Rich Moche
Shanah Tovah
The first two rules of public speaking:
1. First, never follow a child in the program. Check.
2. Second, never stand between your audience and the cocktails. This being Yom Kippur, double check.
Our reading comes from the Torah portion Nitzavim, which means standing. For those who know Hebrew, you might wonder why the Torah doesn’t use the word Omdim for standing, like the word Amidah. It’s because Nitzavim is a very certain kind of standing. The word root is the same as Matzeva, which means monument. So it’s a very rooted standing, fixed, at total attention. Since the people were renewing their covenant with G-d in this portion, they stood still, fixed to their spot, attentive.
Stand. A simple word, rich with idiom.
Stand tall.
Stand by me.
I stand with you.
Stand out.
Stand up.
Stand together.
This last sense, standing together, frames this parasha.
In Nitzavim Moshe addresses the people standing … together. Each of the first four words speaks collectively and plurally. Atem Nitzavim Hayom Khulchem . You all stand together today.
Atem. The plural for you. We have no equivalent word in English. Except in slang. Like when they say in New York, “All a yuz.” Or down south, where it’s “Hey y’all.”
The next word, Nitzavim, is the plural for standing.
Hayom expands the collective sense, across time, as it invokes both those standing before Moses 3,000 years ago, and all the generations since, including youse, who stand in Temple today.
And finally, Kulchem, “all of you.” A collective pronoun.
But also, following all these collective references, Moshe identifies who comprises the community: the heads and the elders but also the wood chopper and the water drawer, which Chizkuni, the 13th century French commentator, observes are the archetypes for the male and female laborer. In today’s world, we’d say the truckdrivers and the meatpackers, and the day care providers and the nurses assistants. The message – you are a single community and each of you is included.
Why this emphasis on the collective? The Or Hachaim, a 17th century Moroccan commentator, says it’s to teach us that we are all responsible to and for each other. This collective responsibility pervades the Yom Kippur liturgy, most clearly in the Vidui – Ashamnu, We have trespassed. Bogadnu, We have betrayed. Al Chet Shechatanu lifenechah for the sins that we have committed before you.
Teshuva generally is an inward journey, as we work to repair the parts of ourselves that are too judgmental, impatient, greedy, self-involved, petty, afraid. We focus on our interaction with others, with us at the center. But Nitzavim calls us to view ourselves as part of a whole. That view puts the big problems on your radar, the ones that are systemic: inequality, poverty, hunger, racism, oppression, deprivation of human rights, promotion of hatred and division. Those big problems can only be solved by action at the scale of the problem. But that “big action” is starts with individuals making a stand because they see the suffering or injustice and decide that they simply cannot let it stand.
If you think about the list of collective sins in terms of what have you done to contribute to the problem, you might consider it not your issue.
But when you think of the whole community, of the wood chopper and the water gatherer, when you see it as one big stuck ferris wheel with some people riding high but others perpetually at the bottom, where your privilege is the flip side of another’s oppression, then you might ask yourself what can I do to alleviate the harshness?
Interestingly, the formula of the Unetaneh Tokef – Tefila, Teshuva and Tzedaka, that we invoke to alleviate the harshness of the decree that death awaits us all, works also to address this systemic harshness. Tefila, Prayer – that is awareness of the system. Teshuva, atonement – that is owning your place in the system, even if it is merely as beneficiary. And Tzedaka - that is fixing it. The word root of Tzedakah is not charity, not compassion, not pity, not mercy, terms that implicitly place the giver above. Tzedakah comes from the word Tzedek, which means justice and righteousness. Justice, as in balancing the scales. Righteousness, as in making things right.
Nitzavim’s wake-up call remains necessary despite the events of the last few years, that have made systemic inequality undeniable, with racist killings captured on videotape and the unequal impacts of the great recession and the pandemic laid bare. Collective oppression persists. Systemic racism lives on. Privilege still reigns. It takes effort to keep the veil of ignorance parted and to live with the pain and dissonance of awareness. But in our hearts we know there are no innocent bystanders.
As the Beatles sang, we must take this sad song and make it better. (That’s from their lesser-known high holiday album, “Hey Jew.” Helter Schmelter.)
In most years, Nitzavim is paired with the next portion, Vayelech, which means “And he walked,” referring to Moshe humbly walking the Israelite encampment to say goodbye to his beloved people on the day of his death.
True to this pairing, today, we stand, pay attention, renew the covenant and make our new year’s resolutions to make it better. Starting tomorrow, we walk, taking steps to move the world towards justice.
That is why we talk of collective sin. And that is the meaning of collective Teshuva.
G’mar chatima tovah.