This week’s Parashat talks about the fear of God. Here are the 5 verses that tells us how to have the fear of God.
Deuteronomy 31:9-13 NLT
“So Moses wrote this entire body of instruction in a book and gave it to the priests, who carried the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, and to the elders of Israel. Then Moses gave them this command: “At the end of every seventh year, the Year of Release, during the Festival of Shelters, you must read this Book of Instruction to all the people of Israel when they assemble before the Lord your God at the place he chooses. Call them all together—men, women, children, and the foreigners living in your towns—so they may hear this Book of Instruction and learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the terms of these instructions. Do this so that your children who have not known these instructions will hear them and will learn to fear the Lord your God. Do this as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.””
Why does reading the word of God at a specific time cause us to have the fear of God? When we look back at everything Moses has shared in his speeches in the book of Deuteronomy. Everything points back to the Mt. Sinai moment. That is the moment when they truly had the fear of God. The same-thing is true here. Look at the timing. During the year you are forbidden to work the land. During the year where you have to put all your trust in God you will learn the fear of God. So during the biggest celebration of the year (Sukkoth) gather everyone together and read the entire book of the Law (Torah, 1st 5 books of the Bible). Do this so your children who were not at Mt. Sinai will learn to fear God. We will never know the Glory or Splendor of the the Sinai moment. However when we are in a moment of time when we have to trust God completely, if we read His law we will learn how to fear Him. We just completed a Shemitah. You may not have known it it was a Shemitah Year. 5 days after the Day of Atonement we will enter Sukkoth a time to read the entire Torah. It is time we get reacquainted with our God, the King of the Universe.
