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Orchard of Delights
of His ways and for the sake of Israel that is called the first of His
produce.” This interpretation fits nicely with the reading of the end
and the beginning of the Torah as one long sentence: “Before the
eyes of all Israel [and for the sake of the Torah and Israel] in the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
According to the Midrash, when God created the world He
took counsel with the souls of the tzaddikim. Since the Midrash is
referring to an epoch before time and space, when God’s oneness was
the only entity in existence, we must ask what precisely the Midrash
means by “the souls of the righteous.” The mystical response to this
question is that the souls in question were the future souls of Jewish
tzaddikim; however, at this point, the souls were completely unified
within God’s very essence. Thus, God was, in some sense, conducting
an internal dialogue.
This Midrash also sheds light on the reason for standing during
the Friday night Kiddush. Tradition dictates that we stand during
Kiddush to indicate that we are like witnesses attesting to God’s
creation of the heavens and the earth. And, indeed, the Jewish people
are called upon to bear witness to God’s unity and His role as creator
of the world to the entire population of the planet. (In the Shema, the
cardinal statement of Jewish belief in the oneness of God, two letters
are written unusually large – the ayin in the word “Shema” and the
dalet in the word “echad.” Together, these two letters spell the word
ed [witness].) However, how can the Jewish people be tasked with
this role if Jewish law firmly declares that a witness must have seen
the event he or she is testifying to! Therefore by standing during
Kiddush on Shabbat it is as if we are saying: “before the eyes of all
Israel in the beginning God created heaven and earth.” We may in
fact stand and give testimony, for in some deep, almost unfathomable
way our souls witnessed creation, for the people of Israel are part of
God’s very essence, the souls of the tzaddikim that God consulted.
Another connection between the Torah’s beginning and ending is
derived from Rashi’s revelation of what exactly Moses performed
“in the eyes of all Israel.” Quoting the Sifrei, Rashi very cryptically
comments that the verse is referring to the breaking of the two tablets
of the law, an act which God Himself not only agreed to but actually
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Nitzavim
better in the future. While our future is dependent on rectifying the
past, God’s final judgment on Rosh Hashanah, which affects our
future, is dependent on the sincerity and level of commitment we
manage to generate in the present. Further weaving together past,
present, and future, the Jewish tradition teaches that although God,
being Omniscient, knows whether or not we will really change for the
better, He compassionately judges us according to our sincere desire
to change and not by what actually transpires in the future.
The level of complete awareness reached on Rosh Hashanah is
alluded to in the phrase “all of you” in Nitzavim’s opening verse. The
simple peshat is that all of the people assembled to hear Moses speak.
However, a Chassidic interpretation I heard from Rabbi Shlomo
Carlebach was that the Torah is teaching us that when we stand
before God on Rosh Hashanah, it must be with “all of you,” with
the totality of our beings – as we recite in the Shema – “with all your
heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy
6:5).
When we pause to think about it, how often do we dedicate our
entire selves to anything? How often does our concentration begin
to wane after we have been praying for just a few moments? How
often do we give others our full attention, our undivided care and
concern? How often do we follow through on achieving our goals and
aspirations so that they are completely realized?
Ensuring that we stand before God with our entire beings, especially
on Rosh Hashanah, when God is deciding our fate for the upcoming
year is the call of the hour. If we are unable to muster that presence
of mind and heart, the shofar’s blast is designed to awaken us and
“shock” us into relating to God from the depths of our innermost
beings. The searing sound of the shofar has the ability to fuse all the
disjointed parts of our personality, all the inner fragmentation, into
one unified plea.
In addition to the peshat and Chassidic interpretations of “all of
you” just mentioned, the Kabbalistic principle of inter-inclusion
generates another profound meaning. Following the portion’s
introductory words, the Torah continues by enumerating ten groups
of people who comprise “all of you”: “the heads of your tribes, your
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