Questions & Commentary on Parashat Nitzavim-Vayyelekh

1. Why is Parashat Vayyelekh read right before Rosh Hashanah or during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva (the Ten Days of Repentance)? How does it help to prepare us spiritually for the High Holidays? What does it teach us about our responsibility for other Jews and the people of God in general?

Rabbi Jason Sobel

At first glance, it might seem odd that Parashat Vayyelekh is read during this time. In this parasha, Moses, who has faithfully led and shepherded the Children of Israel for forty years, is about to take leave and deliver his final address to the people. One would expect him to deliver a message of hope or at least comfort to the Children of Israel.

Rather, we read something quite different and even disturbing. Moses, the defender of Israel himself, speaks harsh words to Israel: 

For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall upon you because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD and provoke him to anger by what your hands have made.

            Deuteronomy 31:29

These words and those that follow in Ha'azinu are not meant to serve as a warning to Israel but rather a witness against her. It is not a matter of if the people are going to stray but only a matter of when.

The foreboding tenor of this Torah portion is significant in light of the fact that it read right before or during the High Holidays. Ovadia Seforno, the 16th Century Italian rabbi and Biblical commentator, underscores this connection when he states:

I shall relate this song, and bear witness against you, that I knew you would act in such a way that evil would befall you. [This happened] in order that you should not ascribe future [events] simply to happenstance, but rather you will ascribe them to your sinful actions, and thus consider returning [to the Lord], similar to [what the prophet Isaiah said], "Therefore I have declared to you from of old, before it came to pass I announced it to you, lest you say my idol did this" (Isaiah 48:5).

Seforno's comments on this verse remind us that the terrible tragedies that have befallen our people have one general purpose, which is to cause us to corporately repent from our sin and return to God.

In fact, all of Vayyelekh could be viewed as a metaphor of teshuva. It is meant to awaken us to our need to recognize that individually and communally we have missed the mark, fallen short of God's expectations, and thus need to turn from our wrong-doing and return to the Lord. This process officially begins this Saturday evening around midnight with the recitation of the prayers of forgiveness known as selichot. These prayers of repentance and forgiveness are said in preparation for the High Holidays.

Teshuva must happen on both a personal and corporate level for it to be complete and fully acceptable in God's sight. We should not be satisfied with the fact that through our teshuva from sin and emuna (faith) in Messiah Yeshua, we have been personally forgiven and inscribed in the Book of Life.

Identification with the community of Israel implies a responsibility for it. We must also intercede, ask forgiveness, and do teshuva on their behalf as well. Our destiny and the destiny of all Israel are intertwined and cannot be separated.

It is common for individuals in our community to focus on the first while forgetting about the second. But in reality, the second is just as important, if not more important than the first. One's individual teshuva affects their personal relationship with God, but corporate teshuva has national and universal ramifications. As Rav Shaul writes,

For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

Romans 11:15

Paul's teaching makes clear that Israel's return to God, Messiah, and covenantal faithfulness affects the destiny of the entire world.

When we recite traditional Jewish penitential prayers like the Ashamnu (We are guilty) or the Al Chet in which we corporately confess forty-four sins, only some of which we are personally guilty of, we follow in the footsteps of great servants of God like Daniel and Nehemiah. These two great leaders clearly understood that "all Israel is responsible for one another" for our personal destiny is ultimately bound with the fate of all Israel. We must therefore rise to occasion during these High Holidays and ask God not only to forgive us as individuals but also beg him to have mercy upon all Israel in the merit of Messiah Yeshua, our Kohen Haggadol.

2. In this week's parasha, the last verse of Nitzavim reads, "[We are] to love the Lord your God, to listen to his voice, and to cleave to him. For that is your life and the length of your days" (Deuteronomy 30:20). What does it mean to "cleave to God," and how it that the substance of "our life and the length of our days?"

Nick Amic

This seemingly simple command appears towards the end of Moses' twenty-one chapter speech in Deuteronomy. Yet, when we attempt to apply it to our lives it begs the question: how? The word "cleave" - or davaq in Hebrew - means "to adhere or attach oneself." As with all words that appear in the Torah, to understand its true essence let's look at the first place it appears: Genesis 2:24, "Therefore a man shall leave his mother and father and davaq be'ishto - cleave to his wife." The essence, therefore, of "cleaving" is in the context of relationship.

This is a beautiful picture of our relationship, our "cleaving," to God. In a marriage one cleaves to one's spouse on both a spiritual level through communicating and listening to each other's emotion and intellect and on a physical level through practical actions and physical intimacy. With God we communicate on a spiritual level by sharing our emotion and intellect through prayer, and listen to the Spirit's communication to us by learning Torah. On a physical level, we cleave to God by performing his mitzvot. The word mitzva usually translated as "command" also means "connection" (relating to an Aramaic word tzavta, meaning "connection"). When performing a mitzva we actually become an extension of God's will, whether it be a practical act of lighting Shabbat candles or something tied to emotion as loving another as oneself. Through prayer, Torah study and carrying out God's mitzvot we cleave to the Divine.

Although this gives us a picture of how to "cleave" to God, the second part of our verse still is unanswered: how is cleaving to God substance of "our life and the length of our days?" The Midrash in Yalkut Shimoni comments "Prophecy was asked: ‘What is the fate of the transgressor?' Prophecy replied: ‘The soul that sins, it shall die' (Ezekiel 18:20)." Indeed God is the one that upholds and sustains both the spiritual and physical worlds, and therefore transgression of God's will is to sever one's soul from its source of life. Again the midrash asks: "Is it possible to say [one can cleave to God]? Is God not "a consuming fire" (Deuteronomy 4:24)?" The midrash then answers, "Rather, it means: Cleave to the disciples and the Sages, and I will consider it as though you cleave to Me" (Sifre on Deuteronomy 11:22). If we can cleave to God through those in Israel who expound and teach God's Torah how much more can we cleave to God through Yeshua who is the Torah incarnate. The month of Elul, which precedes the High Holidays, contains the acronym ani ledodi vedodi li "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine" (Song of songs 2:16). Let us be reminded that God is "married" to the Jewish people and all those nations that cleave to him through Yeshua - our true bridegroom. Let's repair our marriage through prayer, Torah study and observing God's mitzvot. As Yeshua reminds us "if you love me follow my commandments" (John 14:15).