Shabbat Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech - 5783

Shabbat Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech - 5783

Rabbi Hal Miller The hidden things are for Hashem our God, but the revealed things are for us and for our children forever to carry out all the words of the Torah. [Devarim 29:28] There are dots over the letters of "for us and for our children" plus a dot over the letter ayin of the word "forever". These dots in the Torah script are supposed to teach us something specific in each case. In most instances they mean we should negate or invert the meaning of the words or the specific letters that carry them. What do they mean here? Most of the commentators concentrate on the earlier parts of the verse, the hidden things and revealed things. In context our verse refers back to the previous few in which the Torah explains the reason for God's anger with the people, that they forsook the covenant sealed when they left Egypt. Certainly, not every individual violated that covenant, so our verse must apply to the people as a whole. Rashi asks on behalf of each individual who wants to do good, "And if you will say, what are we able to do? You punish the many for the thoughts of the individual. Is it not true that a person does not know the hidden thoughts of his fellow man?" Our verse is God saying that He holds all of us responsible for the revealed things that people do, not for the hidden things. In other words, we are each responsible for the behavior of all of the rest of us, as well as for our own. Ramban adds that we are not responsible when our fellow worships idols in secret, but that we are responsible if he does so in public. Rav Yosef Soloveitchik writes "We are all mutually responsible for one another, we are all each other's guarantors." So what is "for us and for our children forever"? Rav Hirsch addresses it as a time boundary, "The far future we leave to God. But what is revealed to us in our times, that is for us." Ramban, supported by Rashbam, Sforno and others, says it refers to earthly courts, which are responsible for punishing those whose sins we can see, and that God will take care of those we cannot see. All of this makes sense, but what are the dots teaching? Rashi says it tells us that the people only became responsible for each other once they crossed the Jordan under Yehoshua. At the time of our verse, Moshe was still in charge, and the people had not yet crossed. Rav Soloveitchik follows this, "With Korach, God agreed to just punish the rebels, but after entry into the land, we are held responsible for the sin of our fellow if it is in our power to rebuke him, to protest against his behavior and induce him to repent." Thus the dots seem to say, at this point, these issues are not for us and our children, but there will come a time soon when those issues will be on us and our children forever. The third word with dots, "ad" (forever), has two letters, ayin and dalet. Why does only the ayin have a dot? The Ba'al HaTurim explains "Ayin means seventy, which alludes to the seventy days from the first of Shevat when Moshe began to explain the Torah until the tenth of Nisan when they crossed the Jordan". During this seventy-day period, he understands as above that the people are not yet responsible for each other, only for themselves. Thus it isn't a matter of a lack of dot over the dalet, rather the addition of a dot over the ayin.