“Then Moshe summoned all Israel and said to them, “You saw everything Adonai did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants and to all his land; the great testings which you saw with your own eyes, and the signs and those great wonders.”-Deuteronomy 29:1-3
Right off the bat from verse one of Deuteronomy chapter 29, Moses reminds Israel of their redemption history.
He reminds the crowd that many of them standing before him were actually eyewitnesses to the incredible wonders that HASHEM struck Egypt with in order to free His people.
Now you may be thinking…what?!
Moses is speaking to the 2nd generation who were yet unborn when the actual Exodus occurred.
So how could they have witnessed the plagues of Adonai?
The answer to that question is…
…true, some of the 2nd generation standing before Moses were yet unborn…
…but not all of them.
Let’s just do the simple math.
Besides Joshua, Caleb and Moses, the oldest living Hebrews standing before Moses here were around 60 years old.
Now when Israel hightailed it out of Egypt, the age of accountability was the youngest age a man could serve in the military which was considered to be around 20 years old.
This means when the Lord condemned the accountable Exodus generation to perish out in the Wilderness and never be permitted to enter the Promised Land, he only condemned those who were 20 years old and up.
What this means is there were literally thousands of young Hebrews who were already well into their late teens when they witnessed the awesome plagues that God struck Egypt with.
But here’s the thing.
Even though they witnessed the plagues, they were still minors.
In other words, they had not yet reached the age of accountability which means they were not able to personally accept the terms of the covenant.
Their parents would have to accept the terms of the covenant for them.
However, once each minor reached the age of accountability, it was his or her responsibility to personally accept the terms of the covenant and become a member of the covenant community.
There’s an important God-pattern established here.
It’s perfectly okay for the parents of a Hebrew child who is not yet at the age of accountability to include their child in the covenant provisions.
We’ll see this principle carried forward in that every future generation of Hebrews is considered to be automatically born into the covenant.
There are some caveats attached to this but we ain’t gonna be getting into them here.
So the takeaway here is that once a Hebrew child reaches the age of accountability, he or she is obligated to declare for themselves their allegiance to the covenant.
What happens if they don’t?
Then they won’t be considered covenant members.
Again, that is EXACTLY what is happening here in Deuteronomy 29 as Moses speaks to the younger 2nd generation of Israelites.
And that is also the purpose of either a BAR MITZVAH or a BAT MITZVAH ceremony.
This is why reading from the Torah is a key and necessary element of this coming-of-age ceremony.
When a Hebrew child reaches the age of accountability, he or she must declare allegiance to HASHEM for him or herself.
Heck, another way to describe a BAR MITZVAH or a BAT MITZVAH is to call it a “Covenant Renewal Ceremony” because that’s exactly what it is.
I’m done.
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