Yom Kippur
5765 D’var Torah – Nitzavim

“You stand here, all of you, today, before the Fount of Life, your God – your leaders and your tribes, your elders, your officials, every person of the people Israel, your children and your spouses and the stranger in your midst where you encamp, those who cut wood, those who draw water – all of you, prepared to enter into covenant with the Eternal One your God, into the oath that the Eternal One your God concludes with you today…”

This is Moses speaking in his final address to the people Israel. This is Moses as he is about to die, knowing that those he has led and nurtured and challenged and taught for forty years will enter the Promised Land without him. They will achieve what he cannot. These are powerful words and in context, they are heartbreaking words. This final covenant is about to be entered into and an oath concluded, not just with those standing there, but also with all those who are not there. This covenant is made with us as well and with all in the great line of our history stretching forward from that undated time to us now, as we stand here, trying to grapple with what this all means.

As these words are being spoken by Moses, he has been teaching for forty years… forty years since Sinai…forty years since the Golden Calf… forty years since the people told Moses they were too afraid to hear the word of God and begged for intermediaries. Now, through the purging of the desert a new people had been born… a people who had never known slavery… a people who had been raised on the commandments handed down from Sinai… a people who had been prepared to accept this Covenant and move in to the Holy Land committed to the One God. This was a people who had been prepared to leave Moses behind -- and live the covenant between them and God.

This primitive people had seen amazing wonders that have never been repeated, and all of which had been brought to them through this man, who even as he was about to die, was still teaching them the word of God. He had taught them to believe they would not starve - and they had been fed by the miracle of manna. He had taught them that his leadership was God-given - and they could not question it. When they might have wavered, they recalled Aaron’s sons destroyed by fire, and Korach swallowed up by the earth, and plagues destroying others, and their doubts disappeared. They had seen their great victories all explained by Moses in terms that were God- and belief-centered. They had followed this man for forty years, this man who even today is considered our greatest teacher, this man who stands above all others in our pantheon of Biblical stars, this man who Torah tells us simply in its closing lines that: “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses – whom God singled out, face to face…”

This was a purged and prepared people. This was a people ready to believe wholeheartedly in the promises that God had made. This was a people ready to follow Joshua into the Holy Land and say yes to the covenant with God. Moses had taught them well. The desert had tested them. Time had strengthened them.

But as most Bible scholars know, although those forty years are our story, they are not necessarily our true history. The parallels that we seek on this Yom Kippur are there for us however, and we should not ignore them. Torah gives us Truth with a capital T - not truth with a lower case t.

This is our portion on this most holy of holy days, and as with all of our portions on holy days, we are obligated to try and learn why it has been chosen for us. Why are we asked to reflect on this strange covenant full of blessings and curses of mythic size and consequence on this particular day? Then we realize that we too are standing today before the Fount of Life, whatever that may be… We too are physically presenting ourselves… We too are supposed to be prepared… We too are supposed to be purged and ready… We too are supposed to enter, to move forward… We too are supposed to act. That is what these days have been about. Our Days of Awe should be our largest personal engagement with blessings and curses, challenges and victories, self-assessments and commitments that we engage in all year… so what better section of Torah to struggle with than this?

We are no longer able to comfortably sit back and let the story of Creation intrigue us, as on the first day of Rosh Hashanah or even struggle emotionally with the Binding of Isaac on the second day… this is the portion that requires us to stand and deliver, if you’ll pardon my stealing a line.

We have had forty days, not forty years, but it is a classic parallel in Torah study. We are told to begin our preparation for this moment on the first of Elul and continue our work of return and repentance through the Ten Days of Awe. Then when we hear the final sounds of the shofar as the sun sets this evening during the concluding service, we will walk alone into our metaphorical Promised Land, our refreshed new year, our souls purged and renewed… not by the testing of the desert… but by the self-assessment and repair of our hearts… We did not have a Moses to guide us, but we do have his teachings. We have prepared ourselves, by our own spiritual work, by our own choices, by our own decision to come to this place on Yom Kippur and listen to these ancient words and wonder at this covenant made on our behalf.

So what is it? What is this covenant? What have we been challenged to do during these forty days? What did those ancestors of ours agree to?

We have been committed to follow the path that God, however we choose to define God’s presence in our lives, has shown to us. This portion sings with blessings that will be ours if we do so, but we must say yes. There is no passivity allowed. Once you get past the violent imagery of the ancient writings and to the core lessons of the portion, Moses is begging each individual person listening to him to make the right choices, to love God and to choose the path of life… The portion clearly acknowledges that each of us must make this choice, that individual contracts must be drawn, and most importantly, that no one else can speak for us… and here, in these final moments, we are reminded that if we choose the dark side, the side of death and idol worship and turning away from the One God… the contract will be broken… but that is completely our choice…

Teshuvah, Tefilah and Tzedakah. Repentance, prayer and good works – returning our selves to the path of goodness, of godliness, heading towards the person we know we are capable of being is clearly a parallel path to the purging our ancestors went through to be worthy of entering the Promised Land. We choose our path. We choose to act. We choose…

We stand here today, the high school students, the lawyers, the social workers, the teachers, the businessmen, the artists, the doctors, the scientists, our partners and our children, and all the others in our midst – all of us, prepared, to enter into covenant with the Eternal One, our God, into the oath that the Eternal One, our God, concludes with us today…

We are tied to those ancient tested souls with the capital T of truth.

Barbara Carr
© September 2004