Parashat Devarim – 5786

A D’var Torah for Parashat Devarim

By Rabbi Dr. Matthew Goldstone

July 13, 2026

“These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel” (Deut. 1:1). The final book of the Torah begins by emphasizing that what follows (“these”) are the words of Moses to the people of Israel. But Moses says many things to the Israelites, what makes these words different and worthy of note? The Midrash in Sifrei Devarim answers this question by suggesting that Moses’s words at the beginning of Deuteronomy are specifically words of rebuke. This theme is echoed in the haftarah for this week from the beginning of Isaiah in which the prophet channels God’s chastisement of the people for their wrongdoing.

Rebuke can easily provoke anger and other negative feelings. A midrash in Sifra (on the Book of Leviticus) recognizes the way in which rebuke can be tied up with hatred, cursing, hitting, and slapping. Such charged and violent actions can easily incite resentment. Indeed, another midrash in Sifra suggests that while all of the Israelites mourned for Aaron after his passing, only some of the Israelites mourned for Moses after his death because of his rebukes. But, there is another side of rebuke that is important to keep in mind during this period. In the recent AJR Supplement for Tu B’Av, You Shall Love, I suggest that rebuke can be an expression of love.

In antiquity, rebuking and telling the truth to another could be expressions of true friendship. Thus, Rabbi Yehudah the Patriarch taught, “Which is the proper way that a person should choose? Loving rebukes, for as long as rebukes are in the world, comfort comes to the world” (Tamid 28a). Indeed, the honesty driving this type of rebuke is empirically shown to be more pleasurable and less harmful to relationships than one would imagine.[1]

The loving side of rebuke brings me back to our haftarah. This portion of Isaiah includes the well-known phrase, “Be your sins like crimson, they can turn snow-white; be they red as dyed wool, they can become like fleece” (אִם־יִהְיוּ חֲטָאֵיכֶם כַּשָּׁנִים כַּשֶּׁלֶג יַלְבִּינוּ אִם־יַאְדִּימוּ כַתּוֹלָע כַּצֶּמֶר יִהְיוּ; Isaiah 1:18). This line becomes a refrain in the High Holiday period, especially on Yom Kippur, as we think about our hope that God will help purify us from our sins. But we often miss the first few words of this verse, which begins: לְכוּ־נָא וְנִוָּכְחָה – “come let us nivakhhah.” The word וְנִוָּכְחָה seems to come from the root י.כ.ח, the same root for rebuke (תוכחה). It appears in the nifal (passive or reflexive) form and also seems to be a cohortative (i.e., “let us,” spurring two or more parties into action, as indicated by the ה at the end of the word). Sermonically, I would interpret the term here along the lines of “let us engage in self-rebuke and allow ourselves to be rebuked by one another.”

In this midrashic-type interpretation I read the term both in the reflexive sense, of rebuking oneself, and in the passive sense, of letting oneself be rebuked. The two parties in this verse appear to be us, the people, and God. According to this reading, if we chastise ourselves for our misdeeds and actually allow ourselves to accept the chastisement from God (or others) for that which we have done wrong, then we allow for the possibility of our sins turning from red to white, from stained to purified.

But there is another side to the coin. If the two parties in וְנִוָּכְחָה are God and us, then this is also an invitation from God to allow Godself to be the recipient of our rebuke. If we are open to receiving rebuke, then God, our partner, will also be open to rebuke. And this rebuke, this truth telling, is an expression of love in our relationship with the Divine.

As we approach Tisha B’Av, reflecting on many of the disasters that have impacted the Jewish people over history, we should critique our own roles in allowing darkness into our world and, equally important, we should challenge God for God’s role in the evil that swirls around us. And, as we approach Yom Kippur, the season of praying that our sins may be purified, let us remember וְנִוָּכְחָה, that both we and God must be open to hearing the truth and receiving the rebuke for what we have done so that we can move forward with a clean slate for the year ahead.

[1] 1. Levine EE, Cohen TR. You can handle the truth: Mispredicting the consequences of honest communication. J Exp Psychol: Gen. 2018;147(9):1400-1429; cited in Christian B. Miller, The Honesty Crisis (Oxford UP, 2026): 224.