Ever since the yearly cycle of Torah readings was standardised towards the end of the Second Temple era, and the fixed calendar as calculated by Hillel II (Hillel ben Yehudah, Nasi or head of the Sanhedrin) was adopted in 4119 (359 C.E.), we have invariably read Parashat Nitzavim on the final Shabbat of the year; usually (as this year) combined with Parashat Vayeilech, sometimes alone.
Parashat Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20) concludes Moshe’s third farewell discourse, the discourse which began last week in Parashat Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 27:1).
Parashat Nitzavim opens with Moshe telling the nation:
“אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם כֻּלְּכֶם, you - all of you - are standing before Hashem your G-d today: your heads, your Tribes and your elders and your officers, every man of Israel, to pass you into Hashem your G-d’s Covenant and imprecation, which Hashem your G-d seals with you today".
However, the word “standing" is a very poor and inadequate translation of the word נִצָּבִים.
The root of the verb נִצָּבִים is יצב, of which נִצָּב is the נִפְעַל [nif’al] form.
Another verb-form of this same root is יִצֵּב, the פִּעֵל [pi’el] form, meaning “strengthen, set firmly, cause something to be steady and firm"; another is הִתְיַצֵּב, the הִתְפַּעֵל [hitpa’el] form, meaning “to come and stand upright".
The same root provides the nouns נְצִיב, meaning both “pillar" (Genesis 19:26) and “national leader" (1 Samuel 13:3, 4, 1 Kings 4:18, 1 Chronicles 11:16);
and מַצֵּבָה, “a large stone set as a marker", often specifically a grave-stone (Genesis 28:18, 31:48, 35:20, Exodus 24:20, et al.);
also the adjectives יַצִּיב, “firm, steady, permanent" and מֻצָּב, “set firmly in place" (Genesis 28:12, Judges 9:6, Isaiah 29:3)
Clearly, then, Moshe’s phrase אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם, with which our parashah opens, means far more than simply “you are standing today": the verb נִצָּבִים implies a nation standing erect, steady and unmovable, actively and deliberately appearing in a specific place for a specific task, a nation set firmly and permanently in its place, as a leader, showing the whole of humanity the way to holiness.
The bulk of the Book of Deuteronomy is Moshe’s farewell addresses to his beloved nation - all of which are saturated with his burning love for the Land of Israel and his searing regret at being denied entry into it. It is the end of our exile, and the introduction to our national sovereign independence in our Land.
Last week, Moshe declaimed the תּוֹכֵחָה (tocheicha) - the promise of G-d’s blessings for keeping His Mitzvot, followed by the stark warnings of His punishments if we violate His Mitzvot (Deuteronomy 28:1-68); these culminate in Israel being invaded, conquered, and occupied by hostile foreign colonisers, the Jews being exiled and scattered throughout the world, and the Land of Israel being smitten by barrenness.
Historically, this is precisely what happened beginning from around the death of Queen Shlom-Tziyyon (Salome Alexander) in 67 B.C.E. and until the beginning of our return to Israel in the last several generations. Indeed the Ramban (commentary to verse 42) offers a long and detailed historical analysis of how the Roman conquest and subsequent complete subjugation of Israel follows the stages of the תּוֹכֵחָה precisely.
This week’s Parashah contains the echo:
“The latter generation, your descendants who will arise after you, and the foreigner who will come from a distant land, who will see the plagues and illnesses which Hashem will have inflicted on the Land - sulphur and salt, the entire Land burnt, unsown and barren…which Hashem in His fury and rage overturned - and all the nations, will say: Why has Hashem inflicted this on this Land? What is this great burning fury?! - And they will say: It’s because they repudiated the Covenant of Hashem, their fathers’ G-d, which He sealed with them when He brought them out from the land of Egypt…so Hashem’s fury flared up against this Land, bringing upon it all the curse that is written in this Book" (Deuteronomy 29:21-26).
The Torah tells us, with absolute unequivocal clarity, that the desolation of the Land of Israel is a punishment for our sins; that the Land of Israel will continue to lie desolate as long as it under foreign occupation; and that when G-d forgives our sins we will return to our Land.
History has borne this out with equally unequivocal clarity: ever since the Romans devastated the Land, it has remained abandoned and forlorn, its inhabitants barely surviving on the meagerest subsistence farming.
Dozens of nations have conquered the Land since the days of the Roman Empire; none ever managed to build anything permanent. The Land passed from foreign occupier to foreign occupier - Romans, Persian Sassanids, Arabian Muslims, Abassid (Baghdadi) Muslims, Turkish Tulunides, Egyptian Ikhshidis, Persian Qarmathian Shi’ite Muslims, Seljuk Turks, European Christian Crusaders, Syrian-Kurdish Saracens, Afghani Khwarazmians, Egyptian Mamluks, Mongols, Ottoman Turks, French, British, to name but the more prominent foreign occupiers - and none would ever manage to build anything permanent, no organic nation would ever arise on the Land -
- until the Children of Israel, the true sons and daughters of the Land, would return home and build the first sovereign independent state since the Hasmonean Kingdom.
It is of course supremely relevant that our national return to our homeland causes such paroxysms of fury among the nations of the world - and tragically among certain of our own people - who hate being confronted with the truth of the Torah’s decrees.
Indeed a massive global enterprise has grown up in a desperate attempt at historical fiction, inventing an entirely non-existent history for a “Palestine" in place of Israel.
Writing over a century-and-a-half ago, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch (Germany, 1808-1888) noted tersely, on the phrase “…all the curse that is written in this Book": “The Land, the Nation, and this Book are the three inseparable factors, mutually explaining each other, which to this day remain the eternal testimonials to G-d in the eyes if the world".
With Shabbat Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech, we enter the final week of the year 5786. It is a time for self-reckoning, a time for self-reflection, a time for spiritual reckoning, a time for repentance. The Day of Judgment, Rosh Hashanah, the day when “all who dwell in the world pass before Him like flocks of sheep" (Rosh Hashanah 1:2) is almost upon us.
Our national repentance is our return to Zion. The Torah of Israel is inseparable from the Land of Israel. Our national return to our homeland is the foundation of our national repentance. This is the message that our Sages infused into this final Shabbat of the year.
So I wish all my readers and all Am Yisrael a happy and blessed year תשפ"ז, 5787. May this year be better in every way than the year תשפ"ו, 5786 which is drawing to its end. As many of our sages said:
תִּכְלֶה שָׁנָה וְקִלְלוֹתֶיהָ, תָּחֵל שָׁנָה וּבִרְכוֹתֶיהָ!
“Let the year with its curses end, let the year with its blessings begin!"
And if I have offended any of my readers with my words, then I publicly apologise and ask forgiveness.
Happy New Year!