"For Instruction shall come forth from Zion, The word of the L-rd from Jerusalem." -- Isaiah 2:3

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DEUTERONOMY — 11:19 teach

DEUT534 In the verse that commands every parent to teach his or her child Judaism and the Torah [this verse], the Midrash states that from the moment a child can speak, the parent must teach the child Torah, and a parent must also teach the child to speak Hebrew. If a parent fails in either of these two obligations and the child does not learn either Torah or Hebrew, it is as if this parent has buried this child (since the next verse speaks about living in the land, and living [surviving] is conditional upon the child learning Hebrew and the Torah) (Midrash, Sifri, Eikev 10). This daunting statement is not merely an isolated Midrash. The most famous Torah commentator, Rashi, makes a similar pronouncement explaining the verse (Rashi commentary on this verse) and the Tosefta in the Talmud also echoes the same idea (Tosefta, Chagiga 1:3).

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DEUTERONOMY — 11:21 end

DEUT539 … Jewish Ethics penetrate the letter of the Law by asking its faithful followers to be undeterred by corrupt example, and to regard the whole of life as an attempt to bring earth near heaven [this verse]. As in the acquisition of genius, the gift of holiness can be acquired only by an infinite capacity for taking pains. To assist man in this holy quest, the sages of Judaism widened the "fence round the Law", [Abot i.I.) so that it confined the entire moral domain.

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DEUTERONOMY — 11:21 multiplied

DEUT540 For ultimately, long life is of itself no great blessing, if the added days are filled only with boredom and trivia and old age's increasing aches and pains. Torah brings a richer existence, infused with intimations of immortality in the radiance of the Divine Presence, to make the days a prelude to life in the world-to-come, for which the Torah is the ultimate passport. Finite time brings a mellifluous sense of infinity. In this sense does the second paragraph of Sh'ma bid us keep the Divine precepts faithfully "that your days… may be multiplied… as the days of the heavens above the earth" [this verse].

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