We will meet at the Temple Saturday 8/5 at 9:00 am.

Va'etchanan begins Moses' speech to the Israelites before they enter Canaan, which makes up most of Deuteronomy. "Va'etchanan" means "I implored", referring to Moses' asking God once again to let him enter the land with the rest of the Nation. God already told him emphatically in Numbers that not only was he not entering the land, but he should stop asking already! God is not one to change His mind. Why did Moses bring it up again? The sages suggest that since the Reubenites and Gadites took transjordanian conquests as their portions of land, and that Moses was there on that land, that perhaps the conditions had changed and since he was already on Israelite land, he could continue across the Jordan. Unfortunately for Moses, he was mistaken. Moses' speech starts off with a bang - this parasha includes both the Ten Utterances (not Ten Commandments in Judaism, because there are actually 14 commandments contained in the ten statements!) and the Shema.

Parshat Va'etchanan - Deuteronomy 3:23 - 7:11 read it here.

Isaiah's prophecy in the haftora is selected not to correspond to the material in the parasha, but because this reading always falls the week after Tisha B'av. We have had haftorot of warning leading up to this point. Now we get haftorot of consolation leading into Elul and the high holy days. The first two words of the haftorah "Nachamu, nachamu..." mean "Comfort, comfort..." reflecting the nature of the message, that God will not abandon Israel.

Haftorat Va'etchanan - Isaiah 40:1-26 read it here.