Torah reading: Deuteronomy 11:26 to 16:17.
Haftarah: Isaiah 54:11 to 55:5. (3rd Haftarah of Consolation).
Today, I'm going to focus on the Deutoronomy passage. To a modern reader, this section -- mostly a series of laws -- probably strikes us as a rather odd mixture. Some elements might seem progressive and liberal, even utopian: the setting aside of tithes for "the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows", the command that debts be cancelled and slaves be freed every seven years, the emphasis on lending freely to the poor without expectation of repayment.
But then there's the other half. We'd call these commands rigid at best, and savage at worst: the idea that God can only be worshipped in certain state-mandated ways and at certain times and places. Some foods that must be eaten (e.g. the Passover dinner) and others that cannot be (pigs, rabbits, shellfish). The differentiation between Israelites and foreigners (e.g. in applying the seven-year rule about debt forgiveness.) And, worst of all, what we could call extreme religious intolerance, even theocracy: the command to destroy, smash, burn, kill, and utterly obliterate any trace of any other gods or the people who dare to worship them.
To us, such an approach seems bizarre. Surely any sort of God worth worshipping can see and hear us no matter where and how we pray, what name we use for the Divine, and what sort of foods we eat! Aren't love, mercy, forgiveness and justice the things that really matter -- not whether we had bacon for breakfast or followed a particular ritual before praying?