Summary of Parshat Vaetchanan
Moses tells the Jewish people how he begged God to allow him to enter the Land of Israel. God refused, but instructed him to climb a mountain to see the Promised Land.
Continuing his review of the Torah, Moses describes the Exodus from Egypt and the Giving of the Torah, declaring them unprecedented events in human history. "Has this great event ever occurred, or has anything similar ever been heard of? Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the fire...and lived? ... You saw, so that you may know that God is God and there is no other except Him.".
Moses foretells that, in future generations, people will turn away from God, worship idols, be exiled from their land and scattered among the nations of the world; but there they will seek God and return to observe His precepts.
Our parashah also includes a repetition of the Ten Commandments, and the verses of the Shema that declare the foundations of the Jewish faith: the oneness of God ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one"); the precepts of loving God, studying His Torah, and "binding" these words like Tefillin on our arm and head, and inscribing them on Mezuzot affixed to the doorposts of our houses."
