Re'eh

The posuk says that you will get beracha when you listen to the mitzvos of 'ה & cursed if you don't. Later on in the Torah it says ובחרת בחיים - and choose life. The ספרי asks, why does it have to tell us that? Isn't that obvious? He then brings a mashal of a person who was sitting at a fork in the road, & before him were two paths; one started off clear & ended in thorns, & one started off thorny & ended clear. Informing the passersby that even though you see that this path seems clear, in a few steps it will be rocky & thorny, but this other path, while rocky at first, will be clear in a few steps. So too, Moshe was saying to Klal Yisroel that even though you see reshaim that have it good for two or three days, that's only in olam hazeh; their end will be suffering. You also might see tzadikim that suffer for two or three days in olam haze, but ultimately their end is that they'll be happy.ר' צדוק asks, is it only for two or three days that we see tzadikim suffering or reshaim prospering? We know 'ה pays reshaim for their mitzvos here & pays the tzadikim for their minuscule aviros here so that in olam haba each one will get the full reward or punishment they deserve. So what does the analogy of two or three steps mean? The Posuk says,ראה אנכי נתן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה See I put before you blessing & curse. הברכה אשר תשמעו the blessing that you will listen to the mitzvos of Hashem. והקללה אם לא תשמעו and the curse if you don't listen. וסרתם מן הדרך and go off the path of 'ה. The כלי יקר says the Posuk needs explaining, for normally when the Torah says that you should listen, it always follows with an active command of doing. For example, in Shema it says והיה אם שמע, & right after it says to serve with all your heart. Also, in last week's Parsha it said והיה עקב תשמעון & right after that it says you should observe and perform them.  Listening is really only accepting in your heart to do the mitzva, but that's not enough. You have to do an action. Like it says in the next posuk, והקללה אם לא תשמעו & right after it qualifies it by saying if you go off the path. What's the point of hearing a command if you're not going to observe it? In Lech L'cha, when 'ה tells אברהם to leave his home, He says to him, I will bless those who bless you & those that curse you will be cursed. If you notice, it says that to those who give a brocha, 'ה says, He's going to bless even before they blessed אברהם, but to curse it's only after they would curse him. The reason is, ה' gives credit for good things even if it's just a thought. So one who wants to bless will be blessed even before he does it. However, when it comes to cursing & doing bad, 'ה doesn't punish until a person actually does the bad deed. That's why only after they curse will they be cursed. With this we can understand our Posuk, says the כלי יקר. When it says the curses, it has to say when you don't listen & go off the path you'll get cursed, for 'ה won't punish unless one actually does the bad. But by the Bracha all one has to do is listen & accept to do good. That alone is enough for the Bracha to take effect & the Bracha itself will help you to fulfill your good intentions.
Maybe with this we can answer ר' צדוק's question, that what Moshe meant over here wasn't to answer the age old question why do bad things happen to good people, but to help us to choose the right path, telling us even though when you start to do the mitvos it might be hard, don't give up, for after a few days with the help of 'ה's beracha you'll start to enjoy doing them & then it will be smooth sailing. By sinning the converse is true. Although once one starts sinning it seems easy & fun to start, after a few days you start feeling depressed & bogged down by guilt. So maybe what the ספרי meant was, even though it looks like fun not to listen, that won't last. Let's take the opportunity to get the beracha & have 'ה's help to get through the rough beginnings in order to get to the end where we'll enjoy learning the torah & doing the mitzvos!

eikev

The posuk says, 'ועתה ישראל מה ה אלהיך שאל מעמך כי אם ליראה את ה' וגו and now nation of Israel what does 'ה ask from you? Only to fear him etc.
The gemara in brachos asks, is יראה such a small thing that 'ה says that's all I'm asking of you? The gemara answers that yes, for Moshe & the people of that generation, it was. To prove that it's talking about the people of that generation, the כלי יקר says, if you look at the wording of the posuk, it says ועתה ישראל & NOW Israel, talking to the people of the generation that were there at that time, and saw all the great miracles that 'ה performed so that they should fear him. For Moshe and them, the fear of 'ה was easy.
The question that begs an answer is, what about now? How about us? Can we find it easy to have fear of 'ה?
Earlier in the Parsha we had the posuk of ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ה' אלהיך Eat be satisfied & bless 'ה your G-D רבינו בחיי says that from this posuk we can begin to understand the purpose of making brachos. The Brachos that we make are not for 'ה's benefit, for what does He gain from it if we bless Him? They're only to benefit us. When a person makes a bracha & acknowledges that what we have comes from 'ה, he is giving testimony to the power of 'ה. When we recognize that, 'ה sends more bracha into the world. One who doesn't make a bracha is denying the fact that everything comes from 'ה and subsequently lessens the bracha that 'ה puts in the world. It's even considered like he stole from the entire world. The בעל החינוך says over from his Rebbaim, that anyone who is careful to say ברכת המזון properly with the right concentration, will have his sustenance honorably all of his days.
On the Posuk of ועתה ישראל Now Yisroel , רבינו בחיי brings down the chazal that says, instead of reading it מה ה' שאל מעמך; What does ה' want from you, they add an Alef to the word מה to make it מאה one hundred 'ה wants from you, to make one hundred brachos a day.
Another allusion to the 100 brachos is if you count the letters in the posuk, there are 99. When you add the alef to the word מה it makes the count 100 alluding to the amount of brachos one should make per day
Maybe this is how it could be easy for us to fear ה'. When making the 100 Brachos a day, bearing in mind that when we make a Bracha we are bringing goodness into the world, we are acknowledging that all the good we have comes from 'ה & without His help we would have nothing. Focusing on that one hundred times a day when we make Brachos, and concentrating when we say ברכת המזון, for us too it will be easy to have יראת שמים and merit to have our sustenance easily & honorably as long as we live!

Va'eschanan

When Moshe relates the events of Har Sinai, he says that when we heard 'ה giving us the עשרת הדברות, after the second one, we said to Moshe קרב אתה ושמע את כל אשר יאמר ה' ואת תדבר אלינו we don't want to hear it from 'ה, but from you, Moshe.
If you look at the posuk it's worded strangely because it refers to Moshe in the feminine "את".
Rashi comments that the reason for that is because when they didn't want to hear the other 8 commandments from 'ה, they weakened Moshe, for he felt it meant they didn't want to get close to 'ה.
Moshe reasoned, wouldn't it be better to hear straight from 'ה than to hear from an intermediary!?
Interestingly enough, in the very next posuk 'ה says to Moshe, it's good that they wanted to hear it from you & not ME. How do we understand this apparent contradiction?
We could understand it like this. ר 'משה פיינשטיין explains that the difference was that Moshe felt a person should strive to be even more than he could be, to try to go above his capabilities, like it's brought down that a person should say מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשי אבותי "when am I going to reach the level of my fathers" whether he's capable of it or not.
But 'ה was saying no, I only demand from a person what he is capable of & if the people aren't at that level then its better they don't hear from me. The obvious question is, what's 'ה telling us? Not try hard & not to try to push ourselves to be better? Do we want a complacent nation?
The Rambam (מו"נ ח"ג, נא) writes on the posuk of שמע ישראל, "you should know that the purpose of all these עבודות like Torah & Tefila & all other mitzvos are just to bring us close to 'ה & to clear our mind from the mundane, and think only of 'ה. However if when one prays facing the wall, seemingly engrossed in prayer and his mind is on his business, or while learning just paying lip service, & your heart isn't there, or doing any mitzva with your limbs like you're digging a ditch without any thought, that is not what we were commanded to do". Now says the Rambam, I'm going to tell you how to come to do the mitzvos the right way. First he says, clear your thoughts of the mundane just for the first posuk of שמע, & the first beracha in שמונה עשרה. After you do this regularly & you have this down pat, doing this for many years, then you will begin to be able to learn the torah & put all your thoughts & heart into it slowly, one step at a time.
Maybe this is how we could understand what 'ה is telling us whens he says don't shoot for the stars. He's saying don't try to do it too fast. Don't take on more than you can in one shot. We have to grow slowly, by doing what we're capable of, & then slowly adding on as you reach each level. Then once you accustom yourself to growing it will be as Moshe says, and we'll attain the highest level, learning straight from Hashem!

devarim

This weeks parsha thought is dedicated
לזכר נשמת לייבוש בן יעקוב שמעון ע"ה

When Moshe is rebuking Klal Yisrael for the sin of the מרגלים, he says גם בי התאנף ה' בגללכם לאמר גם אתה לא תבוא שםAlso at me was 'ה angry because of you,to say, you too will not come there. יהושע בן נון העומד לפניך הוא יבוא שמה - Yehoshua who stands before you, he will come there.
If you look carefully at the pesukim, you'll notice that when it says Moshe won't go in, it says גם אתה לא תבוא שם, but when it talks about Yehoshua leading the people in, it says יהושע בן נון העומד לפניך הוא יבוא שמה. Why the difference in language? By Moshe it says שם and by Yehoshua it says שמה, in the very next posuk, talking about the same place.
The שמן אפרסמון says the difference is Moshe would have been happy just to go in for a minute to see it & then to go back to the Midbar to die, so it says שם, meaning not even for a minute will he go in. As for Yehoshua, who was going to bring them in and stay in, it uses a loshon of שמה, meaning that's he's going to stay there & lead Klal Yisrael.
How could we understand that? Why would Moshe have been happy just to go in to see the land? Didn't he want to lead the people in and build the בית המקדש? Not only that, the gemara says that had Moshe brought the Jews in & built the בית המקדש, it could never have been destroyed. So how could he have been happy just to see it?'אור החיים הק asks on the beginning of the posuk, where it says that 'ה got angry at Moshe too because of the sin of the מרגלים, that we don't see anywhere that 'ה got angry at Moshe for that sin. Not only that, but any time it mentions Moshe's death it sticks in his sin of hitting the rock, so we shouldn't think he is getting punished for the sin of the מרגלים. So why does he say that he too got punished for the sin of the מרגלים?
The night the Jews cried over the report of the spies was tisha b'av, when 'ה said now you're crying for nothing, I'll give you something to cry about for generations to come. Tisha B'av is the night the בית המקדש was destroyed, the cause of all our troubles.
The reason the chapter of Tehillim that talks about the destruction of the בית המקדש starts off מזמור לאסף, a song, instead of קינה לאסף, a lamentation, is because we're happy that 'ה took his anger out on wood & stones - the building of the בית המקדש, & not on the people themselves.
Had Moshe taken the jews into the land & built the בית המקדש, it never could have been destroyed, & when the jews sinned they would have been destroyed instead.
Therefore explains 'אור החיים הק, when the מרגלים sinned & all the people followed them, 'ה saw that the people were not going to retain their exalted status, but would sin. Therefore He decreed at that time that Moshe wouldn't bring them in & he would die in the midbar. When Moshe says that because of them he is also being punished, it's because their sin showed that they wouldn't be able to keep away from sin, & necessitated Moshe being punished in order to ensure the survival of the jewish people.
Maybe with this we could understand why Moshe would have been happy just to see the land & go back because Moshe didn't care about going into the land for himself, he only wanted what was best for the people. If by him going in there was a chance that the nation could one day be destroyed, he didn't want to go in. We could learn from him to be aware of how our actions could affect others, and if by doing something you could hurt someone else, even if its good for you, don't do it!