BH
In Parshat Ha'azinu we read the famous song Moshe teaches the Jewish people prior to his passing. The song itself encompasses the whole of Jewish past and future, centered on the call to do what G-d asks and expects. After completing it, Moshe continues and tells the Jewish people to "Take to heart all of the words which I bear witness for you this day" (Devarim 32:46).
What exactly does Moshe mean by these words? After spending countless verses on the importance of mitzvot and how being faithful to G-d is the source of all blessings, why would Moshe need to add this point? What is added with the call to "take to heart all of the words"?
Rabbi Yitzchak Abarbanel explains that Moshe is actually giving us a fundamental instruction here, one that needs to be stressed.
There are those who would like to suggest that individual commandments in the Torah are not meant to be taken literally, but rather fulfilled in a more general sense. Viewed this way, mitzvot become allegorical rather than literal. Abarbanel adds that this is, in fact, the prevailing approach among people outside the Jewish faith when reading the Torah. They may embrace the message or concept while quietly setting aside the actual mitzvah being transmitted.
This is why Moshe adds, "Take to heart all of the words which I bear witness for you this day." Just as when someone testifies in court to having witnessed a murder, we don't interpret his words to mean he saw someone neglecting to study Torah. His testimony is understood literally, word for word. So too with the Torah.
Every word, every verse, every mitzvah, every detail, though it carries within it layers of wisdom and knowledge, can never let us lose sight of the literal instruction, the actual action G-d asks of us.
Moshe's closing words remind us that the seemingly small, literal act is never less than the loftiest intention behind it. It is the intention, fully and completely fulfilled.
Shabbat Shalom Gmar Chatima Tova
