As I read the two parashot for this Shabbat, their names struck me as a fundamental key to their understanding:
Nitzavim – You stand
Vayeilech – And he went
I am going to take a little bit of creative liberty here to extract the simple message I read into those names by turning them into two questions that beg to be asked:
Nitzavim – How are you standing?
Vayeilech – And where are you going?
These two questions are related and I suggest that they mutually answer each other:
- Nitzavim – In D’varim 29:10-14 Moshe is saying to all the people
- You are not just standing, but you are standing before HaShem
- You are standing, not any day but today!
- Not just the leaders are standing, but the greatest to the lowest, women, little children and even foreigners are included.
- The reason for your standing is “that you may enter into covenant with Adonai your God and into His oath, which HaShem your God makes with you today, that He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be your God just as He swore to your fathers…”
- And it’s not just addressed to all the people who are standing there physically, but to all who are not there as well!!.. That is the future generations!.. That is you and me! Wow, talk about bringing it home!!!
How then do we respond to this? I suggest we ask ourselves the question:
“ Today, how am I, how are you standing… in regards to the covenant?”
- Vayeilech – D’varim 31:1-3 tells us Moshe was passing the baton to Joshua who would go in and out before them and take them into the promised land. So Moshe went and got Joshua who stood before Hashem and received his instructions before he would also go… Implied is that, later on, Joshua went and led the children of Israel into the promised land.
Again, how do we respond to this? I suggest we ask ourselves the question:
“ Today, where am I going, where are you going… in regards to the land of the covenant?”
- To help us give an answer let us look at the words of D’varim 29:17-19.
“Perhaps there is among you a man or woman, or a family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from being with HaShem our God, to go (lalechet) and serve the gods of those nations… and it will be when he hears the words of this oath, he will bless himself in his heart, saying, ‘Peace will be with me, though I walk as my heart sees fit..’”
There they are, the secret sins Gershon brought out from last week’s parasha that surely are there, and I quote D’varim 29:28, “for Adonai to see and are revealed to us and our children forever to carry out the words of this Torah.” Of course G-d sees them and it is a good thing that He reveals them to us throughout the generations so we have a chance to teshuva! So Moshe goes on to warn all those standing that day, and all of us standing today since we are included: don’t delude yourself, telling yourself secretly in your heart you will not incur the curse written in this covenant if you go the way of your own heart, doing as you please, serving other gods, not following the instruction of the covenant you are entering in, because you will surely be removed from the land with great anger, wrath and fury! And the language being used here is so similar to what our prophet Ezekiel wrote in Eze20:33-37 that it cannot be ignored:
“‘As I live,’ says Adonai HaShem,‘surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered… And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded my case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt… I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge the rebels from among you and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am HaShem.’”
Indeed history tells us this has already been happening. The message then is as clear today as it was back then for our people. We are always and still standing before Him in order to be brought into the bond of the covenant that was made with Moshe. And today as well as throughout the generations since our exile began, we have an appointment with HaShem in the wilderness of the nations where He pleads His case before us, and these two questions are asked of each one of us:
- “How am I standing before Him in regards to the covenant we agreed to?” And this will determine where I go:
– to the land of freedom by always turning or returning (teshuva) to Him, His ways as instructed in Torah, something very relevant as we approach Yom Truah and Yom Kippur! Or
– to the wilderness of the nations by always turning or returning to the bondage of my own secret desires. And
- “Where am I going, who or what am I in fact following?” And that will determine how I am standing in regards to the covenant” – The imagery Ezekiel gives us is that of a shepherd who brings the sheep home after being pastured. He makes them stand and pass one by one under his rod so he can count them and see if they are really his and in what condition they are. Nothing then is missed by HaShem the great shepherd. If I bear the marks of another shepherd, even my own self, if I have wandered in dangerous pastures and fallen sick or been wounded, if I am missing because I am following another shepherd, He sees it all! This will reveal how I stand in regards to the covenant, in faithfulness by turning to Hashem and Torah or in rebellion by turning to my own ways or that of the nations.
You can take Israel out of Egypt, but whether the bondage of Egypt is taken out of Israel is up to each one of us!
This brings me to my concluding point that it is the likes of Joshua, Calev and that second generation of Israelites, who were able to stand before Hashem in the bond of the covenant and inherit the land. And how did they do it? By trusting Hashem, and believing the redemption He provided for them at Pesach as each family offered their lamb, and the salvation He led them through when He opened up the waters of the Red Sea only to drown Pharaoh’s army in it was still at work in their lives. For them it was not just a story they heard, but an experience they or their parents went through and did not deny – an experience that transformed them, fostered an intimate relationship of trust in their G-d and enabled them with His help to face their enemies from within as well as from without. Only a redeemed Israel, that is you and I also today, who knows he is redeemed and has put off his prison garments, is able to come under the bond of the covenant and possess the land! To illustrate this point, there is a sad story told of an elephant chained since he was a baby to a tree and only able to move within the radius of his chain. Set free much later in his adult life, he remained, out of habit, within that same radius, unable to go beyond because he did not believe he was free to do so. Today, and every day, may you and I and all of Israel know ourselves as redeemed and free to choose life in His covenant.
As the prophet Isaiah tells us in chapter 51:11
“And the redeemed of Adonai shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
