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Orchard of Delights Nitzavim

“break our hearts,” undergoing a crisis of identity and purpose. next few portions demonstrate. The second fits in with the Chassidic
Indeed, Moses was attempting to break the hearts of the people notion that the portion always reflects current events; thus, making
of Israel when he broke the tablets. He needed to do something so it eminently sensible for the “today” in our verse to hint to Rosh
shocking and dramatic that even those dancing around the Golden Hashanah, implicitly counseling us to prepare mentally and
Calf would be shocked into a state of regret and repentance. God psychologically for the upcoming Day of Judgment.
Himself applauds Moses’ spontaneous action as it succeeded in Alternatively, the word “today” has also been understood
bringing the people back to their senses and created the circumstances figuratively to imply that every day should be treated as if it were
where reconciliation between God and Israel could be facilitated.
this very unique day on which Moses is speaking to the Jewish people.
As light appears to be stronger when dispelling a previous state This idea is derived from the interpretation of another seminal event
of darkness, this world is preceded by the breaking of the vessels, in Jewish history – the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. When
which paradoxically paves the way for true and lasting rectification. the Jews arrived in the Sinai Desert on the first day of the third
A beautiful remez to this concept is found in the Torah’s last three month, the Torah states that they arrived “on this day.” Since the
words le’einei kol Yisrael (“before the eyes of all Israel”), whose first rest of the sentence is in the past tense Rashi points out that the
letters spell the Hebrew word “kli” (vessel). phrase “on this day” should have been written “on that day.” It was

The Midrash teaches that God created teshuvah even before written in the present tense, he comments, to teach us that when we
creation itself. This too is hinted at by the connection between the learn Torah it should feel as new and exciting to us as if we had just
end and the beginning of the Torah. As we reach the end, we hasten received it today (Rashi on Exodus 19:1). In other words, in both
to return to the beginning again to further rectify creation and our seminal cases, the Torah is teaching us that we should not relate to
own lives by taking with us all the broken moments of genuine these unique experiences as onetime events in the past; rather, we
teshuvah experienced over the High Holiday season. From these should treat them as ongoing experiences. Each and every day the
broken moments we fashion our own “world of rectification.” For if Torah should feel new and each and every day we should feel like we
there was no teshuvah there could be no rectification, which is the are standing before God.
underlying purpose and fabric of this world. The word “today” also reminds us that the present can become the
future in the blink of an eye: the Talmud teaches that Mashiach will
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach frequently used the image of the broken
tablets, noting that they were housed in the ark in the Holy of Holies come “today, if you listen to His voice” (Psalms 95:7). Thus, every
next to the second set of whole tablets. One might have assumed day has the potential to enable us to come closer to God as we do on
that once the tablets were broken and their letters ascended back to Rosh Hashanah, to experience the revelation of the Torah as we did
their heavenly source, there would be no need for the broken tablets, at Mount Sinai, and to reveal the coming of Mashiach.
especially as they were a reminder of the colossal failure of the people An additional aspect of “today” is expressed by King David in
of Israel. Yet these broken tablets were reverently kept in the holiest Psalms (2:7) when he states, “God said to me: ‘You are my son,
place in the Tabernacle! This, Rabbi Carlebach points out, represents this day (today) I have given birth to you.’” David felt as if he
the power of a broken heart transformed by teshuvah: it reaches the was constantly being given the gift of new life. As discussed in the
profoundest, innermost place – the Holies of Holies. The “breaking portion of Ki Teitzei, this was a result of David’s soul not having
of the vessels” is a theme that manifests itself on all levels of reality, been apportioned time in this world. When Adam prophetically
from the end of the Torah to its primordial beginning, from Adam to foresaw this predicament, he gave David seventy years of his own
all humanity, and from the individual Jew to the nation of Israel. life. David was constantly aware of this gift and of how tenuous his

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