Parshas Nitzavim: Threads of Return
אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם כֻּלְּכֶם לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֵיכֶם
We are all standing here today, a few days before Rosh Hashanah.
Not just the leaders, not just the righteous. Every one of us. Even the woodchopper, even the water-carrier. Even me.
The Torah warns of a person who hears the covenant with God and still says inside: “I will have peace, even if I follow my illusions.” It calls him “לְמַעַן סְפוֹת הָרָוֶה אֶת־הַצְּמֵאָה”: adding the drunk to the thirsty, stacking unintentional sins onto intentional ones.
We are all standing here today, a few days before Rosh Hashanah.
Not just the leaders, not just the righteous. Every one of us. Even the woodchopper, even the water-carrier. Even me.
The Torah warns of a person who hears the covenant with God and still says inside: “I will have peace, even if I follow my illusions.” It calls him “לְמַעַן סְפוֹת הָרָוֶה אֶת־הַצְּמֵאָה”: adding the drunk to the thirsty, stacking unintentional sins onto intentional ones.
I know that illusion. I lived it. Chasing comfort in the cup, telling myself I was fine, while really only adding absence on top of absence.
The parsha doesn’t hide the devastation. It says that future generations and even strangers will look at the land, see the plagues and desolation, and ask: “Why did this happen? Why did God pour out such fury?”
The parsha doesn’t hide the devastation. It says that future generations and even strangers will look at the land, see the plagues and desolation, and ask: “Why did this happen? Why did God pour out such fury?”
The answer is that the covenant was forsaken, the people turned away, and the curses written in the Torah came to life. And then the verse concludes: “הַנִּסְתָּרֹת לַה׳ אֱלֹקֵינוּ, וְהַנִּגְלֹת לָנוּ וּלְבָנֵינוּ”: the hidden things belong to God, but the revealed belong to us and to our children.
I hear myself in those verses. I am that “later generation,” looking back at devastation, speaking aloud what is broken. I can’t answer for the hidden, for what transpired in the past. But I can take responsibility for what’s revealed: for my story, my illusions, my choices.
And I know I’m not the first. Each generation carried its own work. Each soul had its own share in tikkun. When that work wasn't finished, the soul came back: to refine, to deepen, to try again. Which means my pain, my struggle, my healing, my teshuvah, my tikkun are not only about me. They are part of a bigger picture, threads in a fabric that stretches backward into the hidden and forward into the not-yet. This is the work of Tikkun Olam.
I hear myself in those verses. I am that “later generation,” looking back at devastation, speaking aloud what is broken. I can’t answer for the hidden, for what transpired in the past. But I can take responsibility for what’s revealed: for my story, my illusions, my choices.
And I know I’m not the first. Each generation carried its own work. Each soul had its own share in tikkun. When that work wasn't finished, the soul came back: to refine, to deepen, to try again. Which means my pain, my struggle, my healing, my teshuvah, my tikkun are not only about me. They are part of a bigger picture, threads in a fabric that stretches backward into the hidden and forward into the not-yet. This is the work of Tikkun Olam.
That’s generational healing.
And then comes the heart of it all, the instructions for how to manifest that healing energy:
לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִוא… כִּי־קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד, בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשׂתּוֹ.
Torah Shebichsav came from Heaven. So this Pasuk isn’t about that. It’s about the Torah from earth: Torah Sheba’al Peh. And the very first words of that Torah are in Maseches Berachos. Not about cosmic secrets or the creation of the universe. But about saying Shema. About making blessings. About the words that pass our lips and enter our hearts each day. Torah that begins here.
I saw this in Hashgocha Protis this week. On Tuesday I felt “a random pull” to open an archived WhatsApp chat I hadn’t looked at in months. I scrolled a bit, looking for nothing in particular, and stopped on a post from three weeks ago. It was from a stranger, sharing a link to sign up to learn Mishnayos for someone who had passed. And waiting there, unclaimed, was Berachos: the very first Masechta. It felt like it had been waiting for me. So I’ve been learning it this week. לעילוי נשמת יוסף יצחק בן נסים.
This is what Nitzavim calls me to:
To name the illusions that numb.
To return, for myself, for generations, and for souls I may never know.
To find Torah not in heaven, but in my mouth, my heart, my choices.
And so I stand with the parsha, and I say:
וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים
Choose life. In every word, in every drink, in every step that makes Torah real in this world.
Good Shabbos,
Berke
And then comes the heart of it all, the instructions for how to manifest that healing energy:
לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִוא… כִּי־קָרוֹב אֵלֶיךָ הַדָּבָר מְאֹד, בְּפִיךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ לַעֲשׂתּוֹ.
Torah Shebichsav came from Heaven. So this Pasuk isn’t about that. It’s about the Torah from earth: Torah Sheba’al Peh. And the very first words of that Torah are in Maseches Berachos. Not about cosmic secrets or the creation of the universe. But about saying Shema. About making blessings. About the words that pass our lips and enter our hearts each day. Torah that begins here.
I saw this in Hashgocha Protis this week. On Tuesday I felt “a random pull” to open an archived WhatsApp chat I hadn’t looked at in months. I scrolled a bit, looking for nothing in particular, and stopped on a post from three weeks ago. It was from a stranger, sharing a link to sign up to learn Mishnayos for someone who had passed. And waiting there, unclaimed, was Berachos: the very first Masechta. It felt like it had been waiting for me. So I’ve been learning it this week. לעילוי נשמת יוסף יצחק בן נסים.
This is what Nitzavim calls me to:
To name the illusions that numb.
To return, for myself, for generations, and for souls I may never know.
To find Torah not in heaven, but in my mouth, my heart, my choices.
And so I stand with the parsha, and I say:
וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים
Choose life. In every word, in every drink, in every step that makes Torah real in this world.
Good Shabbos,
Berke