“You are standing today, all of you, before HaShem your G-d: your heads, your tribes, your elders and your officers – every man of Israel; your infants, your women, and your proselyte who is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water, for you to pass into the covenant and the imprecation of HaShem your G-d, which HaShem your G-d establishes with you today” (Deuteronomy 29:9-11).
Thus begins the final Torah-reading of the year. In the majority of years (as this year), Parashot Nitzavim and Vayeilech are combined, and are read on the final Shabbat before Rosh ha-Shanah; only in about four years of every ten are they read separately, Nitzavim before Rosh ha-Shanah and Vayeilech on the first Shabbat of the new year. In the Mishneh Torah (Order of Prayers and Maftir), the Rambam regards Nitzavim and Vayeilech as a single Parashah.
On this final Shabbat of the year, as we approach the climax of repentance, the Torah-reading begins by passing us into G-d’s covenant. This is the direct continuation of last week’s Parashah, Ki Tavo. In Parashat Ki Tavo, Moshe gives the tochachah – the promise of reward for keeping the Torah followed by the chilling warning of the disasters which would befall us if we disobey it (Deuteronomy 28:1-68).
And then, the Torah wraps up the tochachah: “These are the words of the covenant which HaShem commanded to Moshe to establish with the Children of Israel in the land of Moab, apart from the covenant which He had established with them in Horeb” (v.69). This is the covenant which Israel passes into at the beginning of Parashat Nitzavim.
While all agree that G-d established three covenants with Israel, there are different opinions as to where and when these three covenants were established. The Midrash elucidates: “‘…to pass into the covenant’ – G-d established three covenants with Israel:
One when they left Egypt, one at Horeb [Sinai], and one here.
And why did G-d establish a covenant with them here? – Because they had violated the one established at Sinai when [they danced around the golden calf and] they proclaimed, ‘These are your gods, O Israel’ (Exodus 32:4)” (Yalkut Shimoni, Nitzavim 940).
Other Midrashim enumerate the three covenants differently: “G-d established three covenants with the Nation of Israel: one at Horeb, one in the Plains of Moab, and one at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal” (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Masekhet Kaspa 5; Sifrei, Re’eh 104).
The Talmud tells us that “the Torah was given with three covenants” (Berakhot 48b), on which Rashi (ad. loc.) comments: “The Torah was given to Israel in three places: at Sinai; at the Tent of Meeting; and at Mount Gerizim and the Plains of Moab. At each of these places a covenant was established”.
Twice in his farewell address to the Jewish nation (Deuteronomy 11:29-30 and 27:4-26), Moshe commanded them that upon entering the Land of Israel they were to assemble, six Tribes on Mount Gerizim and six on Mount Ebal, the Levites standing in Shechem cradled between these two mountains, there to declaim to the entire nation the blessings for keeping the mitzvot and the curses for disobeying them.
Indeed, shortly after Joshua led the nation over the River Jordan into Israel, they then assembled around Shechem for that ceremony (Joshua 8:30-35). That was the third covenant.
Significantly, the Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Order of Prayers and Maftir) writes that the Haftarah for Parashat Nitzavim is Joshua 24:1-13: “Then Joshua assembled all the Tribes of Israel to Shechem, and he called to the Elders and the leaders of Israel, to their judges and officers, to present themselves before G-d…”.
Then follows Joshua’s brief but instructive précis of Jewish history from before Abraham until the conquest of Israel (part of this speech is familiar from having been incorporated into the Pesach Haggadah).
However, though this passage should have been the Haftarah for Parashat Nitzavim, there is another factor which takes precedence:
After the destruction of the Second Temple, our Sages decreed that for ten consecutive weeks starting from 17th of Tammuz, the Haftarot would not be connected to the Parashah: for the three Shabbatot of the Three Weeks, the Haftarot are the “t’lat de-puranuta”, the three of castigation – prophecies of destruction, taken from Jeremiah and Isaiah.
And then, for the next seven weeks – the final seven weeks of the year, bridging from the first Shabbat after the 9th of Av to Rosh ha-Shanah – the Haftarot are the “sheva de-nechamata”, the seven of consolation – prophecies of the glorious future that awaits us in the time of the redemption, all taken from the final 26 chapters of Isaiah.
The Haftarah for this Shabbat, the seventh Shabbat after the 9th of Av and the final Shabbat of the year, is Isaiah’s magnificent, inspiring vision of our ecstasy in the time of redemption: “I will rejoice in HaShem with great rejoicing, my spirit will exult in my G-d, for He will have clothed me in the garments of salvation…” (Isaiah 61:10). The prophet vividly depicts the restoration of the Land: “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her justice shall come forth as a bright light and her salvation shall burn as a flaming torch; when nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory” (62:1).
Whether these are G-d’s words while Israel is in exile (per Radak) or Israel’s words in exile (per Ibn Ezra), this is a powerful idea: not only is there is no peace for Israel in exile, there is no peace for the entire world as long as Israel is in exile. The Targum Yonatan renders: “Until Zion’s redemption is wrought I will give no respite to the nations, and until consolation comes to Jerusalem I will give no peace to the kingdoms, until its light will be revealed as the bright dawn, and its redemption as a burning fire”.
Earlier in this prophetic passage, G-d speaks through the prophet: “For I HaShem love justice and hate robbery in a burnt offering; I gave their wage in truth, and I will establish an eternal covenant with them” (61:8).
This is the final and greatest covenant which G-d will ever establish with us – the covenant of the days of Mashiach: “Behold! The days are coming – says HaShem – when I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah; not like the covenant that I established with their forefathers on the day that I held their hand to take them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of Mine they violated even though I had become their Master – says HaShem. Rather, this is the covenant that I will establish with the House of Israel after those days, says HaShem: I will place My Torah in their midst, and I will inscribe it upon their heart; I will be their G-d and they will be My nation; then they will no longer teach – each man his friend, each man his brother – saying ‘Know HaShem!’, because they will all know Me, from the smallest of them to the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31:30-33).
This will be the ultimate covenant and the ultimate consolation. As the prophet makes clear, this new covenant which will be in the days of Mashiach will be solely between G-d and Israel, just like the previous covenants (at Mount Sinai, on the threshold of Israel in our Parashah, and in Shechem) – not between Him and the other nations; and the sign of this new covenant will be that every Jew, from the least to the greatest, will “know HaShem” – in the days of this final covenant, there will be not a single “Jewish secularist”.
And particularly we, in this generation which has returned to Zion though G-d has clearly not yet established His final covenant with us – we must be aware of the order in which events will occur: “…the covenant that I will establish with the House of Israel after those days…” (Jeremiah 31:32) – “after they will return from exile” (Metzudat David ad. loc.). That is to say, first we must return from exile to the Land of Israel, and only after that will G-d establish with us His new covenant of universal knowledge of Him.
And though this final covenant will be only between G-d and Israel, nevertheless it will usher in the final conflict in which all evil in the world will be eliminated, following which “nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:2). This is a message which resonates powerfully in this last week before Rosh ha-Shanah – the time when “all who walk the earth pass before Him like young sheep” (Mishnah, Rosh ha-Shanah 1:2) to be judged.
And it resonates especially powerfully at this time of history, when the entire world is trying to decide whether or not to rip the heart of the Jewish national homeland away from the Jewish nation.
As if their opinion and their musings and their resolutions are worth anything, when G-d has decreed, in this week’s Haftarah: “You will no longer be spoken of as ‘the forsaken one’, neither will your Land be spoken of any more as ‘desolate place’; rather, you will be called ‘My desire is in her’, and your Land ‘Settled’ – because HaShem’s desire is in you, and your Land will be settled” (Isaiah 62:4).