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✷ to be read on September 28⎮25 Elul ✷

In Nitzavim (“Standing”), Moses addresses the Israelites, urging them to uphold the Covenant. He describes the process of repentance and stresses that God’s commandments are achievable and “not in the heavens.” In Vayeilech (“He Went”), Moses informs the people that he will not lead them into the Land of Israel. Moses blesses Joshua and instructs the community to gather every seven years for a public reading of the Torah. At God’s command, Moses writes a poem that bears witness to the Convenant.

Famously, Parashat Nitzavim refers to the "circumcision of our hearts," a graphic and somewhat disturbing phrase. Surely, such a circumcision must be understood metaphorically and, with the High Holidays on the horizon, as a lesson in how to receive Torah anew. The Rabbis of the Talmud interpret the "circumcision of our hearts" as the removal of our inclination to evil, lust, and jealousy. It would be to achieve a new attunement to the world, one from out of which teshuvah would be possible.

In her drash, Rabbi Deena Cowans points out that, while we read this story in the weeks leading up to High Holidays, the events referred to within the narration take place during the month of Adar. In other words, the Israelites who were instructed to re-attune themselves to the world in this fundamental way were on the other side of the year, far from Rosh Hashanah and the promise of transformation. And yet, like us, "they continued to show up as their unchanged selves" still working to "peel back layers of their heart that they were not proud of so that someday they could find themselves open to the good of the world." May you, too, in this season of reflection and hope, continue to show up for yourself and for your community.

Learn more about this parsha at My Jewish Learning.

*Originally published in the 2023 LJCC September Newsletter