Parashat: VaYeilech

Parashat: VaYeilech
Torah Reading: Exodus 32:11–14, 34:1–10

“Gather the people, men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities – that they may hear [the Torah] and so learn to revere the Eternal your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching.”

— Deuteronomy 31:12

The instruction here at the very end of the Torah comes to establish the primacy of education, democratized learning, and a community of study in the Jewish tradition. It is of note that (here at least), the mitzvah of becoming educated, learning in order to translate into action, is incumbent on all regardless of gender, and that it is not limited to those formally within the community (i.e., those already Jewish) as the “stranger” is specifically mentioned as well. Learning is also clearly meant to be trans-generational and constant. Though the passage here leads to a periodic gathering to hear the whole Torah (as well as the full TaNaKh — the “Hakhel Gathering“), this is the impulse that leads to the establishment of a cycle of weekly Torah readings that allows us to hear/study the whole Torah in the span of one year. Take up the mitzvah and join us at Torah Study in the New Year of 5786 every Saturday morning at 9am!

— Rabbi Craig Axler