A Taste of Torah in Honor of Shabbat
by Rabbi Avi Weiss

Parshat Devarim
9 Av 5758/July 31-August 1, 1998

Who wrote the Book of Deuteronomy (Sefer Devarim)?

On the one hand it appears that God did not pen Devarim as the phrase "And the Lord spoke to Moshe (Moses) saying " appears nowhere in the last book of the Torah.

On the other hand, the very idea of Torah min ha-shamayim, Torah from heaven, means that all of the Torah comes from God.

In his introduction to Devarim, Abrabanel, the fifteenth century Spanish commentator, distinguishes between the spoken word of God and that which God mandated to be written.   Although God, of course, speaks in the Torah, not every word in the Torah was said by the Almighty.  On countless occasions human beings speak (e.g. Avraham, Pharoah, etc) sometimes under Divine inspiration, sometimes not.  Separate, however, from these spoken words is the axiom that every word of the Torah was written by God in that God testifies that these words were said and upon His dictation and approval, recorded by Moshe in the Torah.

Our question is therefore answered.  In the words of Abrabanel, "although Moshe delivered his address to Israel on his own, the words as recorded in the Torah were not written on his own...However, God concurred with the words of His loyal representative, and by dictating and arranging these words....He revealed them, and Moshe heard and recorded them, like every part of the whole Torah."

Hence, the Book of Devarim begins with God's declaration," These are the words that Moshe spoke to all Israel...in the fortieth year....Moshe began explaining this Torah saying." (Deuteronomy 1:1-5)  In other words, these were the words of Moshe as approved by God.

Several ideas emerge from this analysis.  First, Torah min ha-shamayim does not mean that God spoke every word of the Five Books of Moses at Sinai. After all, Moshe spoke Devarim at the end of the forty year trek through the desert.  Second, the position of the Bible critics, that bearing in mind the different styles of writing in the Torah, it must have had numerous authors, falls by the wayside.  After all, in the written Torah God records the way different personalities spoke--their tone, their style, their language may have been different.

Third, as God is eternal, so is the Torah eternal.  After all, the Torah in its entirety is an expression of God's revelation.  No wonder our portion is read on the ninth of Av.  Despite the calamity of the destruction of the Temples, we can take comfort in the recognition that God and His Torah are eternal.  And so is the Jewish people to whom God gave the Torah.  Am Yisrael Chai.

SHABBAT SHALOM

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Rabbi Avi Weiss, Hebrew Institute of Riverdale
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