NITZAVIM AND VAYEILECH
These two short parshiot are combined this year. Nitzavim, Standing (29:9-30:20) is always read on the last Shabbat of the calendar year because it is a parsha of comfort of the return to YHVH and to the land after an exile caused by chasing after foreign Gods. Vayeilech, “And he went”, is a truly short parsha, just one chapter (#31) of 30 verses, the last one of which really belongs to this next parsha. There’s even a controversy about the name of the parsha because two ancient versions of the text switch the last two letters of “Vayeilech” which makes the title of the parsha “And he finished.” This title both makes more sense because the parsha marks the end of the law code of Deuteronomy, because Moses isn’t going anywhere (literally) and because there’s a Hebrew pun in the second verse that makes sense with the other title.
The core of Nitzavim is contained right near the end: “I’ve put life and death in front of you, blessing and curse. And you shall choose life so that you will live, you and your seed.” (30:19). Vayeilech has two main themes. One is the transfer of power to Joshua. This is conveyed in verses 3, 7,14 and 23. “And he [YHVH] commanded Joshua, son of Nun, and said “Be strong and bold, because you will bring the children of Israel to the land that I swore to them, and I shall be with you.” (31:23). The second is the struggle with how to get the Israelites to remember these instructions after the inevitable turn towards the native deities and practices.
I want to discuss four themes, two from each parsha.
What does a covenant with the divine mean and how might this apply to climate disasters?
What do you make of the repeated self description of YHVH as a jealous and angry God?
How transfer leadership? What is your succession plan?
Use of song/poetry as a way to remember
The parsha opens with this: “You’re standing today, all of you, in front of YHVH your God, ...for you to enter into the Covenant of YHVH your God, and into his oath which YHVH your God is making with you today in order to establish you today for him as a people, and He will be a God to you.” (29:9-12). Further, this covenant is not just with the people who are standing there listening to Moses on the East Bank of the Jordan, but “with the one who isn’t here with us today.” (29:15). I interpret that as referring to future generations of Jews. The writers/editors meant Jews in their day and going forward—and that’s us. There’s a Rabbinic teaching that all Jews, past, present and future, were present at Sinai.
The covenant, as is clear from all of the other references in the Bible, is a two way street. We have obligations towards the divine, and the divine has obligations towards us. The pattern our ancestors used was the legal agreements between vassals and serfs in the ancient near east. Today we might think that the divine has no obligations towards us, but for our ancestors, such a view would be nonsensical. In a world of many possible Gods, why would you worship a God (or Goddess) who didn’t benefit you when you worshipped them?
It is a transactional relationship by design. Our text hammers home the obligations we have about following divine commandments, and in turn YHVH will grant us fertility, health and power. If we don’t follow the commandments, all sorts of bad things will happen to us. This is the core mental model of our non mystical inheritance.
But this covenant, this contract, has God and the people as the only two players, God and us. It simply doesn’t account for the idea that the more than human world could have any agency. I want to offer up four possible perspectives for how we might approach this question of the agency of the more than human world, using the context of the climate disasters we are currently undergoing. These four approaches to our climate disasters might be labeled in turn as mechanistic, God is in control, God is coterminous and Animism. You can probably already guess which one I believe in.
The mechanistic view of climate disasters treats them as a necessary result of the carbon dioxide we humans are pumping into the world. In this view, the more than human world is not something that can choose to act one way or the other, but the results are mechanically dictated, like a chainsaw will cut down a tree when applied. This is the logic of our mainstream view of the more than human world. There’s no role for the divine in this, other than creating the mechanistic laws of cause and effect. That is, God can’t intervene to stop climate change. While this is the view of the modern world and would be supported by many Jewish thinkers, starting with Maimonides, it is not the view of our Biblical authors who clearly believed in the ability of YHVH to intervene in the world.
The God is in control of the more than human world view holds that the more than human world has been created by the divine and is under his control. There’s again no agency for the more than human world. This is, I believe, the logic of our text. It is a panentheistic claim. If we do what the divine wants us to do, then the divine will exercise his control of the more than human world which he created to give us the plenty that we deserve. The merit of this view is that to sin against the more than human world, as our society does every millisecond, is to sin against the divine and climate disasters are us reaping what we have sown.
The coterminous view is that there is no difference between the divine and the more than human world. This is pantheism, the identification of God and nature as the same thing. Thus we can talk of nature (or the more than human world, my preferred term) or we can talk of the divine, but we are actually talking about the same thing. In Spinoza’s hands, this pantheism is mechanical because his God and his universe are a mechanical thing. But pantheism need not be mechanical. Climate disasters here are caused by the divine reaction to human actions. The question of whether this is the more than human world or the divine taking action against us has no meaning, because the divine and the more than human world are one and the same.
The Animist view is that the more than human world has independent agency. Thus our sins against the more than human world may be different than our sins against the divine. The more than human world has the ability to act in certain ways. Climate disasters are then the response of the more than human world to how we have treated her (it? Their? I’m not at all sure what pronoun to use). The theological corollary here is that the divine is viewed as also having independent agency and is a being that has a different kind of body and different skills and interests than we humans do, just as we humans are different than broccoli plants.
I remind you that our ancestors had at least Animistic tendencies; we have heard in this very text about the land vomiting us up if we do wrong. (Leviticus18:25 and 20:22).
What’s your perspective on obligations within the human-divine relationship? What’s your response to the four approaches I offered to climate crises events?
The parsha contains this all too common sentiment towards the Israelite who is inclined to serve other Gods: “YHVH will not be willing to forgive him, because YHVH’s anger and his jealousy will then smoke against that man, and every curse that is written in this scroll will weigh on him and YHVH will wipe out his name from under the skies.” (29:19). I want to raise here the theological question of whether this is the kind of God you want to follow. Rather than looking at the question of if the punishment fits the crime, something it should be clear by now I find untenable, I want to ask about the very idea of worshipping a being who raises up and extols his anger and jealousy. Lord knows I can have a problem with my temper (ask my family), but giving into my rage is a source of shame and self dissatisfaction, not something I would uphold as some kind of model behavior. Anyone have a verse in the five books where YHVH thinks his anger is anything other than justified anger other than maybe his promise to Noah not to destroy the world by flood again?
The replies to this issue that I have read have never rang true to me. They have always felt as if they started from the idea that YHVH is perfect, so the anger and jealousy is some kind of metaphor, or something deeper, or something justified in some way. It has felt to me as if they have never accommodated the plain sense of the text that YHVH tells us that he is an angry and jealous God. It’s not that I think the plain way to read a text is the only way to read a text; but I have a distinct orientation that any reading of a text must account for and not simply erase a plain reading of it.
Perhaps the problem here is our assumption that God is perfect. We don’t think that about Greek or Norse Gods, for instance. They are beings with enormous power and enormous moral flaws. So a Greek God behaving badly didn’t create any kind of theological issue.
Does anyone ever deserve to be raged at? How does giving into our rage help us be closer to the divine, however we define it? How is YHVH in his rage a role model for us? Is the divine perfect?
“And Moses called Joshua and said to him before all the eyes of Israel, “Be strong and be bold, because you will come with this people to the land that YHVH swore to their fathers to give to them and you will get it for them as a legacy.” (31:7) Indeed, this is what happens in the next book in the Hebrew Bible, the book of Joshua.
I have thought a lot about succession. I have been blessed to be a leader of a business and a leader of non profits, as well as a parent of late adolescent kids. My core philosophy is that it is our responsibility as leaders/adults to prepare the ground so that our successors can surpass us. You know how it is a truism that parents want their kids to do better than they did? We too often construe that in a material sense, but it points to something important. If I were a great hunter, as a parent I would want my kids or my students to learn my lessons, add their own genius and become even better hunters than I had ever been and ensure that the tribe never went hungry. The only motivation for not wanting the next generation to be better than me would be a selfish, immature motivation rooted in a denial of the cycle of birth and death. It’s not like any of us are perfect, so of course there are plenty of ways in which our kids could be better than we have been.
Now you might think you are not a leader because you don’t have kids or because you don’t have any kind of formal leadership position, but almost all of us are leaders in some aspect of our lives. My 21 year old son, for instance, is the leader of his friends when it comes to listening to the people in his group when they do stupid things. My 21 year old daughter was a leader as a camp counselor and unit head for our local JCC day camp. She’s a leader of her pets. Both of my kids should want others to learn from them and be able to lead in the ways that they do.
I think it is also worthwhile to explore the connection or lack thereof between how you are a leader and your true purpose. For instance, I’ve been a very effective leader in my business and on one of the boards I’ve served on, and neither of those was why I’m here on this planet. I certainly have felt like a far less effective leader in my family and in this new project of teaching and writing about earth based Judaism, although both of those are more important to me and closer to why I am here.
How are you a leader? What’s your succession plan or thoughts (some of you might never have thought about this)? How does your leadership align with your strengths and your true purpose on this planet?
How can the people remember all these commandments? The parsha gives us two answers. The first is in verse ten (31:10) where the commandment is that the bulk of Deuteronomy, presumably the original scroll that was unearthed beneath the temple, would be read once every seven years on Sukkot. (31:10-13) But someone realized that this approach wasn’t going to work very well if the idea was to have the ideas drilled into the people. So they came up with a second approach.
“So now write this song and teach it to the children of Israel. Set it in their mouths, so this song will become a witness for me among the children of Israel.” (31:19) Then they assembled all of the elders of Israel (31:28) to teach them the songs that make up much of the last few chapters of Deuteronomy leading up to the death of Moses. Music obviously taps into a different part of our brain and makes it easier to remember certain things, as our ancestors recognized.
Let me share two practices that I use to remind me of things that are really important to me. One is I have a niggun, a wordless melody, that reminds me of who I am at my deepest level. I also have a daily practice that involves the repetition of the same formulas of words (though I don’t insist on saying it exactly the same way each time) to remind me of core teachings I seek to embody.
How do you most deeply remember/learn things? Write down the two or three lessons you want to carry with you in your life. What would make it so that they stayed front and center for you?
QUESTIONS
What’s your perspective on obligations within the human-divine relationship? What’s your response to the four approaches I offered to climate crises events?
Does anyone ever deserve to be raged at? How does giving into our rage help us be closer to the divine, however we define it? How is YHVH in his rage a role model for us? Is the divine perfect?
How are you a leader? What’s your succession plan or thoughts (some of you might never have thought about this)? How does your leadership align with your strengths and your true purpose on this planet?
How do you most deeply remember/learn things? Write down the two or three lessons you want to carry with you in your life. What would make it so that they stayed front and center for you?
