L’Chaim in 5777!
Tonight’s Shabbat is the last of 5776. Sunday night we begin celebrating the a new civil year in the Jewish calendar, the first day of the seventh month (there are four new years in the Jewish calendar, and some groups don’t celebrate Rosh Hashanah as a new year – just so you know!). For those of us who enjoy dipping our apples in honey, proclaiming a sweet and prosperous year ahead, Deuteronomy 29:9 gives us some idea of how to reach that ideal: Obedience.
Parashat Nitzavim follows Ki Tavo, the instructions to the Israelites about finally entering the land upon whose precipice they encamp, the promised inheritance from G!d. Nitzavim begins by describing that the covenant to which it refers in its opening verse is for EVERYONE – “your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the alien who is within your camps, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water.” The sense given by this list of types of people is that no one is to be left out or excused from responsibility, from the least to the greatest.
Directly after this opening for the declaration of a covenant, G!d speaks curses, those which we began to hear about earlier in Deuteronomy, against the enemies of himself and his people Israel, including those within the nation. These devastating, terrifying verses are followed by the promise that obedience will bring more prosperity than has been seen before, and more than the Israelites can imagine. How were they to obey G!d in order to inherit the blessings and prosperity of his covenant?
“The L!rd your G!d will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the L!rd your G!d with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.”
Circumcision is a covenant, a mark of the covenant between G!d and his people. There are may opinions and ideas about what this ‘circumcision of the heart’ is – the removal of barriers between our spiritual/emotional/mental/life force and G!d? the marking of our hearts for G!d? the sign that we have entered a covenant ourselves – each person?
As people of faith, it is essential to experience communal faith and obedience – but this cannot be separated from an individual commitment and relationship with G!d. Last week we read that “my father was a wandering Aramean” – a phrase that evokes the obligation to feel, each of us, as though we came out of Egypt (whether we were physically there at the exodus or not). How is that possible? We recall the original story, think about our own bondage to tyranny and the desires of the body, and celebrate how G!d can bring us to freedom through serving him, and finally redemption. Now, as we are on the cusp of Yamim Nora’im (the Days of Awe), each of us must begin to remember our own PERSONAL COVENANT with G!d, established through a long communal tradition. Rosh Hashanah, or Yom T’ruah, leads us into a period of days during which we think about our lives, how G!d interacts with us, and how we may have a better relationship with him and with our communities, neighbors, and fellow humans. We can talk about this with our family and friends, but no one else can reflect on our life and our one-on-one relationship with G!d. Each of us must participate in individual reflection in order to join in communal reflection.
And this is not difficult – it is near us.
“For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.”
G!d desires for us to live, and to prosper in life through obedience in our covenant with him, individually and communally. Let us remember his goodness, his guidance, his grace, and his glory as we begin the Days of Awe.
