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Share(א) אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה וכו'. במדבר בערבה מול סוף בין פארן ובין תופל. נראה לפרש שערבה הוא לשון ערב (דברים א, א). והנה בברייתו של עולם ערב קודם לבוקר כדאמרינן בריש ברכות. ואם כן תחלת ימי האדם נקראים ערב.לזה אמר בערבה מול סוף, דהיינו בהתחלת שנותיו של אדם תיכף יהיו כל מעשיו מול השכינה שנקראת סוף כידוע. בין פארן, כמו שדרשו רבותינו ז"ל שנקרא פארן שמשם יוצא פריה ורביה. ובין תופל, כמו שפירש רש"י לשון דיבור, והיינו שבין ברית המעור ובין ברית הלשון הכל יהיה מול סוף בקדושה ושמירה מעולה:
(1) Deuteronomy 1,1. “These are the words which Moses spoke to the entire people of Israel in the desert, facing the wilderness near Suph between Paran and between Tophel and Lavan.”
It seems reasonable to see in the word ערבה, wilderness, a reference to the first time the word ערב appears in the story of Creation (Genesis 1,5) where the meaning is “evening,” a transition from day to night. At the time of the creation the evening preceded the first morning, as before the creation of light the universe had been in darkness, as we read there in verse 2, and as the Talmud points out in the beginning of tractate B’rachot, when discussing the times for reciting the keriyat sh’ma. If we take our cue from that paragraph in the Torah, the early years of our lives would be described as ערב. Having this in mind, the Torah, i.e. Moses, alludes here to the need for every human being from his earliest youth to focus all of his activities on the aspect of G’d familiar to us by the name Shechinah, “G’d’s Presence.”
The deeper meaning behind the words: בין פארן, is that this is the site on earth from which the ability for living creatures on earth to become fruitful and to multiply is derived. As to the words: ובין תפל, we follow Rashi, who quotes Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who claims that no one has ever been able to find these two locations. He therefore concluded that these names are similes, used by Moses to rebuke the Israelites who had spoken derisively of the manna (Numbers 1,7), which was white, לבן. The word תפל, [possibly as root of: תפלה “prayer”. Ed.], according to Rashi, is another word for “speech” (presumably Israel’s accepting the Torah with the words נעשה ונשמע, “we shall do and we shall listen (to instruction).” Moses’ address teaching the Israelites to make G’d their focus at all times, and to observe these covenants meticulously, covers the period between the covenant of circumcision made with Avraham and that of the Ten Commandments made with the assembled Jewish nation at Mount Sinai.
