Our Parasha - Parashat Nitzavim - the first of the two parshiot we will read this Shabbat - opens with Moshe’s testament to Bnei Israel, as he prepares to depart this world:(29:9-14)’You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem, your G-d: the heads of your tribes, your elders and your officers - all the men of Israel, your women, your children, and your proselyte.. from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water, for you to pass into the covenant of Hashem, your G-d, and into His imprecation that Hashem, your G-d, seals with you today, in order to establish you today as a people to Him and that He be a G-d to you, as he spoke to you and swore to your forefathers.
‘Not with you alone do I seal this covenant and this imprecation, but with whoever is here, standing with us today before Hashem, your G-d, and with whoever is not here with us today.’
Rashi brings the Midrash Tanchuma: ’Why was Parashat Nitzavim juxtaposed to the curses’ in the preceding Parashat Ki Tavo?
‘Because on hearing the one hundred curses less two’ in the preceding parsha,’ on top of the forty-nine in Torat Kohanim, Bnei Israel’s faces fell, saying;’Who can stand in the face of these?!’
‘Moshe began to pacify them:’You are standing today’ - you have angered Hashem, yet He did not destroy you , as ‘you are standing before Him, today.’
The psukim are replete with the word ‘today’ - the Netivot Shalom comments on the meaning of this word:’’It needs to be said, as the holy tomes write, that the word ‘today’, refers to the Judgement Day, Rosh Hashanah, in which ‘We are standing, all of you, before Hashem, your G-d.’
‘By so saying: ‘you are all standing’, it alludes to the advice the Torah gives to a Jew who is standing before Rosh Hashanah, and does not know how he is to enter this holy day, that his advice is to enter by כולם:’all of you’.
‘The Midrash Tanchuma adds:’’You are standing today’: Just as the day is dark and light, so too, you, in times of darkness, I provide light for you - when? When you are united in one bundle, as, by a Jew being ‘tied’ to the community, and nullifying himself to them, harsh decrees do not fall on him - as our Sages say:(Brachot 43:), harsh decrees only fall on the individual, not on the community, as the power of the community sweetens the harsh decrees.’
Abarbanel comments:’From the wording of our psukim, we learn of the lofty level of Bnei Israel - despite hearing the awesome one-hundred-less- two curses of the preceding parsha, they willingly entered into this new covenant.
‘This can be gleaned from the wording :’לעברך: ‘for you to enter into this covenant with Hashem’ - instead of saying: להעבירך: ‘to enter you into the covenant’ - which would connote, by Hashem, not by you willingly.’
The Kli Yakar, opens his commentary, by asking: what led Moshe to arrange the people here in this order, more than in other assemblies?’
Answers the sage:’The correct answer is, that he now wanted to enter them into a new covenant, in place of the first covenant which they spoiled by the deed of the golden calf, which occurred because they were not yet then, ערבים זה לזה: ‘guarantors one for one another’ - therefore each person did what appeared right in his eyes.
‘Moshe therefore saw a need to enter them into a covenant of being guarantors for each other on the two mountains - being guarantors being a good way to return others from transgressing , lest he be caught himself, because of it.
‘Every guarantor who sees the ‘borrower’ for whom he is a guarantor, wasting his money, will reprove him, out of concern that this might lead to him having to make good any loss.
‘So too, Bnei Israel, being guarantors for each other - when it is in their power to reprove and to sway the transgressor - will act to return the sinner to the right path, as, should they fail to do so, they will be punished in his stead.
‘However, if the rebuke would not be heeded, clearly they will not share in the blame, as this was not the basis they accepted when they entered the covenant to be guarantors.
‘Our parsha is entirely in the plural - except in the passuk in which they entered into the covenant to be guarantors, this because - by this covenant - they all became as one man, much in the way of a person, who, when one of his limbs is afflicted, all his other limbs also feel the pain.’
The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh raises a different concern that arose in the minds of Bnei Israel - this concerning the covenant they were being entered into, and not the awesome curses they had just heard.
‘Their concern was on what appeared to be a very heavy new obligation being imposed on them: that each person was responsible - as a guarantor - to see that all whom he could influence, observed the mitzvot - this in addition, of course to his responsibility for his own actions.’
The Rav explains the need for this covenant was:’In order to establish you today, as a people to Him’:Should a person ask: Why did Hashem do this to his servants, to impose on them the burden of responsibility for the observance of others?
‘To this, he said:’For their good, to establish them as Hashem’s people’, as in the absence of this, the people would likely relapse and transgress - today, one committing a minor transgression, and tomorrow a more serious one - and, slowly would be ‘leaving’ the congregation of the observers, until Bnei Israel would cease to be ‘Hashem’s people’.
‘By making each person responsible for the observance by all others, it would lead them to pay attention to anyone who transgressed even a minor mitzvah no less than a severe one, and they would thereby remain as ‘Hashem’s people’.
‘We learn from here, that all that Hashem does, is only for our good.’
Rav Yosef Chaim Shneur Kotler points out, that our Sages (Horayot 3:1) lay down that this unity was said specifically when the people were in the land of Israel.
He posits:’This is because this unity , as a קהל: a community - the essence of which is the joinder of all the parts to the community as one - is only applicable when they are in the Land, this because, when Bnei Israel are sitting in their land, and the Beit haMikdash is the center to which they are all pointing - this, by itself, unites all the tribes of Israel, and gives them the formation of a community.
‘When we are in exile from the Land, we don’t have this uniting force, and we are, therefore, not a קהל: a community.
‘The halakhic consequence of this, is that the guarantee - the responsibility of the community for the actions of individuals, only came into effect when they crossed the River Jordan, and entered the Land (Yerushalmi, Sotah 4:6).’
Rav Kotler concludes:’The entry into this covenant, meant that - on the one hand - there is an obligation on the community regarding the observance of mitzvot, with the beneficial results this brings.
‘On the other hand, the covenant creates the reality of the entirety of the nation of Israel, and its inevitable redemption, and that the eternal tie to Hashem cannot be lost or broken by transgressions.’
We have termed the covenant of guarantee-ship, as כל ישראל ערבים זה לה : ‘all of Israel are guarantors one for another- as is seen in the exposition of the Kli Yakar.
Whilst this wording can be found, both in some of the sayings of our Sages, and - more commonly - in the expositions of the commentators, we also find a different wording of the covenant in the Sages.
In Midrash Tanchuma, the wording is ‘כולכם ערבים זה בזה: literally:’ you are all guarantors one in the other’.
Continues the Midrash:’Since Hashem already entered into a covenant with them at Har Sinai, what need was there to enter into a further covenant with them, here?
‘Because that covenant that He entered into with them, at Sinai, they nullified by saying: ‘These are your gods’ in the deed of the golden calf, ‘therefore there was a need for this covenant, at Chorev.’
If we contemplate what the different versions of the covenant of guaranteeship - זה לזה and זה בזה- might connote, might we not posit that there are two ‘levels’ of the covenant between Bnei Israel, just as there are - as we learn, in the approaching Days of Awe - two levels of repentance: there is the lower level of תשובה מיראה: repentance out of ‘fear’, arising from contemplating of punishment for transgressions.
The second, higher, level is תשובה מאהבה:’repentance out of love’, arising from contemplating the greatness of Hashem, and all the blessings and bounty that He showers on us every day.
This awakens in the person a love coupled with distress at his transgressions which have distanced him from Hashem - and a great yearning to return to closeness with Hashem.
This לענ'ד corresponds to the two expressions - which represent levels - of guaranteeship.
The lower level - corresponding to ערבים זה לזה :’being guarantors one for another’ is the level that the Kli Yakar alludes to: fear of ‘punishment’, call it ‘financial loss’ - of being called upon to pay, for the failure to do so, of the person you have guaranteed - substitute transgressions for money.
The higher level corresponds to the other version: ערבים זה בזה: guarantors ‘one in another’ - that as we are all one, the failure of one Jew to observe mitzvot, pains us, like the pain in one limb, causes pain in all the other limbs of the body.
This is because we are מעורב: all ‘mixed together’, as the words זה בזה connote.
A parting gem from the Tomer Devorah: We should regard our obligation under the covenant of guarantee, not out of fear of punishment or loss should we not perform it, but out of a sense of love for all of our fellow Jews, out of a sense of ואהבת לרעך כמוך:’love your fellow Jew, as you love yourself’.
לרפואת נועם עליזה בת זהבה רבקה ונחום אלימלך רפאל בן זהבה רבקה, בתוך שאר חולי עמנו.