As we enter the last Shabbos of the Hebrew year 5782, we are gifted with the opportunity to take some time to reflect, to sit in the stillness before the storm of the High Holidays. It’s a moment where we can feel the New Year in the air - and still have the last licks of the previous year to do our very best and make it count.
In any other month, this would be Shabbos Mevarchim - the Shabbos that we bless the upcoming New Month to bring us only goodness and blessings. The month of Tishrei, which begins this Monday on Rosh Hashanah, requires no such blessing. That’s because our tradition teaches that God, G-dself, blesses the month of Tishrei.
The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the mystical Chassidic movement, taught that this power of God’s blessing on the last Shabbos of the year brings blessing for the other eleven months of the year. He connected it to this week’s Parsha, that of Nitzavim, which is read every year on the Shabbos before Rosh Hashanah, as a moment for us to walk into the Days of Awe without fear, only anticipation.
The Torah portion begins with a continuation of Moshe’s grand speech, where he proclaims, “You are all standing upright (nitzavim) here today (hayom),- all of you!” Moshe enumerates every kind of person - from water carriers and woodchoppers; from children to the elderly, who are present gathered in this moment.
The Holy Zohar, a fundamental Jewish mystical text, states that the word “today” “hayom” implies the Day of Judgement itself - Rosh Hashanah! A day when we all stand together, no matter who we are or what we do, and are judged by the Judge of all Creation for the new year to come.
The word Nitzavim means upright, standing strong, tall and true, and of course it is a goal for us all to be upright in judgement. We want to be judged favorably. We want to be given every opportunity to make up for the things we didn’t get so right and to do better every day into the future. We want to be vindicated in judgement, and come through crystal clear.
God’s blessing for us on this last Shabbos of the year is embodied in the Torah reading. We are blessed to walk through this day of judgement standing upright, all together, unwavering in our confidence that we will be granted the best possible outcome for the coming year. In every month that follows, as we bring in the blessing for that particular moment, drawing on this big pool of blessing to keep standing strong, standing up, and freeing ourselves of the stories and judgements that we place on ourselves and others from the past.
May we be blessed with an upcoming year of abundance and blessing, filled with the ultimate of God’s storehouse of the greatest treasures. I look forward to seeing many of you this coming week at our High Holiday prayer services, to pray, sing, reflect and bring in all that blessing together as a community.
With blessings for a Shabbat Shalom, a K’Tiva v’Hatima Tova, and a Shana Tova U’Metukah, a sweet new year,
Reb Rishe
Affiliated with United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism