Parsha:

Va'etchanan 

Description

The first commandment is to believe in God, to know Him and to be cognizant of His everlasting presence. The last mitzvah forbids us from coveting, from being "envious of a neighbor's house, wife, slave..." The two dibrot, the first and the last, are mitzvot relating not to action but to mind and thought and in doing so define how and why these laws are not merely societal laws but Jewish laws. without God, the revealer of Torah, there is no rhyme or reason for mitzvot. ...But can the desire itself be legislated? Ironically, or insightfully, it is this prohibition against coveting which most clearly characterizes the Jewish, Godly aspect of the Ten Commandments.