Дварим 29:13 Комментарий: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Ibn Ezra, Or HaChaim & Rabbeinu Bahya

“Not with you alone” [29:13]. The oath that Israel took was to keep the Torah and it was also for all future generations and not only for those who were present at that time. Our sages say that all the souls that were created since the creation of the world. They were all present at that oath. Therefore, each person should know and remember that he swore to keep the Torah. He should be warned to keep his oath. However, perhaps there are those who do not believe in the oath. They are, because of our sins, transgressing and say, I am not afraid of the curses. He says, I will go after my heart’s desire. There are many righteous people in the world. They will protect me. I am an individual who commit sins, and I will follow my heart’s desire until I have had a taste and then I will stop. However, he does not know anymore that he will only have his bite. He will have more desire to commit sins and he never has enough. He thinks he will make his evil inclination satiated. First, he makes the evil inclination very hungry by having thoughts of committing sins. Afterwards, God punishes him for these evil thoughts, since much depends on the heart’s thoughts. When the person is happy in his heart to fulfill a commandment, then his reward is great. Similarly, when he is happy to commit sins, then his evil payment is very great. There are some people who are sad in their heart when they have committed a sin, and they say, why have we sinned? His heart is stopped up and his sin is not so great because his heart is stopped up and also because his heart has regrets. However, there are also many people whose heart burns for the sin. They would gladly commit the sin again. This has a double evil payment, to pay him with pain and suffering. Concerning this, our sages said, “thoughts of a sin are worse than the sin itself.” This means that the sin that the person thought about for a long time and then does it, this sin is very evil because he first had impure thoughts to do evil. Maimonides writes. When the person contaminates his thoughts so that his heart has thoughts to commit sins, his soul becomes impure. This is a great sin that he thinks about the sin. He wants to do it again and he does it. The Holy One judges him with evil punishments. However, before he does the act, the Holy One does not judge him for the evil thoughts, since the Holy One does not judge Israel for evil thoughts alone, when he has not yet committed the sin. However, the person should not accustom himself to have evil thoughts, since in the end he will have to do this. The Holy One leads the person in accordance with the evil thoughts for which the person has desires.⁴Bahya, Deuteronomy, 29:18.

Not with you alone but rather, with you, and with those who shall come after you: your children, and your children’s children.

ולא אתכם לבדכם…כי את אשר ישנו פה ואת אשר איננו פה, "Not only with you alone, but both with those who are present here today as well as with those who are not here today." Why did Moses have to spell out "and not with you alone?" Would it not have sufficed to write "the ones who are here today, as well as the ones who are not, etc.?" This would have made it clear that the covenant was not made exclusively with the people present at that time! However, the whole intention of these verses is to obligate the people present at this time to commit their offspring to observe the Torah, forever. In order to make this plain the Torah had to write: "not with you alone, etc." Had the Torah written only the second half of the verse I would have known that future generations are obligated to observe the Torah; I would not have known, however, that those present were charged with seeing to it that their offspring kept the Torah. By writing the words: ולא אתכם לבדכם, the Torah makes it unmistakably clear that not only the obligation to keep the Torah applied to the generation present, but even the obligation to see to it that their children would also do so.