Deuteronomy (warning: long)

[adamzion]

Here are a few of my responses to your reactions, to to speak.

Originally posted by Dagnabit
(Moses is speaking, throughout most of the text.)

That's why the book of Devarim is occasionally referred to as the "Mishneh Torah"- literally, the "Repetition of the Torah," since it largely consists of Moshe repeating to B'Nai Yisrael everything which he has told them before, and everything which HaShem told him while he was on Mt. Sinai.

'And no working on Sunday. No only you, but your children can't work on Sunday either. And your slaves can't work on Sunday either. Or your livestock. Not even the out-of-towners in your spare bedroom can work on Sunday. Come on, you people were SLAVES before you met me. Why would you want to work on Sunday?'

Here's a perfect example of the problem of reading an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation. The Torah says nothing about not working on Sunday. Not a sausage. What is does says is to remember and guard Shabbat, the day of rest. This is because it took HaShem six days to create the universe, and G-d rested on the seventh. Judaism has always seen the seventh day as being Saturday (actually Friday evening through Saturday evening, as the Hebrew calendar recons days as going from sundown to sundown). Christianity, for whatever reason, moved the day of rest to Sunday.

So far, though, this is fairly well thought-out,
Z