Nitzavim
Deut. 29:9 -30:20
Précis: Moses continues to address the People: You stand (nitzavim) this day before Adonai. In his final words to the People, Moses recounts the wonders Adonai had done for them, and calls upon them to remain loyal to God by observing the Covenant. The extent of the relationship is explained: it will survive exile and captivity with a return to the Land. The Torah is an “open book” that is accessible to all. A blessing and a curse have been set before the People, and Moses urges them to choose the blessing, to choose life.
Deut. 30:3-4 “Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love. He will bring you together again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, from there He will fetch you.”
Mychal Springer has written (Torah from JTS, 9/29/16) that Nitzavim speaks profoundly about t’shuvah (repentance) which is particularly appropriate as we approach Rosh Hashanah. We see in these verses both a literal and figurative attempt to return to God. When we repent with all of our heart and soul, God will gather us again to the Land from which we have been dispersed. Thus, a connection between a return to a life lived according to God’s commands is linked inextricably with a return to the Land we have been promised. As Springer suggests, “Being scattered is a state of disorientation and disconnection.”
Through t’shuvah, we can achieve a going home, both to God and to the Land. I suggest that in this context, the Land may be something more than a physical location. Through t’shuvah, we can enhance both our lives and our sense of Jewish unity. How? The next verse gives an important clue: even the outcasts are to be gathered up. There is no one so far removed from the Jewish People that it is not within God’s – and our – power to restore them to a place within the Jewish experience.
