Parashah of the week: Nitzavim

This week we read the seventh of the seven haftarot of consolation following Tishah b’Av, the darkest day of the Jewish year. The prophet Isaiah speaks of the future, a time after the fighting, when Israel will once more be secure in her homeland. Then, the Jewish people and God will begin again, like newlyweds, in joy. The theme beautifully mirrors that of the parashah. Nitzavim starts with a covenant between God and the Jewish people, both those “here (po) today” and those “not here (enenu po) today”. There is a recognition though that this covenant will be hard to sustain. The people will go astray. Disasters will ensue. The land will become physically polluted (Deuteronomy 29:22). The people will be exiled (Deuteronomy 29:27). No longer will they be “here” (po), present in body and mind. They will be “there” (shamah) (Deuteronomy 30:4), in other lands and mentally absent and distracted. But there will be a return to the land and a renewed covenant, an intimacy born of love (Deuteronomy 30:6 and 16). Israel will again heed God’s call and the commandments, and act appropriately (Deuteronomy 30:8). At that time, God will once more rejoice (yashuv Hashem lasus) as he rejoiced (sas) with Israel’s ancestors (Deuteronomy 30:9). Isaiah lends colour to the language of love and reconciliation that we find in the parashah by framing the covenant as a marriage. In the parashah, it is God who rejoices in his people (Deuteronomy 30:9). In Isaiah it is the people who rejoice in God (sos asis) (61:10). Isaiah provides the missing element. Love needs reciprocity to flourish. Maybe this is the reason why a custom arose for a bridegroom on the Shabbat before his wedding to recite two or three verses after the haftarah from the haftarah “Sos asis”, “I will greatly rejoice,” (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 144:2). Human love is homologous (having the same relation) to divine love, which is a model for all love. The parashah reminds us that these things are “very close” to us, not in the heavens or over the sea (Deuteronomy 30:13-14). Isaiah’s consolation does the same. At the national level, we know the right way to act and love, how Israel should conduct herself. We know how to be “here”, rather than “there”, what reciprocity entails. We long for reconciliation, and we desire peace now more than ever. Photo: The covenant between God and Israel is compared to a marriage (photo: Getty Images)

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