Every year on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, we read the Torah portion of Nitzavim, which begins with the following words: “And you are standing today, all of you, before God…” (Deuteronomy 29:9). There are several reasons this portion is read before Rosh Hashanah, but the simplest one is that the Jewish people were frightened by the ninety-eight “curses” mentioned in the previous portion that would be visited upon them if they would turn away from God and the Torah. If the Jewish people failed to observe the commandments, they feared they would almost certainly be wiped out. Therefore, Moses begins Nitzavim by declaring that even if all the curses (God forbid) came to pass, the Jewish people would still be “standing” before God, for He would never abrogate the covenant He made with them. Indeed, the Torah continues by mentioning “the covenant of God, your God, and His promise that He seals with you today, to establish you as a people to Him, so that He be a God to you.” In order to better understand the first verse cited above, we will pay special attention to the words “today,” “standing,” and “all of you” in the following paragraphs.
On a straight-forward narrative level, the Torah’s mentioning that Moses is talking to the people “today” does not seem out of the ordinary. However, the Sages infer from this seemingly superfluous information that the particular day on which Moses was speaking to the people was somehow a special day. Some suggest that this was the day Moses died and, in anticipation, he had assembled all the people to transmit his last teachings. Others suggest that this day alludes to Rosh Hashanah, when the Jewish people and, in fact, the entire population of the world, pass before God in judgment. Certainly, the first interpretation makes sense given that Moses is clearly nearing the end of his life as the next few portions demonstrate. However, the second interpretation fits in with the Chassidic notion, mentioned previously, that the Torah portion always reflects current events; thus, making it eminently sensible for the “today” in our verse to allude to Rosh Hashanah, as this portion is always read right before the holiday, implicitly counseling us to prepare mentally and psychologically for the upcoming Day of Judgment.
Alternatively, the word “today” has also been understood figuratively to imply that every day should be treated as if it were the very unique day on which Moses is speaking to the Jewish people. This idea is derived from the interpretation of another seminal event in Jewish history — the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. As discussed earlier, when the Jews arrived in the Sinai Desert on the first day of the third month, the Torah states that they arrived “on this day.” Since the rest of the sentence is phrased in the past tense Rashi points out that the phrase “on this day” should have been written “on that day.” It was written in the present tense, he comments, to teach us that when we learn Torah it should feel as new and exciting to us as if we had just received it today (Rashi on Exodus 19:1). In other words, in both seminal cases, the Torah is teaching us that we should not relate to these unique experiences as onetime events in the past; rather, we should treat them as ongoing and accessible experiences. Each and every day the Torah should feel new and fresh, and each and every day we should feel like we are standing before God.
The word “today” also reminds us that the present can become the future or encompass the past in the blink of an eye. Indeed, the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) teaches that Mashiach will “come today, if you but listen to His voice” (Psalms 95:7). Thus, every day has the potential to bring us closer to God — as we are on Rosh Hashanah, as we were at Mount Sinai, and as we will be when the Mashiach arrives.
An additional aspect of the word “today” is expressed by King David in Psalms (2:7) when he states, “God said to me: ‘You are my son, this day (today) I have given birth to you.’” David felt as if he was constantly being given the gift of new life. As discussed earlier, this was a result of David’s soul not having been apportioned time in this world. When Adam prophetically foresaw this predicament, he gave David seventy years of his own life. David was constantly aware of this gift and of how tenuous his soul’s grasp on life was. This realization caused him to always walk the fine line between despair and ecstatic joy, sentiments expressed so profoundly in the Psalms. Yet, no matter what upheavals he went through in life, David continually cleaved to God, always speaking to Him as if He was right there in front of him “today.”
All these interpretations of the word “today” – the day of Moses’ death, the annual day of Judgment, the day the Torah was given, the day of Mashiach’s arrival, or each and every day – contain an aspect of rebirth or continuity. Moses’ death by the “kiss of God” stresses that death is only a transition to a new level of life eternal; on Rosh Hashanah, a New Year begins with the opportunity of renewal; and the revelation at Sinai is ongoing, intimating an aspect of perpetuity. Additionally, Mashiach’s arrival at the End of Days will lead to a total rebirth of human consciousness; however, even before we reach that point, every day, in essence, contains all of these possibilities and the ongoing potential for true rebirth.
Similarly, the word “standing” in our verse also has much to teach us. We recite the Amidah, Judaism’s quintessential prayer, three times a day. This prayer is recited while standing, and, indeed, the word “Amidah” literally means “standing.” Although we all stand before God on Rosh Hashanah, we do so every day as well, albeit for most people in a less intense manner. Despite the fact that we bow seven times during the recitation of the Amidah (including the three bows at the end), Jewish tradition emphasizes that our relationship with God is primarily based on our standing before Him, not on our prostrating before Him. In fact, we only fully prostrate ourselves during prayer twice a year – on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This combination of standing and bowing or prostrating reflects the crucial message that God desires both humble recognition of our existential dependence upon Him (bowing), and simultaneously, that each person take responsibility for themselves and exhibit a certain sense of self-reliance and independence (standing). Jewish prayer, lifestyle and world view reflect an ongoing dance or tight rope walk between these seemingly contradictory attitudes, which are actually quite complimentary when integrated within a larger context of dynamic holiness.
The notion of “standing” before God “today,” wherein “today” refers to Rosh Hashanah, sheds profound light on Rosh Hashanah’s essence. For, when we stand before God on Rosh Hashanah, all the dimensions of time – past, present, and future – manifest themselves simultaneously. We stand in the present, “today,” seeking forgiveness for our past misdeeds and shortcomings, while committing ourselves to acting more consciously and compassionately in the future. While our future is dependent on rectifying our past, God’s final judgment on Rosh Hashanah, which affects our future, is dependent on the sincerity and level of commitment we manage to generate in the present. Further weaving together past, present and future, the Jewish tradition teaches that although God, being Omniscient, knows whether or not we will really change for the better, He compassionately judges us according to our sincere desire to change in the present moment, and not by what will actually transpire in the future.
The level of integral awareness reached on Rosh Hashanah is alluded to in the phrase “all of you” in Nitzavim’s opening verse cited above. The simple peshat interpretation of this phrase is that all of the people were assembled to hear Moses speak. However, a Chassidic interpretation taught by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was that the Torah is teaching us that when we stand before God on Rosh Hashanah, it must be with “all of you,” with the totality of one’s being – as we recite in the Shema – “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
When we pause to think about it, how often do we dedicate our entire selves to anything? How often does our concentration begin to wane after we have been praying for just a few moments? How often do we truly give others our full attention, our undivided care and concern? How often do we actually follow through on achieving our goals and aspirations so that they are completely realized?
Ensuring that we stand before God with our entire beings, especially on Rosh Hashanah when God is deciding our fate for the upcoming year, is the call of the hour. If we are unable to muster that presence of mind and heart on our own, the shofar’s blast is designed to awaken and “shock” us into a full and immediate presence before the immanence of God, connecting the very depths of our innermost beings with the Transcendent Divine. The searing sound of the shofar has the ability to fuse together all the disjointed parts of our personality, all the inner fragmentation, into one unified presence.
In addition to both the straight forward and Chassidic interpretations of “all of you” just mentioned, the Kabbalistic principle of inter-inclusion generates another profound meaning for this evocative phrase. Following the portion’s introductory words, the Torah continues by enumerating ten groups of people who comprise “all of you”: “The heads of your tribes, your elders and your officers – all the men of Israel; your small children, your women, and the proselyte who is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of wood to the drawer of water” (Deuteronomy 29:9-10).
According to the fundamental Kabbalistic principle of inter-inclusion, wherein all the separate elements of a particular set are inter-included one within the other, each individual category contains all ten of the listed characteristics. For example, in every male there is a female aspect, while in every female there is a male facet. Every adult still maintains a positive bit of childlike wonder or, framed negatively, a bit of psychological immaturity, while all children have the potential to understand certain matters far beyond their years. All people possess within themselves leadership potential: the ability to be tribal heads and the deep innate wisdom of the elders; and so on. The possible combinations, shades, and degrees of these elements are as numerous as there are Jews. These ten divisions thus allow for balance and harmony when properly unified in an integrated personality.
Additionally, the Slonimer Rebbe often discusses the concept of “all of Israel” in his multi-volume work Netivot Shalom. He explains that the all-inclusive entity comprising the Jewish people is far greater than the sum of its individual parts. Furthermore, he adds that each Jew draws his or her individual connection to God from the collective soul of all Israel. That is why the concept of community is so important in Judaism. Although a person does have an obligation to cultivate his or her own personal spiritual connection to God and Torah, ultimately, the individual must be connected to “all of Israel.”
After describing how Moses assembled all the people on this very special “today,” the Torah recounts why he did so – to establish the covenant between God and Israel once again:
“In order to establish you today as a people to Him so that He be a God to you, as He spoke to you and as He swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Not with you alone do I seal this covenant and this oath, but with whoever is here, standing with us today before God, our God, and with whoever is not here with us today” (Deuteronomy 29:12).
Moses’ inclusion of all subsequent generations in this statement – “whoever is not here with us today” – substantially expands the covenant’s scope, creating a bond and unity of purpose that links all Jews, in all places, at all times. Despite being dispersed to the four corners of the earth for nearly two millennia, the Jewish people have been able to maintain themselves as a distinct and unique people due to this very covenant between God and “all of you.”
Furthermore, the inclusion of “whoever is not here with us today” also has profound Kabbalistic ramifications. According to the secrets of reincarnation – as recorded in many Kabbalistic texts and revealed by the Arizal, in particular – those souls that were redeemed from Egypt and stood at Mount Sinai have been repeatedly reincarnated throughout history. The phrase “whoever is not here with us today” thus refers to those subsequent generations of Jews who would reincarnate from the souls of those that were actually standing there at Sinai. So, in a sense, the later Jews “who were not there,” were also actually there.
Throughout the rest of the Torah portion, Moses proceeds to sum up all of Jewish history, including the many exiles, the Jewish people’s estrangement from its homeland, and its ultimate return. The magnitude of the exile is hinted at by the unusually large letter lamed in the Hebrew word translated as “cast you” (“and cast you into another land”; Deuteronomy 29:27). The fact that the lamed, the tallest of all the letters, is written especially large in this word emphasizes the extreme extent to which the Jews were cast to the four corners of the earth during the long and bitter exile that did in fact occur as the Torah predicted. Additionally, we might say that the large lamed alerts us to the pedagogic goal of exile, which is for us to learn (lomed) from our mistakes and return to the center of our truest selves.
Finally, after recounting the horror of these future exiles, the Torah promises that after the blessings and the curses have all come to pass, God will gather up all the Jews, no matter how distant physically or spiritually they are from their true source, and bring them back to the Land of Israel where the nation of Israel will prosper as never before, leading ultimately to an enlightened state of universal peace and prosperity, not just for the Jews in Israel, but for the entire world. This prophecy has been consistently repeated by all the prophets throughout history.
We live in awesome times when we merit witnessing at least part of these prophecies being realized before our very eyes. May we witness the great “today” when “all of you,” all of Israel, is once again assembled to “stand” together in the Holy Land. However, let us pray that this time we will also merit living in such a way that we tangibly contribute to a redeemed and peaceful world for all.
