This week we read the first parsha in the book of Devarim - Deutoronomy - which begins a long, moving farewell speech by Moshe which continues until the very end of the book, which is the end of the Torah. The parsha, like the entire book of Deutoronomy,  is full of Moshe's recollections of the events of the past forty years, along with an attempt to convince the Israelites that, once he is gone and they enter the land of Israel, they must mend their ways and keep the covenant that has been made with God.

Well, the fighting here goes on. Every fifteen minutes or so there is something new online, on TV or radio, which moves, angers, saddens, frustrates, or scares us all, as well as so much which makes us very proud. This week's parsha, Masei, which is all about entering, fighting for, and settling the Land of Israel, certainly connects pretty seamlessly with our situation.

With the fighting still going on between Israel and Hamas, I want to share with you an interesting parallel between an argument taking place right now between left and right wing commentators and a verse from parshat Matot, as it is understood by an older commentator, Rashi. We'll work our way backwards, and start by looking at this video from Dennis Prager.

The Parsha of Pinchas begins immediately after Pinchas, at the end of last week's parsha, killed Zimri, the head of the tribe of Shimon, and Kosbi, a Midianite princess, who were publicly having sex. This was part of the Moabite/Midianite plan to seduce the Israelites to mate with their women, worship their idols, abandon Judaism, and become Midianites.  In this week's parsha, Pinchas is rewarded by God for his act of zealotry - one which the halacha condones, and which God desired - with בריתי שלום;  "my covenant of peace".

I was considering not writing anything this week. The ongoing tragedies we are experiencing here in Israel - the horrible murders of Eyal, Naftali and Gil-Ad, the continuing rocket attacks on southern Israel, and the awful murder of a 16-year old Palestinian boy - infinitely more awful if it was done by some Jewish imbecile who thinks, in some twisted way, that this atrocity could be some kind of response to the murder of our boys - have been commented on by everyone out there in the blogosphere, and I am not really sure that I have much to add.

When I was a kid, I used to get completely frustrated with Parshat Chukat. The story of Moshe hitting the rock, rather than speaking to it, in order to supply water for the ever-nudgy Jews in the desert was SO unfair. Back in Exodus (17;6), Moshe, faced with the same whining and complaining about the lack of water, was explicitly told by God to "hit" the rock to solve the problem.

Over the past months, a number of long-simmering halachic arguments have come to a boil. Here in Israel, the issue of giyyur - conversion - pertaining especially, but not solely, to olim from the former Soviet Union, has become a cause celebre, debated  vehemently in the backs of synagogues, the Knesset, the media and the blogosphere.  This isssue is of crucial importance for Israel's Jewish identity and character, and is a festering human rights issue.

This week's parsha, B'ha'alotchah, gives us one of the more dramatic examples of the Israelites' nudgy nature in the desert; the constant complaints about almost everything that comes their way, and their desire to return to Egypt. This round of whining is about the lack of meat in the desert. The Jews pine for the great food they ate in Egypt, "the fish...the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions and the garlic." They complain  that "now our souls are dried out, there is nothing [to eat], except for this manna...".

Parshat Bamidbar concerns itself with making the neccessary preparations for the People of Israel's entry into the Land of Israel. The very first order of business is arranging the camp for its travels. The newly-built Tabernacle is placed at the center of the nation, surrounded by the twelve tribes. The arrangement of the tribes around the Tabernacle, their position, their flags, and taking a census of each tribe, is the main order of business for our parsha. The census, giving us the exact numbers of each tribe,  takes up the much of the portion, as it is actually repeated twice.

Here in Israel, we are now living through an interesting period of the year. The weeks stretching from Pessach to Yom Hashoa, Yom Hazikaron (memorial day for Israel's fallen soldiers) and Yom Ha'atzmaut, followed by Yom Yerushalayim, commemorating the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, create a time when one can not help but think about Jewish history, and, most specifically, the role that geography plays in that history.