Shabbat Shalom and welcome to Judeo Talk. The Torah portion for this week is Parsha Nitzavim-Vayelech, Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30.
This week's parsha is fairly brief. All in all, it feels like a sort of narrative capstone for the previous few parshiot, a kind of philosophical breather. On one level it is a review of basic themes and a sort of stepping-back perspective moment. The terms are broad and general, referencing elements of older passages, specifically the blessings and curses as well as some of the fallen cities from biblical history.
On another level, this parsha is much more emotionally intimate than the grand language of Deuteronomy normally affords. The first thing Nitzavim-Vayelech tries to establish is that the entire nation of Israel is experiencing this moment. Literally and figuratively, each and every individual stands at a pivotal time. As far as this portion is concerned, this is no less than the instant when each person must choose between a righteous life and a wicked life, between the world that could be and the world that has been. Standing at the border between civilization and the harsh wilderness, this parsha does not assume that everyone is going to choose a new, better life over cycles of loss and destruction.
Another important part of this portion is the reminder that goodness is not something for which we wait. The parsha says specifically that happiness has nothing to do with heaven or any other moment of retrospective. Rather, it is a pursuit for the here and now. In rather simple language, this Torah portion is telling us to pay attention to our lives in the present and to likewise make our moral decisions sooner rather than later. To borrow from Rav Hillel, "If not now, when?"
If ever there was a Jewish philosophical sentiment, this moral immediacy is it. It is in this sense that Judaism differs from so many other modern religions. According to our texts, God's covenant with the Israelites involves life only. There is no mention in the brit of a reward in the afterlife. Rather, the only active agreement between God and humanity involves earthly responsibilities for the latter in exchange for mortal prosperity granted by the former. In more concrete terms, it's not Judaism if it involves anything outside of life as we're living it.
Since Nitzavim-Vayelech is rather short, I also want to take this time to make a point of order in how this blog treats exegesis. Last week we received an excellent post in our comments section illuminating an additional perspective of Parsha Ki Tavo. The views expressed on Judeo Talk are by no means exclusive or final. Quite the contrary, actually. There are many layers to every passage in the Torah, so much so that whole generations of scholars pour over these texts every day of every year and never fail to find new insight. The true richness of the Torah is in the sheer impossibility of condensing a comprehensive lesson of a given parsha into the space of a single article or essay. The written d'varim I provide for this blog are meant to be little more than starting points for study, both yours and my own. I highly encourage any of you readers to delve into these scriptures for yourselves so that you will see more lessons than I could ever hope to provide here.
So, in your studies and in your lives this coming week, I wish you all Shalom, good health and personal growth.