The Leaves, They Are A-Changing

Tonight is Shabbat Shuvah: The Sabbath of Return, also calling to mind the teshuvah, or repentance, we are called to practice during these Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) leading up to Yom Kippur next week. The beginning of this week was celebration – a new year, complete with apples, honey, pomegranates, dates, shofar blasts, goals for the upcoming year, and remembering our victories. Next week holds a day of fasting and a recounting of our sins so we may receive atonement and look forward to serving G!d more wholeheartedly in 5777.

Simon Rosh Hashanah Dinner 5777

We’ve been following the Israelites as they are on the cusp of entering the Promised Land. Moses has spoken words of direction, encouragement, warning, cursing, blessing, and hope. Unfortunately, as he makes clear in the parsha this week, he will not be joining his people in the land of Canaan. He can only hope that the Israelites have taken to heart the words G!d’s given him for them. As we read earlier in the Torah, Moses was punished for an earlier error of judgment/disobedience, which resulted in his dying outside the land of inheritance.

Who will lead the Israelites if not Moses? The same guiding force who’s been with them all along – G!d – will continue to take them on their journey, now through Moses’ follow-up, Joshua. Once in the new land, Joshua is to read the law before the people so all the generations will know what G!d has done for them and obey him. This will allow them to remain in the land under his care.

Unfortunately, this parsha ends with a true but sad prediction: the Israelites will again disobey G!d and eventually have to leave the land. Moses wants it written down and kept with the Ark of the Covenant so the people remember that they were warned harshly against this disobedience.

Looking down from the base of Mt. Pisgah

During the Days of Awe and on Shabbat Shuvah, it is appropriate to remember the warnings, predictions, and disobedience we read about in Parashat Vayeilech (Deuteronomy 31). This week I was in North Carolina with my parents. We spent some time in Asheville, including a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The leaves are in the beginning phases of changing colors, offering varying shades of green, yellow, orange, red, and brown. Just as there are many colors of leaves, we have various choices in our daily life and relationships. Shabbat Shuvah reminds us that our choices will affect whether we live and thrive, or if we are led to a death in our relationship with G!d and others, just as the leaves fall off the trees. Fortunately, there is always the opportunity for renewal, just as the leaves grow back every year.