רבינו בחיי — אלה הדברים

Q — ואלה השמות begins Shemot with a vav of continuity; here Sefer Devarim opens אלה הדברים without the vav. Why?

A — Rabbeinu Bachya catches the missing connector and reads it as a structural signature. The missing vav signals that Devarim is at once part of the chumash AND a standalone book — like the esrog, which is one of the arba minim but cannot be bound to the lulav agudah. It belongs with the other four chumashim and yet stands distinctly. This corresponds to a kabbalistic point as well: the second hei of Hashem's name, the middas hadin rafa that distributes mussar. And RBB then shows the parsha's opening — those obscure place-names במדבר בערבה מול סוף... ודי זהב — are actually a list of seven sins in disguise: midbar (the murmurings), arabah/pe'or (Ba'al Pe'or), mol Suf (the rebellion at Yam Suf), Paran (the meraglim), tofel ve'lavan (slander of the man), Chatzeiros (Korach and Miriam), and di zahav (the egel). Why seven? Because of Vayikra 26:18 — ויספתי ליסרה אתכם שבע על חטאתיכם — Devarim is therefore the book whose first verse already prefigures its closing tochecha.