Following the standard Mitzvah-count of Mahara”m Hagiz (Rabbi Moshe Hagiz, Israel 1672-c.1751), Parashat Re’eh contains 55 of the 200 Mitzvot in the Book of Deuteronomy.

Parashat Re’eh actually has more than 55 Mitzvot, and the Book of Deuteronomy contains more than 200, but most of these have already been given earlier in the Torah and have therefore already been counted.

A very obvious example is the Mitzvah of kashrut, which we encounter for the second time in Parashat Re’eh (Deuteronomy 14:3-21):

First comes the general admonition not to eat any abomination (v. 3); then the limitations on land animals – we may eat only animals which chew their cud and have cloven hoofs (vs. 4-8); then the limitations on aquatic creatures – we may eat only such aquatic creatures as have fins and scales (vs. 9-10).

Then come the limitations on fowl (vs. 11-20): the Torah lists 21 species of birds (including bats) which are forbidden, and permits all other species. However, since the precise identities of most of the listed species are unclear and subject to dispute, halachah forbids all birds unless we have an unbroken tradition of the species being kosher (vide Rambam, Laws of Forbidden Foods 1:14-19 and Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah Chapter 82).

Finally comes the prohibition on cooking a kid in its mother’s milk (v. 21).

However all these laws have already been given: most of them in Parashat Sh’mini (Leviticus 11:1-23), and the prohibition on cooking a kid in its mother’s milk in Exodus 23:19 and 34:26.

This prompts the question: Why does the Torah, which is so sparing with its words, which does not contain even a single redundant letter – much less any redundant word, certainly not any redundant complete paragraph – repeat these laws?

It can only be because by repeating these laws, the Torah is teaching us something which did not come across first time round.

The Book of Deuteronomy was traditionally called the מִשְׁנֵה תּוֹרָה, Mishneh Torah, meaning approximately “Second Torah”, or “Restatement of the Torah”, precisely because so much of it repeats what had already been stated earlier.

Most of this Book is Moshe’s discourses, his farewell addresses to the nation he so loved, and had led and nurtured for more than 40 years, ever since he first confronted Pharaoh in Egypt.

And the Book of Deuteronomy is saturated with Moshe’s love for the Land of Israel, with his passionate yearning to enter the good Land.

The Book of Deuteronomy is our introduction to the Land of Israel. It covers the last few weeks of Moshe’s life, our last few weeks of desert wanderings before entering “the good Land which is beyond the Jordan, this good mountain and the Lebanon” (Deuteronomy 3:25).

It is our introduction to תּוֹרַת אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל – the Torah of the Land of Israel. The Midrash tells us that “there is no Torah like the Torah of the Land of Israel” (Bereishit Rabbah 16:14, Vayikra Rabbah 13:5, et al.).

What exactly is תּוֹרַת אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל – the Torah of the Land of Israel?

– The best way to explain it is through the writings and philosophy of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook zatza”l (Russian Empire and Israel, 1865-1935), the doyen of religious Zionism, whose Yahrtzeit falls next Friday, 3rd of Ellul (6th September).

Our history begins with Avram and Sarai, living in Mesopotamia. It progressed into Avraham and Sarah living in the Land of Israel, but still as no more than a single family – husband and wife with one son.

Then the family grew, and were forced into exile in Egypt. In Egypt the family grew into a multitude, and were for the first time recognised as a nation by Pharaoh who referred to them as “the nation of the Children of Israel” (Exodus 1:9).

Nevertheless, they were hardly a nation in the commonly-accepted sense of the word: they had no national sovereign independence, they had never seen their homeland, they had no national legal system of their own, and so forth.

Then came the Exodus and the Giving of the Torah, which gave them independence, autonomy, and their own legal system.

But they could only be a complete nation in the full sense of the term when they entered their homeland and achieved national sovereign independence therein.

The Torah of the Land of Israel is the Torah as a national Covenant, rather than just a “religion” devolving upon individuals or (at best) scattered communities.

The Torah of the Land of Israel is our application of the Torah as our national constitution, governing our national life in our sovereign homeland.

It is for this that the Book of Deuteronomy primes us.

So now, with this insight, we look again at the kashrut laws which the Torah repeats here.

Almost forty years earlier, in Parashat Sh’mini, the Torah introduced these laws with the words:

“Hashem spoke to Moshe and Aaron, saying to them: Speak to the Children of Israel, saying: This is the animal which you can eat…” (Leviticus 11:1-2). No word of explanation, no context, just a series of laws.

In our Parashah, however, Moshe gives us a few words of background and context:

“You are sons of Hashem your G-d; you shall not gash yourselves or make a bald patch between your eyes for the dead, because you are a holy nation to Hashem your G-d, Hashem chose you to be His nation, more treasured than all the nations on the face of the earth. You shall not eat any abomination…” (Deuteronomy 14:1-3).

So תּוֹרַת אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל, the Torah of the Land of Israel, contextualises kashrut. It’s not merely a religion – it’s what elevates us as a nation, sanctifies us as a nation. What we are allowed to eat is part of what defines us as a nation.

We now go back and examine this background a little closer:

“You are sons of Hashem your G-d; you shall not gash yourselves…”. The Hebrew phrase לֹא תִתְגֹּדְדוּ is usually translated as “you shall not gash yourselves”, as we have translated is here.

However the Talmud (Yevamot 13b et al.) and the Midrash (Sifri Deuteronomy, Re’eh 96 et al.) understands the word תִתְגֹּדְדוּ to be from the root אגד, meaning approximately “a group”, “an association”. Hence the prohibition is on making separate denominations within the Jewish nation:

“You are sons of Hashem your G-d; לֹא תִתְגֹּדְדוּ, you shall not divide yourselves into different denominations”.

G-d does not demand of us that we be monolithic. There are seventy faces to the Torah (Shabbat 88b, Bamidbar Rabbah 13:15 et al.), the nation of Israel was divided into twelve Tribes each with its different identity, Hillel and Shammai had different interpretations of halachah, the clinical analysis of Talmud of the Lithuanians is no more or less valid than the fiery passion of the Hassidim, different communities have developed different traditions all equally valid.

Nevertheless, Moshe commands us here no be one single nation, united under G-d, with our separate, unique, and distinct national identity.

This is the new level to which kashrut elevates us, as we stand on the very threshold of the Land of Israel, mere weeks before entering our ancestral homeland to become a free nation in our Land.