Torah Commentary

By linking the incident of the female prisoner of war to the hated wife and rebellious child, Rashi encourages us to consider the consequences of treating others as objects.

The commandment to remove a corpse from the stake on which it is impaled teaches us the importance of respecting the holiness of the body.

The reward of long life for the seemingly simple commandment of shooing away a mother bird before taking her young teaches us that no act is trivial.

The instructions to pursue justice and practice communal responsibility should motivate us to constantly improve our efforts to alleviate the crises that affect our people.

Moses reviews for the Israelites their system of justice, the rules of kingship, their relationship to idolatrous nations, and the rules of doing battle.

The understanding that Israelite troops were addressed on two different occasions before they entered war reflects the idea that our reactions to war often depend on its imminence.

From the commandment not to cut down trees in war, we derive the prohibition against the careless destruction of nature.

Remission of debt and freeing of slaves are two biblical institutions that ensure that cycles of poverty are not perpetuated.

The second paragraph of the Shema teaches us the importance of the communal observance of Judaism.

Moses' message to relate to God through love, not only through fear, is especially relevant in the modern age.