Going Door to Door
SERMON PARASHAT NITZAVIM-VAYELECH September 27, 2024
Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai South Burlington Vermont
Each year, Jews around the world read the entire Torah section by section, and that means we finish the last book, Deuteronomy at the High Holy Days. This week, we read the next to the last section, a double portion called Nitzavim-Vayelech.
Nitzavim features some of the most soaring inspiring prose in the Torah, including what Reform synagogues read on Yom Kippur. The portion starts with this beautiful passage:
You stand this day, all of you, before your God יהוה —your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials, every householder in Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer— to enter into the covenant of your God יהוה, which your God יהוה is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; in order to establish you this day as God’s people and in order to be your God, as promised you and as sworn to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before our God יהוה and with those who are not with us here this day.
The rabbis interpreted this to mean that all generations stood spiritually at Sinai, those born and yet to be born, those born Jewish and those who choose to join the Jewish people, our people in all its global diversity stood together and accepted the Covenant.
To me, it sends a message that we are all valued, all matter, and we need to stand together now, as we did then, instead of turning on one another in these difficult times.
And this opening of Nitzavim has a beautiful connection with the opening of the accompanying Torah portion, Vayelech. In that portion, Moses tells the people that it is time for him to retire after leading them all those decades from Egypt and through the desert.
וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֛ר אֶת־הַדְּבָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
Moses went and spoke these things to all Israel.
He said to them: I am now one hundred and twenty years old, I can no longer be active. Moreover, יהוה has said to me, “You shall not go across yonder Jordan.”
“I can no longer be active,” or literally, “I can no longer come and go.” How many of us have seen our parents or grandparents, or our brothers, sisters or spouses reach the age where they can no longer get around easily.
If we live long enough, we will come to that, and here is Moses, this Prince of Egypt, this towering figure whose face radiates light, who could carry two huge stone tablets down a mountain – here he is saying, “I can’t do this anymore.” It is a powerful human moment, one that reflects what I’ve said so many times – all the people in the Torah are beautifully and excruciatingly human. There are no super-heros or demi-gods among them, including Moses.
But let’s look at what the rabbis do with that simple line:
“וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיְדַבֵּ֛ר אֶת־הַדְּבָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
Moses went and spoke these things to all Israel.
The rabbis create from this line an image of Moses, not addressing the Israelites in a huge assembly, but going tribe by tribe, door to door, tent to tent, person to person to explain that he needs to retire.
Ibn Ezra (1089–1164, Spain) explains that “Moses went to each and every tribe to inform them that he was about to die so that they should not fear, and reassured them with his words concerning Joshua, stating that Joshua would lead them into the land and cause them to inherit it.”
Moses knew the people might have strong reactions to his leaving, and so he went group by group, anticipating the needs of others, offering encouragement, taking the initiative to meet people where they are—both literally and figuratively.
Ramban (1194–1270, Spain) offers a similar interpretation suggesting that Moses [literally] went through the camp,
“to comfort them concerning his condition [his approaching death], as if to say ‘I am old and you have no more benefit from me . . . fear not (v. 6), for the Eternal will go over with you; He will not remove his presence from you on my account [because of my absence] and Joshua will go over before you, in my place . . . ’
Moses, Ramban says, is proactively comforting mourners, the Jewish value of nihum aveilim even though he isn’t yet dead. He is so concerned for the feelings of others, that tired as he is, he thinks first of the people.
The famous Torah sage, Kli Yakar (Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, 1550–1619, Prague) interprets this simple verse with an eye to the High Holy Days when we read it.
Moses spoke to all the people concerning matters of teshuvah (repentance) which are dependent on “words.” And since a person never considers himself blameworthy and every sinner and rebellious person will never go to the wise person, the doctor, to request a remedy for the malady of his soul, hopefully he will pay heed when the wise person [takes the initiative] to go to him and speak to his heart to encourage him concerning matters of teshuvah. Therefore, [the Torah] states that “Moses went/walked” meaning that he [literally] went from tent to tent of each one of the Israelites and spoke to their hearts “these words” namely matters of teshuvah.
What a powerful idea for us who spend so much time on phones and computers. To really heal relationships, to do t’shuvah, to return to rightness with another person, we have to do it individually. Jewish tradition holds strongly to this, saying God can’t forgive us of things if we haven’t first asked the person we harmed to forgive us. I also think Moses had some things he was holding onto about how the people had treated him, rebelling, throwing stones, being stiffnecked. But instead of giving a public rant, or sending a text message to a group, Moses when face to face, door to door.
As we approach the High Holy Days this year, may we find the time to speak to those we love and to do what we can to heal what is broken, and if not heal, at least to show love where there is also hurt.
Ken Y’hi Ratson.
