Parashat Nitzavim and Rosh HaShanah: On Stability and Repentance

Atem Nitzavim Hayom. You stand today. Rashi says these words are meant as words of comfort. The people have just heard all the possible curses and terrible outcomes if they don’t keep all of God’s laws and they say, with despair – How can anyone do this? We are not capable. Moshe responds – Here you are standing today. “Today,” like the “day” itself which has both darkness and light and yet still exists. You still exist. You have angered God before, you have failed many times already and yet here you stand today, still standing, still in existence. You have and will always have the darkness and the light and yet you still stand. And yes, there will be changes – the people are going through a transition of leadership right at that moment, from Moshe to Yehoshua – so yes, changes will occur, but always remember --- atem nitzavim hayom, you are like a matzevah, a statue – you stand and remain.

The Zohar says that this hayom, this “today”, refers to “the ultimate day,” which is the Day of Judgment, Rosh HaShanah. It was on this day all those years ago that Moshe gave this comforting speech to the people of Israel as they entered into a second covenant with God.

That is the nature of covenant, of brit, itself – it is a contract we make with God that is permanent -- God swears He will be our God and we swear we will be His people, no matter what happens. Rashi also says that God gives them all these curses precisely because of the permanence of His agreement with them – God can’t get out of it; He is stuck forever, and so He has to find ways to get the people to obey, because, the bottom line is – God is in it for the long run.

This is a comforting message as “the day” of Judgment approaches. That feeling of despair is familiar – life often feels simply impossible – it is impossible to fulfill all of one’s obligations and ambitions and all that life and Torah seem to tell us we ought to be doing and accomplishing. Some days one simply feels overwhelmed by what one has not done or by what one has done not quite in the right way. This time of year we take stock of our imperfections and fallibilities. And so it is this time of year that we also need to be reminded that atem nitzavim hayom -- you/we are still standing here, before God, still in the covenant, stable, permanent, continuous, no matter what happens. Light and dark, good and bad – it’s all part of the parcel of the being human, and in spite of it all, we are still standing.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t work to improve ourselves. But there is an important balance here between despair and repair, between the feeling of hopelessness that one simply cannot succeed and the sense that it is still worth trying. And I think that what fuels an attitude of repair and repentance is not just awareness of what is wrong, but also and perhaps even more essentially, a sense of security about the relationship. We will always stand here before God – God promises to remember His covenant no matter what we do, and it is out of this relationship, in the context of this relationship that we have the security and the confidence to try harder.

Like a good marriage or a good parenting relationship, our relationship with God can provide just such security – a loving safe space in which to grow and transform ourselves. Atem nitzavim hayom -- we stand stable today and every day, secure in the knowledge that though we, like the day, will have darkness and light, God will continue to sustain and love us.