Nitzavim-Vayelech (Deuteronomy 29:9-31:30; Isaiah 62:1-63:9) Be heard!

The reading is called Nitzavim – “standing” – but really the essential word is kulchem – “all of you are standing today before the Eternal One your God.” Our sacred teaching, Moses says, is not remote or inaccessible; “it is in your mouths and in your hearts to be done,” it is intimate and immediate, incumbent on each of us to express. So Torah emerges in this world as a loud and complicated noise, every one of us bringing forth the teaching that we find in our own heart and mouth. “For the sake of Zion, I will not keep silent,” says the prophet – “and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Eternal One will articulate.” Perhaps it is a sacred name heard in the polyphony of many individuals speaking diverse perceptions and insights. What kind of way forward is that, in moments when we crave a single, clear, instructing voice? It is the way of a people, bound together and bound to the Divine – “You who are the Eternal One’s remembrancers, accept no rest and no silence, and give the Divine no silence, until Jerusalem be founded and established as a praise in all the earth.”