Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you well and that you are having a meaningful Rosh Hashana season.
Let’s speak about G-d.
Not just now. Let’s consistently speak much more about G-d. Not just about religious behavior and belonging, but about belief, the alef and bet of religious life – Emunah and Bitachon.
Let’s not speak about Torah as something distinct from G-d but as our Sages referred to it, as the word of G-d – “Rachmana amar, this is what the Merciful One said.” Let’s not speak about Mitzvot as good behaviors but as the ways we connect and bond – mi’lashon tzevet – with the One Who commanded. Let’s not speak only of the importance of Jewish community but about the critical value of our connection to Hashem.
Ever since Avraham, the mission of the Jewish people has been Vayikra b’shem Hashem, speaking to and about G-d (Bereishit 12:8). Avraham questioned and searched until he found Him, until he realized Hashem’s existence and recognized Him, and then proceeded to make Hashem known to the world, to give Him His world back. Avraham saw his own transformational impact on the world as making the G-d of the Heavens into the G-d of Heaven and Earth, bringing Hashem into the world by spreading knowledge of His presence and making His name known and commonly spoken by people (Rashi Bereishit 24:7). We, as the children of Avraham, continue this task as the am ha’meyachadim sh’mo, as the Jewish mantra, the declaration of faith that we make to each other – shema Yisrael – is that Hashem is our G-d and that He is One.
It is in fulfillment of this role that we davened on Rosh Hashana for the achievement of Avraham’s life mission, praying repeatedly that every person and creature in the world come to recognize Hashem and live accordingly. On the anniversary of Hashem’s creation, we do not just pray for a better, kinder, and gentler world; we pray for Hashem to have His world back.
The same is true of the days that follow Rosh Hashana, the current period of Aseret Yemei Teshuva, as Teshuva is a return to G-d and is not achieved by self-improvement alone.
This is made clear in a striking contrast between two otherwise similar passages from Nitzavim – read last week – and this week’s reading of Vayeilech. Both describe the same sequence: national failure to follow the Torah followed by calamity followed in turn by reflection, but in Nitzavim that leads to a happy ending while in Vayeilech it does not.
Nitzavim, Devarim 30: “When all these things befall you—the blessing and the curse that I have set before you—and you take them to heart amidst the various nations to which your G-d has banished you, and you return to your G-d, and you and your children heed G-d’s command with all your heart and soul, just as I instruct you this day, then your G-d will restore your fortunes and take you back in love.”
Vayeilech, Devarim 31:16-18: “Hashem said to Moshe: You are soon to lie with your ancestors. This people will thereupon go astray after the alien gods in their midst, in the land that they are about to enter; they will forsake Me and break My covenant that I made with them. Then My anger will flare up against them, and I will abandon them and hide My countenance from them. They shall be ready prey; and many evils and troubles shall befall them. And they shall say on that day, “Surely it is because our G-d is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us.” Yet I will keep My countenance hidden on that day, because of all the evil they have done in turning to other gods.”
How is it that in this latter passage the crisis continues despite our honest reflection and acceptance of responsibility for the failures that led to it? The critical difference is that in Nitzavim the reflection led us not only to reflect and work on self-improvement but to return to G-d. While an important part of the Teshuva process is done with a notebook in hand, considering and planning how we can do and be better, that process requires us to put down the notebook and take up the prayer book, the Yom Kippur machzor; to turn to G-d and speak with Him directly about our failures and our desire to do better and return to Him. As we will read this Shabbos Shuva: “Shuva Yisrael ad Hashem Elokecha, return Israel to Hashem Your G-d.”
Let’s speak more about G-d.
Have a wonderful Shabbos, a gmar chatima tova, and may we be blessed with besorot tovot.
Moshe Hauer