Shabbos Parashas Nitzavim - 5778

Shabbos Parashas Nitzavim - 5778

Rabbi Hal Miller

And you will return to Hashem your God, and you will listen to His voice.

{Devarim 30:2]

Almost everyone lists teshuvah as one of the 613 mitzvos of the Torah. There

may be disagreement on where the command is to be found, with our verse

here being one of the more common options, but what does it mean? "V'shavta

ad Hashem", and you will 'shavta' until God.

Rambam, in his book on teshuvah, tells us that our verse is a promise, not a

commandment, thus he refers this mitzvah to Bamidbar 5:7, and says it means

a confession. Ramban calls our verse both a commandment and a promise,

based on 30:11, "this mitzvah which I command you" as referring to our verse.

Ramban agrees with Rambam, though, that confession is a key component to

teshuvah, that one must say the words out loud as well as mean them in his

heart. This will 'return' their hearts to God. But the commandment itself is from

our verse, meaning "you will return".

Rav Hirsch lists four components of teshuvah: a) admitting that one has sinned;

b) repairing the sin by reconciling with God or with the other person if between

people; c) regret; and d) resolving not to repeat it. Non-Jews translate the word

teshuvah as 'repentance' rather than 'return'. Hirsch's list (and others similar)

show that repenting alone is merely a piece of the process. The intent is to return

to the condition of being pure in God's laws.

Nachshoni writes, "The essence of teshuvah is based on recognition of the

nature of man. Without teshuvah, humanity would sink deeper into sin without

any hope of repairing the damage. It is a tool for the very survival of man." He

goes on to discuss the seven appearances of the word in this portion, explaining

the differences implied in each. What each has in common is that it is followed

by God doing some kind of returning to us of something. Each level of our

repentance/teshuvah is followed by a higher version of God's returning to us,

until in our verse there is a complete teshuvah on our part, and in the following

verse, God fully accepts us back into His realm, placing again His trust in us

and burdening us again with His commandments. His view implies that we do

the repentance, and it is God who is doing the returning.

Nechama Leibowitz says that the word "indicates a reciprocal movement". She

says, "We see how this reciprocity recurs, from below to above (man to God)

and from above to below, and then again from below to above and above to

below. Which comes first? Is teshuvah before geulah or geulah before

teshuvah?" She cites Akeidat Yitzchak, who brings a Gemora, where R'Natan

says teshuvah must come first, and R'Eliezer says geulah must come first. Thus

Akeidat Yitzchak says, "these and these are the words of the Living God." In

other words, we do not know which must come first.

However, perhaps we can make an observation. In verse 30:11, the Torah says,

"For this commandment that I command you today, it is not hidden from you and

it is not distant." This tells us that we, in effect, have no excuse for not doing

this commandment, which would lead us to believe that it is ours to do whether or

not God has already given us the return from exile. We may not know from this

whether there is a causal relationship in that direction, but it seems to be implied.

Certainly, teshuvah is a commandment to us, requiring us to return ourselves to

living out God's will, and performing all the various steps involved in reaching

that level, regardless of whether His return to us is tied to this command or not.