Dvarim

There are two equal obligations of remembering found in this week’s parasha. The more famous one is to remember what Amalek did to us. But there is also an obligation to remember the affliction of tzara’at that Hashem did to Miriam after she spoke a few errant words about her brother, Moshe.

One of the serious commandments in our parasha is to be careful not to be swayed by the ways of idol worship in the Land, such as burning one’s children in the fire to the idols (Devarim 12:30-31). Indeed there was a very great concern that after entering the Land, Bnei Yisrael would be negatively impacted by the indigenous population. The Torah went about this in an interesting way, claiming that the idolatry was so despicable that people actually killed their children in the process.