User:Elipongo

Committed identity: 34035ff850ae4505bc9137859c9059f67b5e6668 is a SHA-1 commitment to this user's real-life identity.

	Released into public domain
	I agree to release my text and image contributions, unless otherwise stated, into the public domain. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under public domain terms, please check the multi-licensing guide.

Elipongo
Working, Editing, Bicycling

— Wikipedian ♂ —
In my "office" at work.
Name	Elias Friedman (Hebrew: אליהו מתתיהו בן צבי )
Born	(1969-09-05) September 5, 1969 (age 55) Hebrew: כב אלול תשכ"ט Mount Sinai Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut  United States
Current location	Upper West Side, Manhattan New York,  United States
Blood type	O+
Sexuality	Heterosexual
Family and friends
Marital status	Single & looking for my bashert.
Education and employment
Occupation	Critical care paramedic
Employer	SeniorCare EMS
Education	A.S. Mechanical Engineering
High school	Ellington High School
College	Manchester Community College
University	University of Connecticut
Hobbies, interests, and beliefs
Religion	Modern Orthodox Judaism
Politics	Libertarian, Republican
Aliases	Elipongo
Interests
Wikipedia Wikignoming Vandal Watch Reviewing pending changes Welcoming committee Emergency Medicine Judaism Bicycling Connecticut New York City
Contact info
Blog	Elipongo's Blog
Email	[e-mail]
Elipongo subpages
Subpages, Userboxes
Userboxes
This editor is a Veteran Editor IV and is entitled to display this Gold Editor Star. This user helps out newcomers. This user observes Shabbat. It is approximately 2:55 PM where this user lives. Language en This user is a native speaker of the English language. US This user uses American English. he-0 משתמש זה אינו מבין עברית (או מבין אותה בקשיים ניכרים).‏ Hebr-2 ש‎ This user has an intermediate understanding of the Hebrew alphabet. la-1 Hic usor simplici latinitate contribuere potest. Wikipedia AAW This user is a member of the Association of Apathetic Wikipedians. WPC This user will get around to being a member of the Wikipedian Procrastination Club This user is a member of WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities. This user participates in WikiProject Judaism. This user participates in WikiProject Connecticut. This user regularly reads and responds to Requests for feedback. This user was a member of WikiProject Orthodox Judaism. This user is a member of the user warnings wikiproject. This user is proud to be a member of the Harmonious Editing Club. This user participates in WikiProject Wikipedia Awards. This editor is a WikiGnome. This user reserves the right to completely screw up his own edits. This user tries to do the right thing. If they make a mistake, please let them know. Elipongo has been active on Wikipedia for 20 years, 10 months and 28 days. This user scored 7755 on the Wikipediholic test (revision 181768688). DGAF This user does not give a fuck. This user is a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation. You can be one, too. This user has rollback rights on the English Wikipedia. (verify) AWW DMBJ AWGC AWAI FDSP BATD MTAD This user is a member of the Association of Wikipedians Who Dislike Making Broad Judgments About the Worthiness of a General Category of Article, and Who Are in Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They Are Deletionists. This user believes free images should be moved to the Commons. This user fights vandalism with Huggle and Twinkle. Sometimes simultaneously... Thank the IP This user believes that vandal–reverting IP address editors should be rewarded or thanked for their efforts. This user enjoys cleaning up vandalism. User scripts I'm using these userscripts: Popups, Friendly, Twinkle, WikEd, FURME → In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. This user knows that replacing one bias with another is not cleanup. Wikipedia is not censored. This user respects copyright and other intellectual property rights. This user finds edit/revert wars disruptive. This user encourages the peaceful correction of vandals. UAR This editor believes that account creation should not be required on Wikipedia. This user welcomes new users with Twinkle! This user thinks that peacocks and weasels should be extinct in Wikipedia. This user thinks that Wikipedia is the best thing since sliced bread. ± strong support/ oppose This user thinks that when people support or oppose a proposal, they should dispense with the notion that by writing Strong Support or Strong Oppose, rather than simply Support or Oppose, their support or opposition counts more. WTF? This user ALWAYS leaves an edit summary. This editor uses AutoWikiBrowser to automate tedious repetitive tasks. <ref> This user would like to see everyone using inline citations. Please... This user doesn't own anything. This user is signed up for the Feedback Request Service. This user participates in WikiProject Freemasonry. This user is a member of WikiProject New York City assessments | recent changes | talk Location This user is a citizen of the United States of America. This user lives in, or hails from, New York City. This user lives in New England. This user lives in the U.S. State of Connecticut. This user grew up in a rural area. Indep home This user lives on his own. This user has left the planet Earth 0 times. This user has never left the Northern Hemisphere. 3 This user has set foot in 3 continents of the world. 6 This user has visited 6 of the 205 countries in the world. This user's time zone is EST. I am... This user is Jewish. This user is of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. This user is Modern Orthodox. This user is male. This user is single. 55Y This Wikipedian was born on 5 September 1969 and is 55 years, 11 months, and 15 days old. This user is a Freemason. This user is a Paramedic. This user is near sighted. This user has astigmatism. X This user is a member of Generation X. This user is heterosexual. This user is not a biological parent. This user is right-handed. 18+ This user is an adult. sane This user is relatively sane and will not stab you when you sleep FS&C This user is a brother in Triangle Fraternity. This user is a bicyclist. This user is car-free.^‡ This user does not smoke. This user is drug-free. This user observes Shabbat. This user observes the dietary laws of Kashrut. This user is NOT known for taking themself too seriously. This user has a blood type of O (Rh) Rhesus Positive. This user was born during the Nixon administration. Activities This user overuses userboxes. This user tracks his money on Where's George? This user releases books at Bookcrossing. Beliefs Non nobis solum This user is not afraid of being wrong. This user is skeptical of the Zodiac. This user is a committed advocate of democracy. This user believes it is every citizen's duty to vote. This user does NOT support abortion except when a woman's life is at serious risk. This user is a skeptic. GOP This user supports the United States Republican Party This user is against the war on drugs. I would say I'm a cynic but I bet you just wouldn't believe me. This user is interested in the belief that death is an acceptable part of life. This user believes that life is good. User:Lawyer2b/CCW This user is a masculist. This user is against DRM. Hanlon's Razor This user never attributes to malice that which is best explained by stupidity. ^† This user respects women and rejects any violence against women. This user supports the troops in Iraq. This user supports flat taxes. This user is opposed to communism in both theory and practice. This user is skeptical of anthropogenic global warming. This user supports public transit. This user supports the use of nuclear energy. > This user knows that genetically modified food has saved over a billion lives, and that all agriculture is "genetic modification", what we do today is just faster. This user opposes monarchism. In Memoriam: 9/11 Lest we forget… Eu This user does NOT support euthanasia and is strongly opposed to all forms of eugenics. This user knows that free trade protects more jobs than tariffs do. This user supports jury nullification.^‡ This user finds censorship offensive. This user was against the Disengagement Plan in Israel. This user supports President George W. Bush. LEGAL This user supports LEGAL Immigration. This user will never forget. This user supports Sarah Palin and John McCain !! Technology @ This user can be reached by email at [e-mail]. This user maintains a facebook profile as Elias Friedman. + This user posts on X as @elipongo. G talk This user's Google Talk screenname is elipongo. B This user keeps a weblog at Blogger as elipongo's blog. This user has a profile on MySpace as elipongo. This user is an editor on Wikivoyage. BASIC This user can program in BASIC. This user uses Google as a primary search engine. This user uses Wikipedia as a primary point of reference. This user uses Gmail as a primary email service. C++ This user can program in C++. BASIC This user can program in BASIC. for This user can program in Fortran. This user can fairly easily contribute using either Firefox or Google Chrome. This user contributes using Microsoft Windows Vista. This user contributes using Notepad. This user contributes using a laptop. This user contributes using a wireless connection. BB This user contributes using a broadband connection. This user uses Google Maps. This user has a LinkedIn profile as user elipongo. This user likes the Dogpile search engine. This user's Internet service provider is Verizon. intel Core This user contributes with a computer based on the Intel Core 2 Duo microprocessor. IP This user has a dynamic IP address. This user's mobile phone and data-services provider is Verizon. This user writes with the OpenOffice.org suite. This user loves using Google Earth. This user's Casio Waveceptor watch is set to 3:55pm. Preferences This user is attracted to red hair. ALL This user is a fan of all kinds of comedy. This user eats bagels. This user eats chicken. This user prefers rare steak. This user enjoys their egg with the sunny side up. This user loves brownies. This user likes Chocolate Chip Cookies. This user's favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip. This user drinks chocolate milk. C2H5OH-1 This user drinks relatively infrequently. he is probably the better for it. This user enjoys klezmer. This user likes most types of music. This user enjoys reading science fiction. This user enjoys comics. This user prefers warm weather. This user is interested in politics. This user is an omnivore. BM This user is repulsed by most forms of body modification. This user dislikes mosquitos. met? This user prefers metric units, but, having grown up in the United States, cannot relate to them. they he or she This user considers the singular they to be substandard English usage. snuk This user says snuck. to¦go This user chooses to sometimes use split infinitives. by The passive voice may be used by this user. …in. Ending a sentence with a preposition is something that this user is okay with. man- kind Regarding gender, this user prefers the vernacular, not what is politically correct. to too two This user thinks that too many people have no idea how to use words that they should have learned in grade two. whom This user insists upon using whom wherever it is called for, and fixes the errors of whomever he sees. their there they're This user thinks that there are too many people who don’t know that they're worse than their own children at spelling! your you're This user thinks that if your grammar is incorrect, then you're in need of help. their, to, your, its, ... This users english is far from being perfect!. its it's It's really not that hard to use each word in its proper manner. ANAL 4 This user advocates good grammar usage. This user enjoys the big band sound This user enjoys classical music. This user enjoys jazz music. This user enjoys reading Fantasy. This user reads science fiction. This user loves sunny days This user loathes, but is forced to observe, daylight saving time. Interests This user is a history buff. ${\displaystyle \int e^{x}dx}$ | I | N | T | E | G | R | A | L | S | My antiderivative ${\displaystyle 0.{\bar {9}}}$=1 This user knows that 0.9...(repeating) is exactly 1 and can prove it, but wishes that other people could understand it the way he does. This user knows how to travel 1 mile due south, due east, then due north and end up where he started.^† ${\displaystyle \textstyle {\frac {\partial }{\partial x}}\,\;}$ This user only partially understands mathematics. Three, plus a hair This user likes trigonometry. This user is interested in space sciences. Favorites This user's homeworld is mostly harmless. Narnia This user loves The Chronicles of Narnia. This user enjoys the works of Sherlock Holmes. HP This user is a Harry Potter fan. This user is a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is. This user enjoys the works of Robert A. Heinlein BB This user is on a mission from God. FC This user does not talk about Fight Club. This user is a fan of the Austin Powers film series. Yeah, baby, yeah! 007 This user likes martinis shaken, not stirred. ND This user voted for Pedro. This user's got a case of the Mondays. This user has a feeling that we're not in Kansas anymore. A person is smart; people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it! This user thinks 2001: A Space Odyssey is the best science fiction film ever made. STAR WARS This user is a Star Wars fan. PRODUCERS This user keeps it gay! This user rejects your reality and substitutes their own! d'oh! This user thinks The Simpsons is simply... excellent. This user enjoys Star Trek. MWC A fat woman came into this user's shoe store today. M*A*S*H This user understands: "the M stands for mobile". C&H This user reads Calvin and Hobbes. S This user fights for truth, justice and the American way! This user is a Monty Python fan. This user is a Marxist of the Groucho variety. This user knows Who's on First. This user likes George Washington. This user likes Alexander Hamilton. This user likes Thomas Paine. This user greatly admires Abraham Lincoln. This user thinks Ronald Reagan was an excellent president. This user knows the Ultimate Answer. This user enjoys music by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. This user enjoys music by Antonio Vivaldi. This user enjoys music by George Frideric Handel. This user enjoys music by Johann Sebastian Bach. This user enjoys music by Ludwig van Beethoven. This user enjoys music by Joseph Haydn. This user enjoys music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This user enjoys music by Antonín Dvořák. This user likes music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. This user visits Astronomy Picture of the Day every day. ^† This user is an Americophile. This user enjoys the works of David Brin. OSC This user enjoys the works of Orson Scott Card. This user believes there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. This user's looking at you, kid. This user wants to make you an offer you can't refuse. 🐦 This user is the stuff that dreams are made of. This user believes any answer I give will be wrong and the Senior Drill Instructor will only beat this user harder if I reverse myself. Frankly my dear, this user doesn't give a damn. "Surely this user can't be serious?" Clue This user killed Yvette. This user hated her... so... much... It- It... the f-- It... Flame... Flames. Flames... On the side of my face... Breathing... Breathle-- Heaving breaths... Heaving... This user is a man-eating talking plant. This user will be back. FG This user thinks Family Guy is freakin' sweet. LTI This user embiggens Wikipedia with their cromulent editing! Cheers Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name. This user has just crossed into... The Twilight Zone. STAR TREK Elipongo is a fan of Star Trek: The Original Series. TOS xkcd Stand back! This user is going to try science with xkcd. Education This User attends or attended the University of Connecticut. AS This user has an Associate of Science degree. Miscellaneus This user remembers using a rotary dial telephone. Ceci n'est pas une boîte utilisateur. This user needs more userboxes. MORE, I tell you, more!!! Muhahaha! This user's dog(s) died. This user's parents are dead. Wheaties, Cheerios, and Rice Chex This user prefers the cereal comma. Iи Sоviэт Яцssiд, Цsэяьож дdd УОЦ!! All your base are belong to this user. Put the number 25 in a calculator. Multiply by 800. Multiply by 266. Subtract 1,992. Then look at the calculator upside-down... This user loves tricks like this. This user would have liked Green Eggs and Ham, but will not eat them due to religious dietary laws. This user passed GO! (…so where is my $200?) This user knows how to Find x. KAZOO This user plays the Kazoo. This user knows the dire side effects of dihydrogen monoxide. Do you? This user enjoys siesta.

Bio

My name is Elias Friedman (Hebrew: אליהו מתתיהו בן צבי). I'm a critical care paramedic living in the Upper West Side section of Manhattan in New York City. I moved here at the end of December 2008 from Connecticut.

I'm a 55 year old, single, Modern Orthodox Jewish male. I grew up in Ellington, Connecticut where I was the president of Congregation Knesseth Israel.

I got into EMS in 1997 when I started volunteering in Coventry. I got a job at a commercial ambulance service in 1999 when I was laid-off from my previous job as a Pellet mill operator in a feed mill. I got my Associate's degree from Manchester Community College in Mechanical Engineering in 2000 which was also the year I became an EMT-Intermediate. I was working on completing my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut when September 11th made me re-think my priorities. I entered Hartford Hospital's Paramedic program and graduated in April 2004. My precepting was delayed to September due to my father's death that July, and I've had med-control since December 2004. In the first week of September 2008 I was laid off from my job at the Ambulance service of Manchester, but since I was already in the process of getting reciprocity of my paramedic license for New York, it didn't let it upset me too much. In December of 2008 I started to work for SeniorCare EMS which has bases in both the Bronx and in Brooklyn, I quite enjoy working there! In the Summer of 2012 I became a volunteer paramedic member of West Side Hatzolah so I can better help my local community as well.

Ready for a bicycle ride!

The second half of my username is derived from my Dalmatian, Pongo, who died in March 2006, just a week shy of his sixteenth birthday.

I really enjoy my working in EMS, my friends have remarked (positively!) that I love to talk about my work. Getting up out of bed to go to work isn't an effort of willpower like it had often been at my previous jobs. My health and stress level are better than they have ever been, of course that's partly attributable to my taking up year-round bicycle commuting the eleven miles to work. I really think that I've found my niche.

I am a member of the Connecticut Chapter of Triangle Fraternity, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Republican National Committee, and the NAEMT. I am a master Freemason. I am a former member of the ASME

Wikipedia ads	file info – show another – #15

float

Wiki stats

N.B. These edit counts tend to move down over time as pages (and my edits) get deleted.

• My first (registered) edit diff. Awww, they're all so cute when they're young!
• My 500^th edit diff. Just wikignoming around.
• My 1,000^th edit diff. Wouldn't you just figure it would have to do with vandalism...
• My 5,000^th edit diff. Yeah, a pretty dumb one...
• My 10,000^th edit diff. Cleaning up incoming links to disambiguation pages.

Things I'm working on

Feel free to help out on any of these items!

Existing pages

float

• Bulkeley Bridge
• Captain John Bissell Memorial Bridge
• Congregation Knesseth Israel— I can't do too much more here because I have a conflict of interest, but I hope that others will help out.
• Connecticut
• Dexter Coffin Bridge
• Ellington Airport (Connecticut)
• Ellington, Connecticut
• Ellington High School
• Etiquette in Latin America, orphaned references etc from unfixed deletions of citations.
• Hartford, Connecticut
• History of Connecticut industry
• Icebiking
• List of beaches in New England
• List of Lieutenant Governors of Connecticut
• List of U.S. state songs
• Manchester, Connecticut
• Manchester Road Race
• Motorola#Trivia
• Neighborhoods of Hartford, Connecticut
• Nullification— Dab page that needs cleanup per MoS:DAB and has a whole article on its talk page that should go somewhere, if it hasn't already.
• Park River (Connecticut)
• Papoose
• Sean Sullivan
• The Shoppes at Buckland Hills
• Thomas Joseph Meskill
• WikiProject Connecticut— lots of work to do here!

Pages yet to be created

• History of racism in Connecticut
• List of U.S. state heroines— I think that only CT & MA have one.

To do

• Write up report on Lord & Taylor vandal for WP:LTA
• Create navigation template for Investment banks

Community

How to add to the community bulletin board

Welcome to the community bulletin board, which is a page used for announcements from WikiProjects and other groups. Included here are coordinated efforts, events, projects, and other general announcements.

• Dashboard
• News
• Task Center
• Goings-on
• Meetups
• In the media
• Mailing lists

Events and projects [add]

Yearly or infrequent events

Monthly or continuous events

• Monthly contest, WikiProject Military history. The contest department of the Military history WikiProject aims to motivate increased quality in military history articles by offering a form of friendly competition for project members making improvements to them. The primary contest available is a simple rolling competition that awards points for improving articles. The contest runs from the first to last day of each month.
• Guild of Copy Editors' editing blitz. The August 2025 editing blitz is a one-week-long effort by the Guild of Copy Editors to reduce its backlog. The themes are: articles on the GOCE Requests page from May to August 2025, and articles on the backlog from December 2023 and January 2024. It began on 17 August, 00:00 (UTC), and will end on 23 August, 23:59 (UTC).
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red 2025 Events:

Recently completed:	Alphabet run: M & N Women in Red turns 10 Geofocus: Ten for Kenya
New this month:	Alphabet run: O & P Indigenous women Film and stage
Ongoing initiatives:	Music #1day1woman
Upcoming events:	Ideas

Meetups for August 2025 +/-

Christchurch 41	August 3, 2025 (2025-08-03)
San Ysidro (SD125)	August 9, 2025 (2025-08-09)
London 219	August 10, 2025 (2025-08-10)
San Diego Wiknic (SD126)	August 16, 2025 (2025-08-16)
Oxford 114	August 17, 2025 (2025-08-17)
Aberdeen 4	August 25, 2025 (2025-08-25)
Minnesota	August 26, 2025 (2025-08-26)

Meetups for September 2025 +/-

San Diego 126	September 13, 2025 (2025-09-13)
London 220	September 14, 2025 (2025-09-14)
Edinburgh 23	September 27, 2025 (2025-09-27)

WikiProject notices [add]

Also consider posting WikiProject, Task Force, and Collaboration news at The Signpost's WikiProject Report page. Please include your signature when adding a listing here.

• WP Unreferenced articles is trying to clear the decades-long backlog of unreferenced articles. The backlog recently reached under 49,000. Come contribute! Catfurball (talk) 16:35, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
• WikiProject Haiti is newly renovated and looking for interested participants. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 15:38, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
• WikiProject Kabbalah is re-activating as there are a lot of maintenance templates on these articles and new references and inline citations are needed. See Kabbalah Books Online. New participants welcome!! Nnev66 (talk) 23:07, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
• WikiProject Christianity is back and running! We are looking for new and interested editors to join. We look forward to working with you! Sheriff U3 12:51, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• WikiProject Outlines news:
  • New outlines:
    • Outline of San Diego
    • Outline of Leeds
    • Outline of Glasgow
  • Another outline has been nominated for Featured List status:
    • Outline of caves
  • The following outline covers an ongoing situation, please help keep it updated:
    • Outline of the Russo-Ukrainian War
  • The Outline of the week is Outline of dinosaurs.
  • Please help improve them. —The Transhumanist 11:59, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Technical news

This section is transcluded from Wikipedia:Tech news. (edit | history)

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

• Later this week, people who are logged-in and have the "Discussion tools" Beta Feature enabled will gain the ability to "Thank" individual comments directly from talk pages, rather than needing to navigate to page history. Learn more about this feature. [1]
• An A/B test comparing two versions of the desktop donate link launched on testwiki on 12 August and on English Wikipedia 14 August for 0.1% of logged out users on the desktop site. The experiment will run for three weeks, ending on 12 September. [2]
• An A/A test to measure the baseline for reader retention was launched 12 August using Experimentation Lab. This measures the percentage of users who revisit a wiki after their initial visit over a 14-day period. No visual changes are expected. The experiment will run through 31 August. [3]
• Five new wikis have been created:
  • a Wikisource in Tagalog (s:tl:) [4]
  • a Wikisource in Madurese (s:mad:) [5]
  • a Wikipedia in Rakhine (w:rki:) [6]
  • a Wikibooks in Minangkabau (b:min:) [7]
  • a Wiktionary in Standard Moroccan Amazigh (wikt:zgh:) [8]
• View all 46 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

• Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Requests for comment

Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention via Requests for comment:

• Biographies
• Economy and trade
• History and geography
• Language and linguistics
• Media, the arts, and architecture
• Politics, government, and law
• Religion and philosophy
• Science and mathematics
• Society, sports, and culture
• Wikipedia policies and guidelines
• Wikipedia style and naming
• WikiProjects and collaborations
• Wikipedia technical issues and templates
• Wikipedia proposals
• Unsorted

General notices

• WMF loses legal challenge to UK Online Safety Act
• Gaza genocide in wikivoice and opening sentence
• Updating the message box icons to match the Codex icons
• Including Markdown in speedy deletion criterion G15

• U4C non-voting member application
• Feedback on PTAC proposals surrounding WMF communication and experimentation

Parsha

Weekly Torah Portion

Shoftim (שופטים)

Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9

The Weekly Torah portion in synagogues on Shabbat, Saturday, 29 Av, 5785—August 23, 2025

“Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 16:20.)

“Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

Moses directed the Israelites to appoint magistrates and officials for their tribes to govern the people with justice, impartially, without bribes. “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” he said.

Moses warned the Israelites against setting up a sacred post beside God’s altar or erecting a stone pillar.

Moses warned the Israelites against sacrificing an ox or sheep with any serious defect.

If the Israelites found a person who worshiped other gods, the Sun, the Moon, or any celestial body, then they were to make a thorough inquiry, and if they established the fact on the testimony of two or more witnesses, then they were to stone the person to death, with the witnesses throwing the first stones. If a case proved too baffling for them to decide, then they were promptly to go to the place that God would choose for God's shrine, appear before the priests or the magistrate in charge and present their problem, and carry out any verdict that was announced there without deviating either to the right or to the left. They were to execute any man who presumptuously disregarded the priest or the magistrate, so that all the people would hear, be afraid, and not act presumptuously again.

King David (statue by F. A. Jerichau)

If, after the Israelites had settled the land, they decided to set a king over them, they were to be free to do so, taking an Israelite chosen by God. The king was not to keep many horses, marry many wives, or amass silver and gold to excess. The king was to have the priests write for him a copy of this Teaching to remain with him and read all his life, so that he might learn to revere God and observe these laws faithfully. He would thus not act haughtily toward his people nor deviate from the law, and as a consequence, he and his descendants would enjoy a long reign.

The Levites were to have no territorial portion, but were to live only off of offerings, for God was to be their portion. In exchange for their service to God, the priests were to receive the shoulder, cheeks, and stomach of sacrifices, the first fruits of the Israelites’ grain, wine, and oil, and the first shearing of sheep. Levites were to be free to come from their settlements to the place that God had chosen as a shrine to serve in the name of God with their fellow Levites, and there they were to receive equal shares of the dues.

The Israelites were not to imitate the abhorrent practices of the nations that they were displacing, consign their children to fire, or act as an augur, soothsayer, diviner, sorcerer, one who casts spells, one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead, for it was because of those abhorrent acts that God was dispossessing the former residents of the land.

God would raise a prophet from among them like Moses, and the Israelites were to heed him. When at Horeb the Israelites asked God not to hear God’s voice directly, God created the role of the prophet to speak God’s words, promising to hold to account anybody who failed to heed the prophet’s words. But any prophet who presumed to speak an oracle in God’s name that God had not commanded the prophet to utter, or who spoke in the name of other gods, was to die. This was how the people were to determine whether the oracle was spoken by God: If the prophet spoke in the name of God and the oracle did not come true, then that oracle was not spoken by God, the prophet had uttered it presumptuously, and the people were not to fear him.

When the Israelites had settled in the land, they were to divide the land into three parts and set aside three cities of refuge, so that any manslayer could have a place to which to flee. And if the Israelites faithfully observed all the law and God enlarged the territory, then they were to add three more towns to those three.

Only a manslayer who had killed another unwittingly, without being the other’s enemy, might flee there and live. For instance, if a man went with his neighbor into a grove to cut wood, and as he swung an ax to cut down a tree, the ax-head flew off the handle and struck and killed the neighbor, then the man could flee to one of the cities of refuge and live. If, however, one who was the enemy of another lay in wait, struck the other a fatal blow, and then fled to a city of refuge, the elders of the slayer’s town were to have the slayer turned over to the blood-avenger to be put to death.

The Israelites were not to move their countrymen’s landmarks, set up by previous generations, in the property that they were allotted in the land.

An Israelite could be found guilty of an offense only on the testimony of two or more witnesses. If one person gave false testimony against another, then the two parties were to appear before God and the priests or magistrates, the magistrates were to make a thorough investigation, and if the magistrates found the person to have testified falsely, then they were to do to the witness as the witness schemed to do to the other.

Before the Israelites joined battle, the priest was to tell the troops not to fear, for God would accompany them to do battle against their enemy. Then the officials were to ask the troop whether anyone had built a new house but not dedicated it, planted a vineyard but never harvested it, paid the bride price for a wife but not yet married her, or become afraid and disheartened, and all these they were to send back to their homes.

When the Israelites approached a town to attack it, they were to offer it terms of peace, and if the town surrendered, then all the people of the town were to serve the Israelites as forced labor. But if the town did not surrender, then the Israelites were to lay siege to the town, and when God granted victory, kill all its men and take as booty the women, children, livestock, and everything else in the town. Those were the rules for towns that lay very far from Israel, but for the towns of the nations in the land — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites — the Israelites were to kill everyone, lest they lead the Israelites into doing all the abhorrent things that those nations had done for their gods. When the Israelites besieged a city for a long time, they could eat the fruit of the city’s trees, but they were not to cut down any trees that could yield food.

If, in the land, someone slain was found lying in the open, and the slayer could not be determined, then the elders and magistrates were to measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns. The elders of the town nearest to the corpse were to take a heifer that had never been worked down to an ever-flowing wadi and break its neck. The priests were to come forward, all the elders were to wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken, and the elders were to declare that their hands did not shed the blood nor their eyes see it done. The elders were to ask God to absolve the Israelites, and not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among them, and they would be absolved of bloodguilt.

Hebrew and English text
Hear the parshah chanted
Commentary from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (Conservative)
Commentary from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (Conservative)
Commentary by the Union for Reform Judaism (Reform)
Commentaries from Project Genesis (Orthodox)
Commentaries from Chabad.org (Orthodox)
Commentaries from Aish HaTorah (Orthodox)
Commentaries from the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (Reconstructionist)
Commentaries from My Jewish Learning (trans-denominational)

Commentaries from Aleph Beta Academy

Thanks!

Awards & barnstars

For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, you are hereby granted the coveted Random Smiley Award
originated by Pedia-I
(Explanation and Disclaimer)

♠TomasBat (@)(Contribs)(Sign!) 21:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		For your willingness to help a new user in a difficult and time-consuming situation, with little potential for any appreciation at all, I am delighted to award you this barnstar. Thank you for trying to keep a new editor contributing! Accounting4Taste:talk 16:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

---

On 4 January, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Republic of Lakotah, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Royalbroil 16:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

		The Real-Life Barnstar
		Given to me and other attendees of the March 2008 New York City meetup by Mindspillage (talk · contribs)

{{subst:REVISIONUSER}} has given you a cookie! Cookies promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. You can spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a cookie, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. {{subst:if||| {{{message}}} ||subst=subst:}} To spread the goodness of cookies, you can add {{subst:Cookie}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or eat this cookie on the giver's talk page with {{subst:munch}}!

For protecting my user page and user talk page. Razorflame 03:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

This is for being a damn good vandal fighter and for beating me to reverting vandalism on many occasions. Keep up the great work! --Kukini ^{háblame aquí} 16:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Your thoroughness requires a cookie. Any other reward would be insufficient. Rob Banzai (talk) 22:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)