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4 “Remember, do not forget”: Israel’s Covenantal Duty in Deuteronomy Introduction: Deuteronomic Ritual Deuteronomy is not usually associated with ritual. Its law code says almost nothing about the practices associated with the shrine such as sacrifices and purification rites other than that they must be performed “only in the place which [Yahweh] has chosen.”1 When it does stipulate specific activities, such as the pilgrimage festivals (Deut. 16:1-17) or sacred donations (Deut. 14:22-29; 15:19-21), it couches them in hortatory reiteration of the religious principles to be gleaned from observance: the sacrificial system becomes an instrument of social welfare;2 the slavery laws to teach gratitude for God’s blessing.3 Only the ritual for the unsolved murder has no obvious pedagogical feature.4 The deuteronomic charges that surround the law code exhibit a similar orientation. They are general rather than specific, focusing, for instance, on observance of laws and statutes as a whole (e.g., Deut. 4:1; 7:8; 11:1).5 1. Didactic aspects of deuteronomic ritual are generally acknowledged. For example, Bernard Levinson and others observe that Deuteronomy reinforces the policy of centralized worship by relocating locally performed rituals to the central shrine. Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), especially chapters 2 and 3. In a similar vein, note Weinfeld’s argument that Deuteronomy uses the sacrificial system both as an instrument of social welfare and as a means of inculcating it as a value. Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972; repr. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 211–13. 2. For example, Deut. 12:18-19; 14:29. See Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 211–13. 3. Deut. 15:18. 4. Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 210–12. The phrase “in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you to inherit” in 21:1 may be designed to stress God’s gift of the land or may simply define the boundaries within which the law applies. 5. Or the segregation from Canaanite tribes necessary to protect Israel from the lure of idolatry (Deut. 7:1-5). 75 Although ritual, in the strictest sense of the term, is not a deuteronomic concern, it would be wrong to say that Deuteronomy ignores religious practice altogether. On the contrary, D prescribes a number of mandatory practices that, in their codification, can justly be understood as the deuteronomic equivalent of ritual. Both the presentation of the first fruits during the Festival of Weeks (Deut. 26:1-11) and the triennial payment of tithes (Deut. 26:12-15) involve precisely scripted declarations. The law is to be read before all the people on every seventh celebration of the Festival of Booths (31:9-13). The requirement of domestic instruction is fulfilled through parents’ recital of the law and scripted answers to their children’s questions (6:7, 20-25). To this must be added the performance of the song of Deuteronomy 32. Although it is not expressly stated, periodic performance of the song seems to be the intent underlying its presentation to the Israelites.6 Practices such as these are intellectualizedrituals.7 They are content-filled rather than symbolic; didactic rather than experiential; and meant to lead the practitioner directly to action rather than to effect transformative change either in the community or the cosmos. Common to all the religious practice represented in D (excepting the unsolved murder ritual) is the incorporation and exploitation of memory. It is memory that promotes observance of commandments and motivates right treatment of the disadvantaged. For Deuteronomy, memory of slavery, of the exodus, of the wilderness period, of all that Yahweh has done for Israel, provides the cognitive foundation for Israel’s covenantal loyalty. If the cause of Adam’s transgression was that he “listened to the voice of your woman,” as the garden narrative suggests, then the best way to prevent Israel’s disobedience is to ensure the people listen to the right voice remembering and reminding them of their obligations to Yahweh. Deuteronomy is keenly aware of the possibility of succumbing to the wrong voice: If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter or the wife of your bosom . . . entices you . . . saying, “Let us go after 6. I am aware that the list conflates rituals that may date from different periods. The pilgrimage festivals, first-fruits ritual, tithes, firstlings, and the ritual for the unsolved...

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