Nitzavim-Vayelech
Deut. 29:9–31:30

By Jen Smith

I love High Holy Day season! The renewal of our souls makes so much sense when juxtaposed with freshly sharpened pencils, a new backpack, and a cool new outfit. All these markers line the proverbial streets of my mind like an array of rainbow-colored arrows all pointing in the same direction: Rosh Hashanah is coming! This week signals the beginning of our Jewish prayer endurance Olympics: We recite Slichot at ungodly (or maybe godly) hours of the morning, we blast-test the shofar to wake up our lungs, and we’re mentally preparing for hours of standing in synagogue while questioning our choice of footwear.

It is during this precise moment of pre-holy day panic that we read the double parshah of Nitzavim-Vayelech.

On the surface, pairing these two portions together appears to be a sort of grammatical contradiction: Nitzavim means “you are standing,” which is clearly firm, grounded, and static. While Vayelech means “and he walked,” which is dynamic, changing, and mobile.

How do we simultaneously stand completely still and walk forward? Though it sounds like a set-up to a classic rabbinic joke, it’s actually the central dilemma of human transformation as we approach Rosh Hashanah.

Nitzavim opens with Moshe gathering the entire nation on the final day of his physical life:

You are standing today, all of you, before Adonai your God: your leaders, your tribes, your elders… from the woodcutter to the water-drawer. (Deut. 29:9–10)

Notice the spectrum here: Moshe doesn’t just address the administrative board or the big donors in the front row. Instead, he gathers everyone, from the communal elite to the physical laborers.

The Hasidic master known as the Sfat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger) offers a brilliant insight on this structure. He asks: Why does the Torah use the word Nitzavim (standing firmly) rather than Omdim (simply standing)?

He explained that the word Nitzavim implies architectural stability. A single wooden beam cannot hold up a roof; it only gains structural integrity when integrated into a building. In Jewish thought, individual spiritual heroics are fine, but true endurance is a team sport. Before we sit down on Rosh Hashanah to negotiate our personal requests for the coming year, the Torah reminds us of one critical condition: You can only stand before the Infinite when you are bound to everyone else – which includes each individual’s flaws, quirks, and differing political views.

In Kabbalah, words in the Torah are rarely just narrative markers; they are dimensional portals. The verse states: You are standing Hayom (Today).

The Zohar explains that whenever the word Hayom appears in this context, it refers secretly to Rosh Hashanah, the one cosmic day when the universe stands in trial and creation resets once more.

Later in Nitzavim, Moses addresses the anxiety many of us feel when faced with deep personal change. He says:

For this commandment… is not too wondrous for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven… No, the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it. (Deut. 30:11–14)

The 16^th century mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught his students about a famous Kabbalistic anagram hidden in the Hebrew text. The first letters of the words Al Leman Ya’aleh Lanu Hashamayimah, or “Who shall go up for us to heaven?” spell out ELUL (א-ל-ו-ל).

Mystically, we often assume that Teshuvah (repentance or return) requires an act of radical, dramatic reinvention. But the Kabbalists teach the opposite: The Nitzotz (Divine Spark) isn’t hiding on a mountain top, nor is it buried in any ancient text. Instead, it is woven into your existing reality. The work of Slichot isn’t about becoming a totally different person; it’s about stripping away the defensive layers of ego so that the soul you already have can finally breathe free.

And this brings us to the transition into Vayelech.

If Nitzavim is about establishing a solid baseline, secure in who you are and where you stand, then Vayelech is all about motion.

The angelology of the Talmud makes a fascinating distinction between angels and human beings. Angels are called Omdim (standers) because, despite their divine nature and human preconceptions regarding wings and whatnot, angels are generally static. They are essentially watchers, confined to the spiritual state in which they were created. Humans, however, are called Holechim (walkers) because we possess free will, rendering us inherently unstable, but also capable of exponential growth.

This is the exact purpose of reciting S’lichot late at night or before dawn. Stepping out of bed in the dark to say S’lichot is an intentional act of disruptiveness. The act says: I refuse to remain static. I am ready to walk.

In Vayelech, Moses passes the mantle of leadership to Joshua with the words: Chazak Ve’ematz – Be strong and courageous (Deut. 31:6).

Why courageous? Why not just wish him luck? Because embarking on self-examination requires far more bravery than standing comfortably in our self-justifications.

At the climax of Nitzavim, Moshe leaves the Israelites with an existential ultimatum:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life... (Deut. 30:19)

It seems like an obvious choice. Who volunteers for death and curses? But in the Jewish tradition, living and existing are two very different things. To merely exist is to remain stuck in routine, default reactions, and self-centeredness; to choose life is to actively engage with purpose, to repair fractured relationships, and to continue to move forward, especially when the path ahead is uncertain.

As we move through S’lichot and step into Rosh Hashanah, may we find the strength of Nitzavim to stand together in unity, and the bravery of Vayelech to keep walking, growing, and choosing life together in the year ahead.

Shabbat Shalom!

Ki Tavo
Deuteronomy 26:1–29:8

by Jen Smith

There is something wonderfully optimistic about the first day of school.

The backpacks are still clean. The pencils have erasers. The notebooks contain nothing but possibility. Parents take pictures on front porches, teachers welcome students into freshly decorated classrooms with renewed enthusiasm, and children walk through the doors with all kinds of hopes (and anxieties) for the year ahead.

Of course, by October, someone will have lost the lunchbox or the brand-name water bottle. But on that first morning, everything is still beginning.

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, begins with a different kind of first day. In this portion, Moses describes the instructions for the Israelites upon first entering the Promised Land:

When you enter the land that Adonai your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil…
Deut. 26:1–2

These are the bikkurim, or the first fruits.

After forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites will finally plant seeds in soil they can call home. And when the very first fruits appear, the Torah tells them not to eat them. Instead, they are told to put them in a basket to bring them to the Temple.

I imagine how difficult that might have been. After generations of slavery and forty years of manna falling from heaven, imagine growing something yourself for the very first time. You plant the seeds, tend the soil, worry through bad weather, and wait.  And then one morning, there it is: the first fig, the first grape, the first pomegranate.

Surely the instinct would be to pluck it immediately and admire what you made to feed yourself and/or your family.

But Torah asks for something different. Before enjoying the harvest, we are told to stop, remember the journey, and give thanks. The farmer is instructed to bring those first fruits before God and recites a brief history of the Jewish people: The declaration remembers slavery in Egypt, the harrowing escape to liberation, the seemingly endless journey through the wilderness, and finally, celebrates arrival in the land.

It is fascinating that at the very moment the farmer might feel most self-sufficient, the Torah asks him to remember that his story, or his family’s story, began generations before Exodus.

Yes, the farmer grew the fruit, but the ritual ensured the farmer would not forget that he did NOT create the soil, nor did he invent the rain, nor photosynthesis. The story didn’t begin with the famer, though his role is critical to the future. This is a deeply Jewish understanding of gratitude.

Gratitude is not pretending that our own effort does not matter, as Judaism certainly believes that it does. Rather, gratitude is recognizing that none of us accomplishes anything entirely alone. Every harvest grows from soil someone else helped prepare.

Which may be why Ki Tavo feels particularly meaningful as another school year begins.

On the first day of school, our children walk through the doors carrying their own little baskets of bikkurim. Some contain confidence, some contain curiosity, and some contain anxiety carefully disguised as indifference. Our children carry the lessons learned from parents and grandparents, teachers and coaches, friends and communities. They carry talents they may already know they possess, and other talents of which they may not yet be aware, like seeds germinating under the dark soil.

And none of us knows exactly what will grow.

Jewish mysticism has a beautiful way of imagining this potential. The Kabbalists teach that divine sparks are scattered throughout creation, waiting to be uncovered and elevated through the choices we make. Every encounter can contain a spark, and every person can reveal something holy. Even ordinary experiences like learning something new, helping a classmate, asking a difficult question, or discovering a talent, can become opportunities to uncover divine light.

Maybe that is one way to think about education itself. We often imagine education is about putting knowledge into a child. But Jewish tradition also asks us to consider what we are helping draw out, as there are already traces of the sacred within every human being. The task, therefore, of a teacher, a parent, a community, and eventually each of us for ourselves, is to help that hidden divine light emerge.

And that requires something Ki Tavo repeatedly asks of the Israelites: pay attention to your blessings.

Later in the portion comes the tochachah, the long and frightening catalogue of curses that may follow when the Israelite people lose their way. Buried within that difficult section is a surprisingly simple explanation.

Because you would not serve Adonai your God with joy and gladness of heart over the abundance of everything.
Deut. 28:47

The problem is not the absence of blessing, as there was abundance now. The real tragedy was that they stopped seeing it. Maybe that is one of the great spiritual dangers of adulthood. We become so accustomed to what surrounds us that the miraculous becomes ordinary or commonplace.

The new school year offers a small opportunity to resist that.

Because beneath the logistics, the alarm clocks, permission slips, carpools, homework, practices, forgotten water bottles, and endless emails asking us to download yet another app, something extraordinary is happening: Children are becoming.

They are entering classrooms today as people they have never been before, and they will leave this year changed. And so will we.

But Ki Tavo is not only about entering the Promised Land.

The Hebrew words ki tavo mean “when you enter.”  Not if you enter; but when.

There will always be another threshold: Another classroom, another season, and another beginning. It is a reminder that this is just another place where we must walk through the doorway without knowing exactly what awaits us on the other side.

Just as light is present before we can see what it will illuminate, and seeds contain a harvest that does not yet exist, Jewish mystical tradition teaches that every new beginning contains infinite possibilities that have not yet taken form.

Maybe faith is our willingness to cross thresholds without knowing what to expect, and to walk through the door, begin with a blank notebook, and trust that something sacred is just waiting for the right time to emerge.

Through that lens, our task as parents, teachers, grandparents, friends, and members of a Jewish community, is not to determine exactly what someone else’s harvest should look like, but rather to help them tend the soil.

It is our responsibility then to encourage curiosity, cultivate kindness, teach resilience, celebrate effort, and to remind one another that achievement without gratitude becomes hollow, and knowledge without compassion is incomplete. So, once we have tended the soil and the first fruits finally appear, we are commanded to pause long enough to notice them.

This week, as backpacks are packed and classrooms fill once again, may we remember that beginnings are holy precisely because we cannot yet see where they will lead.

May our children, and may all of us, enter this new year with curiosity over certainty, gratitude over entitlement, and the courage to discover the divine sparks hidden along the way.

May we remember those who prepared the soil beneath our feet and tend it carefully for those who will come after us. And may we have the wisdom, when the first fruits appear, to place them gently in our baskets and reflect on how far we have come, what has already begun to grow, and thank God we get to see the beautiful, miraculous harvest yet to come.

Shabbat Shalom.

Our weekly Torah blog will be taking a short break while our staff enjoys time out of the office with family and friends.

Just as Shabbat invites us to pause, rest, and renew, this brief break gives our team the opportunity to recharge before returning with fresh insights and reflections.

We hope you decide to use this time to look back on our Torah Blog and catch up on what you may have missed. If you’d like to learn more about our Torah Blogger, Jen Smith – please check out her all-time favorite posts featured here:

1. Parashat Naso – Numbers 4:21–7:89
2. Yitro – Exodus 18:1-20:23
3. Tzav – Shabbat HaGadol- Leviticus 6:1–8:36

We’ll be back soon with new Torah thoughts and inspiration. Thank you for reading along, and we wish you a wonderful rest of your summer!

See you back here in three weeks.