testifies to the enternity of our covenant, and also utilizes 
the fact that discovering the past can prompt one to mend his ways. When we 
become distant, this text will remind us that the covenant is eternal and 
there is a way back. It also will startle us to see how accurate the Torah 
anticipated our later states of being.

Kind of like one pshat in what was discovered by the Kohanim in the days of 
Yoshiyahu: Moshe's sefer Torah was found open on the text of Devarim 28:36 
("HaShem will bring thee, and thy king whom thou shalt set over thee, unto a 
nation that thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; and there shalt thou 
serve other gods [of] wood and stone.").

G'HT
-- 
Arie Folger
http://ariefolger.wordpress.com
http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com