When you will bear children and grandchildren and become old-timers in the Land, growing corrupt … doing evil in the eyes of G-D, making Him angry, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that you will surely perish from the land … G-D will scatter you … you will be left few in number among the nations … There you will serve the idolatrous works of man, wood and stone … but when, from there, you will seek G-D with all your heart and soul, you will find Him; in your distress, when all these things have happened to you, at the end of days you will return to G-D and obey his voice (Deut. 4 : 25-30).

This gripping passage of prophesy extracted from Moses’ passionate peroration in this week’s sidra is also the initial section of the Torah reading selected for Tisha b’Av. Here Moses, having recorded the promise of ultimate return to G-D (end of above quote), goes on to ask the people, rhetorically and rhapsodically, whether any nation could ever expect to see anything like that which the nation of Israel has witnessed these past forty years. Absolutely not! Why not? Because “G-D loved your forefathers and [therefore] chose you, their descendants … to do ultimate good to you and........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)