Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 19 Elul, 5784
Parsha Nitzavim/Va-Yelekh– “Standing Firmly/He Went”: (Deuteronomy 29:9 – 30:20/ Deuteronomy 31:1 – 31:30)
First Portion: Deuteronomy 29:9 – 29:28

Good morning! It is the first day of the week – and we are now less than two weeks away from 5784 coming to an end.  We have four Parshot left in the Torah for this cycle. This week we will cover two of them.

The fist parsha is “Standing firmly” – and the question for us is around – what ARE we standing firmly on?

Is our firm foundation providing us what we need on the day to day?  Or are we being drained? Are we stuck? Or? WHERE are we stuck?  These are the questions as we explore the firm foundation we find ourselves on.  Let’s dig in:

9You are all standing this day before the Lord, your God the leaders of your tribes, your elders and your officers, every man of Israel,

10your young children, your women, and your convert who is within your camp both your woodcutters and your water drawers,

One thing that stands out for me here?  The convert. These were NOT just the children of Israel. There was room for those not born into the camp- there were those who were converted in.

And? Not just men. Women and children as well. They were all there.  Why?

11that you may enter the covenant of the Lord, your God, and His oath, which the Lord, your God, is making with you this day,

To enter into an agreement.  A covenant.  Why do we want a covenant?

12in order to establish you this day as His people, and that He will be your God, as He spoke to you, and as He swore to your forefathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Because we are making the CONNECTION with Hashem. We belong to Hashem. To the Universe.

13But not only with you am I making this covenant and this oath,

14but with those standing here with us today before the Lord, our God, and [also] with those who are not here with us, this day.

So THIS is interesting, isn’t it? The covenant wasn’t just with those who stood before Hashem on that day. The words here are interesting – they communicate space (not here with us) and time (this day). The covenant exists OUTSIDE of space and time. That is something for us – in THIS space and time – to consider.

15For you know how we dwelled in the land of Egypt, and how we passed among the nations through which you passed.

16And you saw their abominations and their repugnant idols [of] wood and stone, silver and gold which were with them.

Because those who were STANDING in THAT space and time? They were witnesses. Even though we (in THIS space and time) were not.

17Perhaps there is among you a man, woman, family, or tribe, whose heart strays this day from the Lord, our God, to go and worship the deities of those nations. Perhaps there is among you a root that produces hemlock and wormwood.

And there is an openness – people who were there – they would stray.

18And it will be, when he [such a person] hears the words of this oath, that he will bless himself in his heart, saying, “I will have peace, even if I follow my heart’s desires,” in order to add the [punishment for the] unintentional sins [of this man] to that of [his] intentional sins.

19The Lord will not be willing to forgive him; rather, then, the Lord’s fury and His zeal will fume against that man, and the entire curse written in this book will rest upon him, and the Lord will obliterate his name from beneath the heavens.

20And the Lord will separate him for evil, out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant, written in this Torah scroll.

So – if we trust this – those who were there that day? They have already been wiped out, right?

21And a later generation, your descendants, who will rise after you, along with the foreigner who comes from a distant land, will say, upon seeing the plagues of that land and the diseases with which the Lord struck it:

22Sulfur and salt have burned up its entire land! It cannot be sown, nor can it grow [anything], not [even] any grass will sprout upon it. It is like the overturning of Sodom, Gemorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overturned in His fury and in His rage.

23And all the nations will say, Why did the Lord do so to this land? What [is the reason] for this great rage of fury?

And we can expect things to go sideways. And – looking around in THIS space and time? It seems like they have, right?

24Then they will say, It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, God of their fathers, [the covenant] which He made with them when He took them out of the land of Egypt,

We can BLAME Hashem for this…or we can own…WE abandoned the covenant.

25For they went and served other deities, prostrating themselves to them deities which they had not known, and which He had not apportioned to them.

26And the Lord’s fury raged against that land, bringing upon it the entire curse written in this book.

And our ancestors – we have to acknowledge these are OUR ancestors – served OTHER deities. And received the FULL curses of the book.  How do we know this?

27And the Lord uprooted them from upon their land, with fury, anger and great wrath, and He cast them to another land, as it is this day.

Because we aren’t living in Israel. For me? America is NOT the promised land. As much as our schools tried to convince it IS the promised land. If we put America BEFORE the Torah? We are getting what we are seeing around us.

28The hidden things belong to the Lord, our God, but the revealed things apply to us and to our children forever: that we must fulfill all the words of this Torah.

That which is hidden to us? That’s Hashems. Revealed things? Are ours. In THIS space and time? We just need to observe – are we living in blessing or curse? We can argue how we got here – or we can acknowledge it and return to the words of the Torah.

That is the freedom we have. TRUE freedom.

These are my thoughts. What are yours?

Here are my thoughts from the past two years:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 17 Elul, 5783

Good morning! Today we start a “double parsha” for the next week as we head towards the final Sabbath of 5783.

First up this week is Nitzavim: which means “standing firmly.”

I read something on Chabad.org today that really resonated about where we are standing and today’s readings.  We stand “Between Heaven and Earth.”

Impossible Bridge

What is a mitzvah?
An act of uniting heaven and earth.
But heaven is spiritual and earth is material. To make spirit and matter one is impossible!
A creature of earth cannot make earth heaven. And a heavenly being cannot bring heaven to earth.
But for you, it is not impossible.
This mitzvah that I am commanding you today is not impossible for you. It’s not even distant. It’s very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart to do it. (Deut. 30:11)

It is close to you because the Torah was given to you both written and orally. (Rashi)

Because within you breathes the Creator of both heaven and earth.

So that when you speak the words of His written Torah, you bring heaven down to earth.

And when you explain the words of His oral Torah, you bring earth up to heaven.

Indeed, you accomplish the impossible every day.

I relate this to what I wrote a year ago regarding today’s portion:

I’m reflecting on how each moment may have an element of darkness and light to it; we can see the dark and then bring light to it, and then move to the next moment.

So often we try to ignore the darkness and just “be light.”  Where we stand is important in each moment.  How do we unify the light and the dark? The heaven and the earth?  In each moment?

Where do we stand? In each moment. And can we let the last moment “drop?” Or do we clutch onto those past moments to drag them into the present one?  Where are we standing?

These are my thoughts.  What are yours?

Here is my commentary from a year ago:

 Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 22 Elul, 5782

Good morning! I must admit I’m a little tired. When Rabbi Meir calls and asks me to join Selichot at 1am, I say yes. I have never done Selichot before; but these are special prayers we say each day leading us to Rosh Hashanah. The idea is that we can use this last week of Elul for deeper introspection, asking Hashem to forgive us for the mistakes we made this past year, and to ask for a clean slate even BEFORE Rosh Hashanah.

The Jewish spiritual new year is one week away. This is our last week before the chapter of 5782 closes and we begin 5783.

It is interesting to note, the Torah cycle overlaps. On one hand you’d think the spiritual new year means we end the Torah and start over. But no. That’s not how it works. The story of freedom and liberation takes us into 5783, and we actually BEGIN the new year with the END of the Torah. It’s very poetic. We don’t turn over the Torah and start again until Sukkot is over – and we celebrate Simchat Torah.

So as we begin to come to an end of 5782, May we connect with Hashem, clean up what we need to clean up, and then enter 5783 completely transformed and ready to receive our freedom and liberation!

Let’s dig into this week’s Parsha!

This week is Nitzavim – which means “standing firmly.” In a sense there is a grounding we need to remember as we enter liberation and freedom.

The Chumash I’m reading has this to say;

“We are diverse in so many ways, with our own strengths and weaknesses; but we are EQUAL AT OUR CORE, “standing firmly (nitzavim) all of you together before God.” Discover the power of that unified essence.

Our frame of mind going into freedom and liberation should not be one of loneliness or isolation. We go in as a community. That is our design!

Let’s dig in!

It’s a short passage today; I’m going to post the entire text from Deuteronomy 29:9-11:

You are standing firmly today, all of you together, before God, your God-the heads of your tribes, your elders, your police officers (standing in front of) every Jewish person: your young children, your women, and the converts within your camp (who were assigned positions ranging) from your woodcutters to your water-drawers – in order to bring you into the covenant of God, your God, and His oath which God, your God, is making with you today.

Rabbi Eliezer Horowitz wrote this:

“This teaches us that on the day he died, Moses assembled the Jewish people before God, to bring them into a covenant.

The Midrashic explanation is as follows: Why is this Torah portion juxtaposed with the admonition (the curses in the previous section)? Because when the Jewish people heard these ninety-eight curses, besides the forty-nine curses in Leviticus (26:14-39), their faces turned pale, and they said, “Who could withstand all these?” So Moses began to appease them, saying “You are standing firmly today” – you have angered God many times, but He has not destroyed you. And you see that you continue to exist before Him, ‘today’- just as this day exists.

Another explanation: Since the Jewish people were now passing from leader to leader, from Moses to Joshua, Moses brought them to a standing assembly, in order to encourage them (Rashi).

The “standing” of the Jewish people follows the order of “today,” i.e., the day of Genesis, “It became evening and it became morning-one day (Genesis 1:5). Just as in the Hebrew calendar the night precedes the day, so it is with the Jewish people. First there is persecution and exile, and then we will come to merit redemption and salvation. (End quote)

I’m chewing on this. The Hebrew day begins at night. Our brains see light as the beginning. But light is the ending of a day. And it’s interesting that the “light” of liberation in the Torah is both and ending AND a beginning. It links one day to the next, one year to the next, one moment to the next.

I’m reflecting on how each moment may have an element of darkness and light to it; we can see the dark and then bring light to it, and then move to the next moment.

But I wonder if sometimes we take moments and ignore this process; we ignore the dark and wait for the light to come; or we reject the darkness and don’t allow the light to shine.

I equate this with the moon. The moon has cycles. We are working towards the new moon. Darkness. The month starts with darkness, comes to the light mid month and then goes back into darkness time and time and time again.

Are we living like this? Or are we only giving reality to light when we see it? There is a balance. A poetry. A symbiotic relationship to light and darkness we need to embrace. As we looked at previously – we may not always shine light; but we need to learn to see in the dark.

Wanted to close these thoughts (and wow, they feel powerful) with this “spiritual vitamin” from the Chumash I’m reading:

“The ultimate purpose of Torah is not to increase our knowledge per se, but to instruct us to conduct our lives to the fullest advantage of both ourselves and the community at large. As a matter of course, it provides all the knowledge necessary for the attainment of this ultimate purpose.”

My hope is that as we move this week to the new moon, our eyes are attuned with the darkness and we will still see.

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 23 Elul, 5782

Good morning and happy Monday! As we turn towards the end of Elul (it will come to a close at sundown on Sunday) the moon is waning for the last time in this spiritual year. We will turn to a new year and a new spiritual cycle.

You may not know – but 5782 is what is designated as a “sabbatical” year in the Jewish calendar. Lots of things are “returned.” If you have experienced “return” this year, you are not alone.

I have returned “home” in many ways. And so this has been a year where I have fully embraced and lived out this idea of a return home. I am excited to get to work in 5783 to re-establish the home I’ve returned to. As I shared previously, 5782 is the year I went “home” to the house of my youth.

Ok. Let’s dig into the Torah. It’s a short passage once again. Yesterday Moses told us to stand firm. Today, he digs deeper. Here is the entire text of todays portion, from Deuteronomy 29:12-14

(This is) in order to establish you today as His people, that He will be your God, as He told you, and as He swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (that He would never swap you for another nation).

I am not only making this covenant and this oath with you, but with (both) those standing here with us today before God, our God, and with those (in future generations) who are not here with us today. (end quote)

Chew on this. Hashem was making this covenant with the Israelites at the Jordan River before they entered into the promised land AT THE VERY SAME TIME he is making that covenant with us before we enter spiritual freedom and liberation. How powerful is that?

This covenant is firm. It’s a promise. We will have blessing if we connect with Hashem. We will have curses if we disconnect from Him. Moses can’t tell us enough to get our affairs in order before we enter. Otherwise next year’s cycle will be a struggle for us.

We can have abundance. We can have desire. All we need to do is connect with Hashem.

What are your thoughts?

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 24 Elul, 5782

Today, Moses continues giving us final instructions before entering the promised land. And his focus right now is brining us back to slavery. Reminding us of where we were – when we lived in Egypt.

While we were slaves, we saw the idolatry. The worshiping of things OTHER than Hashem.

And Moses connects that for us. And he says something crucial that was true in the moment he said it before, and is also true in this current moment as we read it:

“So perhaps there is among you a man, a woman, a family, or a tribe, whose heart is straying today from God our God, (and does not want to enter into the covenant with Him, but would rather) go and worship the gods of those nations.” Deuteronomy 29:17a

This is the beginning stage of heading BACK to slavery. Imagine going through the journey the Jews went through. Being on the precipice of freedom and liberation. And we stray. We start to have thoughts, beliefs, desires. Desires to go back to where we thought we were safe; Egypt.

We knew Egypt. We know slavery. We feel comfortable having decisions made for us. When we have freedom and liberation – we are risking making the wrong decision. That could lead us to doubt. To question. And this is where Moses tells us it will lead:

Perhaps there is among you (a person growing in wickedness like) a root that is sprouting (bitter herbs, like) hemlock and wormwood such that when he hears the words of this oath, (he will think that they do not apply to him) and he will convince himself in his heart. saying, “I will be okay, even if I follow my heart’s desires” (To such a person) I will add (to the punishment for his sins which were done inadvertently, as if) in a drunken stupor, (a further punishment for his sins done intentionally, out of a conscious) thirsting. ” God will not be willing to forgive him! Rather, Gods fury and His zeal will then fume against that man, and the entire curse written in this book will come down upon him, and God will obliterate his name from beneath the skies. God will single him out him from all the tribes of Israel for severe treatment, according to all the curses of the covenant, written in this Book of the Torah. Deuteronomy 29:17b-20

This is a perfect image – the issue with Hashem isn’t that he is looking to judge us; it’s that He understands our hearts, and what freedom could do. We will turn away from Him. Not all of us. Some of us. And if we enter liberation, our hearts must be grounded in Hashem. And what is Hashem? He is love. If we are acting and turned to love, we will see countless blessing upon blessing. If we resist love and Hashem? We will get in our own way of love. That is the choice of freedom!

What are your thoughts?