Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech

By Dan Cohen

This parsha concludes our second trip through the Torah with you. Only a few Parshiot are left in the Torah, but we’ve completed the cycle again.  

Each week, I’ve sat with the Torah Portion and tried to identify what was personally meaningful and what might make a good “takeaway” for each of you. In doing so, I found a way to voice many parenting and life lessons I could not share verbally.

This may be the last drash for a while. 

I plan to use the rest of Elul and the few weeks until we start the Torah all over again to chat with you. Together, we can think about the past two years, what we’ve learned, and whether there may be new ways to grow together in Torah that resonate. At the same time, I’ve enjoyed the writing part so much that I might pursue some new writing challenges—Torah or otherwise.

Learning the Torah with you in mind gave me a powerful and fresh lens. Writing to you each week has been a joy. The goal has always been to find unique ways to teach and share. I hope I’ve hit the mark.

In reviewing this week’s reading, I wanted to write about endings. After all, Moshe woke up on the day the parsha describes, knowing it was his last day on earth. I tried to dig into what this sense of finality might mean and discuss the importance of recognizing the passage of time across generations. 

The only problem is that I wrote that already in 2012.

At the end of this piece is a drash I wrote for an OHDS Board Meeting. Rather than recreate the wheel, I’ll leave you to read it and maybe learn from the lessons I drew then. In re-reading that piece from so long ago, I noticed it contained song lyrics and a loving reference to Rabbi Dardik’s teachings. Some things never change. So, back to the drawing board. 

Looking at the Parshiot anew this week, I learned from many sages that these are also parshiot of transition. The Rebbe’s Chumash cites the R. Sa’adia Ga’on. He says that these could be one parsha. Most years, we read them together; in some, we split them up.  This is relevant because of the essence of each and how they sit together. In a way, they are in dialogue with each other.

Nitzavim, the first of the two Parshiot opens by saying, “You are standing today, all of you, before Gd, your Gd -your heads, your tribes and your officers, all the men of Israel.” (Chapter 29, Verse 9).  

Most commentators translate the word choice “Nitzavim” to mean “standing firmly.” Rav Hirsch and others said that if the word was defined as standing, the Torah might have used “omdim.” The choice of the world nitzavim indicates that today, we as a nation stand together resolutely, just as we will in the future. 

Rashi writes that perhaps we “stand firmly” because we just read 98 curses in last week’s parsha, yet we remain standing together as a nation - a tribute to our commitment. Rashi also says Moshe may have brought the nation together to mark the national leadership transition to Joshua, sending him off with our blessing. 

Even though the previous parsha called out all the reasons we were to be rebuked in the future, Moshe tells us we will live on. Hirsch adds that even if our leaders may depart from the stage, our people are “immortal, eternal, and everlasting. The word choice implies the nation will continue standing powerfully and with energetic perseverance.

The Rebbe builds on this idea, saying that we don’t just stand as a nation but as individuals. He references the words elders, leaders, and men in the verse. In doing so, he calls us to individual action. Each of us, he says, has a particular assignment according to our status and skills. When we all do our jobs, the nation will thrive. 

You and I sit here in Israel today as a testament to that lasting journey of unified and individual action preceding us by thousands of years. We live in the same place settled by the same people Moshe spoke to as he departed. We stand on the shoulders of these giants. 

Moshe gathered everyone purposefully, Hirsch said. Moshe urged them to focus on the fact that nothing would be the same once they entered the Covenant and the Land. Their exclusive relationship with Hashem meant their future would be fundamentally different from their past and every other nation. Today, we live that truth.

However, if Nitzavim means to stand firmly in our place, Vayeilech, the second of the two parshiot, is a call to action and growth.  

Chapter 31, Verse 1 begins the second parsha.  It says, “Moshe went, and he spoke the following words to all Israel.”  Unlike Netzvaim, where Moshe stood and spoke to the nation, Moshe heads out to talk to the people on his final day on earth. 

The Ibn Ezra said he went tent-by-tent through the camp. Rambam says Moshe walked through the camp as one who asks permission to depart upon leaving a friend. The Kli Yakar adds that he walked through the camp to show his vigor and demonstrate that Gd determined this was his time to go.  The emphasis was on a man in motion.

R. Gaon combines two ideas—standing firmly and a man in motion (growth)—Nitzavim and Vayeilech. The Rebbe’s Chumash comments on this, saying we must be able to grow without compromising our prior position of strength.

Mom and I have tried to model this balance of firm footing and personal growth in our actions. We chose to stand firmly in Israel, exercising our simple faith in Hashem (Nitzvaim). Yet, our life and Torah learning journey, along with the lessons from these past two years, were intended to show you that growth, expansion of knowledge, and self-connection are daily choices with lasting impact—your personal Vayeilech.

With Gd’s help, Mom and I have given you the world. You carry passports and citizenship in the two most consequential nations on earth. You live a thoroughly modern life infused with the blueprint of the Torah. You have incandescently bright futures ahead of you.    

Rav Hirsch teaches Moshe’s choice to walk among the people to connect and bid farewell in the most straightforward manner possible, which reflects his humility. For two years, with these words, I have tried to humbly find a place in your conscious and unconscious minds where ideas and beliefs take root.

The Torah is there for you when times are great and challenging. In these weekly teachings, I’ve tried to disclose my errors, journey, and the opportunities I’ve received by standing firmly with Hashem while growing through the Torah. I pray this helps inform your choices. That’s the same lesson I drew 12 years ago, and it feels even more powerful now.

OHDS Board – Vayeilech Sept 2012

We are going to be surrounded by words over the next few weeks.  We will hear drashot from Rabbis on the high holidays.  We’ll be power schmoozing (and fundraising) while everyone is in shul.  We’ll be processing the meaning of the holidays with our friends and family over long holiday meals at our tables and in our sukkah.

With that in mind, I wanted to reflect on just a few things in this week’s parsha . 

Given the abundance of words, I chose to focus on the images, not the words that the parsha evokes.

The Parsha is short – really short.  Like 3-4 pages in the chumash short.  I think even scholars realized as they mapped out the year that we wouldn’t have much bandwidth during the Shabbos between RH and YK (often called Shabbat Tshuvah / Shabbat Shuvah – repentance and return)

Despite its brevity, it’s nearly cinematic in the climatic moments it presents here at the end of Moshe’s life.

I ask you to close your eyes and visualize these three powerful images.  As laid out in the Stone Chumash citing Rambam, Sforno & Or HaChaim

First - “After Moshe sealed the new covenant with all members of the nation (last week), they left him and returned to their homes in the Israelite camp.  Then Moses went from his own dwelling near the tent of meeting and walked through the camps of the all twelve tribes to bid farewell to his beloved people and to console them over his impending death – so that their sadness over his departure would not cloud their joy in having sealed the covenant”

Second - “Moshe knew this was the last day of his life, because as the Zohar teaches, the most holy and righteous people are sensitive to spirituality and are able to tell when the soul begins to ebb away from the body.” (Especially after 120 years!)

Third – from Ch 31 v 14 “So moses and Joshua went and stood in the tent of meeting.  Hashem appeared in the tent, in a pillar of cloud stood by the entrance of the tent…”

On the first image, it’s the scene we know and love from every epic battle movie ever.  The knowing and aging general walks through his troupes.  Hugging some, making knowing eye contact and nodding to others. 

I was reminded of what R. Dardik said in his RH drash – that knowledge doesn’t come easy.  It’s the summation of Information Plus Time. 

No one knew the Jewish people like Moshe.  He’d seen them over 40 years in the desert evolve.  He’d faced down revolutions.  He’d pleaded with G-d on their behalf.  No one knew them better.  Thus, as he walked thru the camps, he could urge them to trust in G-d, and share one last blast of trust, in a way no other could.

On the second image, it’s the tight shot in many movies where a sleeping person wakes with a start and a gasp.  Here, I can certainly see Moshe waking up on that day – a day that Rashi says was his birthday day and the day he would die and setting out to make the most of it.   This would be a day in which he walked through the camps, wrote an entire version of the Torah, and had an historic meeting with Hashem and Joshua.

But that exact moment of realizing “today it ends” or could end is striking. 

In popular culture, this notion was captured in a country music mega-hit called “Live Like you were dyin” as a man grapples with an untimely cancer diagnosis. 

My favorite lyric – “I went skydiving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fu-manchu.  I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I’d been denyin.”

It was the last line that struck me.  Here in the Shabbos of repentance, if we truly stare down at our own mortality, we’re shown that the biggest gift we can offer to ourselves, hashem and each other is forgiveness. 

Finally, the third image.  There was a magic moment as Joshua and Moshe stood in the Tent of Meeting as Hashem appeared.  Its pillar of fire stuff.  Hashem shares lots of good stuff, and lots of bad stuff that‘s about to happen (and presages the “Song” that Moshe will offer next week).

Early on in our tenure in Oakland, R. Dardik shared a metaphor to understand the passage of knowledge from Moshe to Joshua.  He described it as Moshe pouring what was basically an endless amount of knowledge (water) into Joshua’s smaller vessel – and Joshua only being able to retain what little he could in comparison – with water spilling over and overflowing the vessel of Joshua.  So much greatness and knowledge lost in the transfer.  What a powerful image.

So here we are.  The direct hotline to Hashem just about to be severed.  A last attempt to transmit the knowledge base to and through Joshua, and a frightened people.  People who have seriously messed up and are about to enter a new land.

Where does that leave us?  In the parsha during the tent scene, Hashem says to Moshe, “For I know that after your death, they will surely act corruptly, and you will stray…”

Rabbil Label Lam cites a Kli Yakar commentary, saying there is an even deeper issue involved.

When a person commits himself to embarking on a new spiritual path, he is often plagued by fears that, given how far he has strayed from the proper path, his plan to change will meet with failure.

The lesson from this final image for me was the power of study.  No one, even Joshua was expected to know the entire torah and the entirety of G-ds wisdom.  But we were left a torah, written by Moshe on his  last day on earth, as a starting point.

There was a nugget of Rashi where he comments on another verse – but it applicable here – that despite the prophecy that Israel will slide into sin and provocation of G-d, there is a comforting promise that Torah will never completely be forgotten (Because we will continue to learn it). Rashi on 31:21.