Akev, the covenant and the love. An interesting phrase appears at the end of last week's

Parachar and the beginning of this week's, and they are the only places where it appears in the

Torah. The phrase is, Habrit, or in this week's Parcha, Etabrit and these are the verses.

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God.

He's the faithful God keeping the Brit and the

chesed to a thousand generations of those who love him

and keep his commandments.

And again in this week's Par parish, if you pay attention to

these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep the Brit and the

Chesed with you as he swore to your ancestors. Now, the phrase is strange because the relationship

between God and Israel is defined by Brit covenant. That essentially

is the content of the Torah. What then is added by the word chesed? The translators have a

problem with it. The Jewish Publication Society's translation of the opening verse of our

parja is, and if you obey these rules and

observe them carefully, the Lord your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that

he made on earth with your fathers. This translates chasset as faithfully and takes it as a

qualification of the verb, maintain or keep. Now that's a very

stretched translation. A non-Jewish translation, the new international version, translates

Habrit Vah Khed as covenant of love.

Now, that's a very Christian translation.

The covenant entered into between the Israelites and God was a covenant of law, not just of love.

Ari A Kaplan in the Living Terror got it right.

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