Vayelech 5772

By Rabbi Rami Ravolotzky
B’nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica

To go out and search

This week’s shabbat is known as Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of Return or of repentance.   It is named in this manner because the Haftarah we read this week begins with the words of the prophet Isaiah, Shuvah Israel, literally, “Return Israel”.   It is the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, precisely during the Aseret Yimei Teshuvah, the ten days of repentance.

During these days, we are invited to review our actions throughout the year that has just ended.  We are given a great opportunity to do honest and sincere introspection, to look ourselves in the mirror and recognize our fallibility.  If we are brave and get to identify our conflicts, then we may sincerely repent and ask forgiveness, to others and to ourselves.  Our tradition grants us the beautiful possibility of starting the year with a clean slate, without so much guilt on our backs, and without so many unresolved problems.

These “days of awe” (the Yamim Noraim, as they are also called), and this Shabbat in particular, constitute a sort of spiritual preparation for the day of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.  This “spiritual training” helps us to receive the Day of Atonement in the best possible way, with willingness to both forgive and ask forgiveness.

It is no less true that, in these days, synagogues prepare themselves to receive many people who do not usually attend services during the year.  People with a thirst to keep the family tradition, to re-encounter their roots, to renew their commitment with the Jewish identity itself, or simply with the hope of fulfilling their “yearly Jewish quota.”  Facing such a large attendance, synagogues prepare to receive all these people, whether with special activities, placing more chairs than usual, using a larger hall, etc.

With regard to receiving more brothers and sisters at the synagogues, it is worthwhile to reflect a little on the opening verse of the week’s parashah, Vayelech.  It is written in the Torah:  “Moses went and spoke these things to all Israel” (Deut. 31:1).  The attentive reader may wonder where is it that Moses went?  The Torah could have started by telling us that Moses spoke to the people of Israel, as it often does… so why does it tell us that he went somewhere?

But there is more… in the previous parashah (Nitzavim… although the summons actually appears at the end of Parashat Ki Tavo), Moses had gathered the entire people of Israel for the purpose of delivering one of his most important speeches.  Why, then, did he let them return to their tents, just to call on them again shortly after?

According to Nachmanides’s commentary to the first verse of our parashah, Moses let the people return to their families, but then he went to visit them personally at their camp to say good-bye, since his final hour was quickly approaching.  Moses finished telling the people of Israel about the responsibilities they should keep and the covenant they should follow, but later, he devoted his time and worries to saying good-bye and affirming Joshua’s new position  as his successor.

While Moses summoned the people to tell them of their obligations, he understood that he had to get closer to the people for his farewell and for a more personal message, to walk towards them in person and stripped of all false honor and arrogance, instead of waiting for them to approach him.

In these days, when the people of Israel come to the synagogues, summoned by the (often weak) tie that keeps them united to Jewish tradition, I think it is a very good idea to try to imitate Moses’ example.  Instead of saying, or nodding when someone else says things like “those who want to come, will come”, “those people never come”, or “everyone knows where we are and when we meet”, those who have leadership positions in the Jewish community should go out in search of people more often, just as Moses himself did.

Many are just outside, waiting for us to approach them with an important message, while many others do not even know what it is that they want to hear, but nonetheless keep waiting for us.  It is fine to invest large amounts of resources and efforts in the development of marvelous programs of Jewish education, to struggle to offer spaces for study and spirituality worthy of our congregants, intelligent and educated people.  However, we Jewish leaders, directors and teachers (most of which, I’m afraid, are the only ones who read these commentaries), sometimes we fail in the most basic, which is to literally go out of our institutions and approach whoever is “out there”, so they may come and participate.

Shabbat Shuvah usually offers that contrast, between the massive attendance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the generally scarce gathering on this Shabbat of return, a fact that many of us find clearly perplexing disappointing.  Perhaps this is a good time to reflect upon the need to, every now and then, get out there in search of our Jewish brothers and sisters who, for whatever reason, do not find an appropriate space to develop their Jewish identity, with the intensity needed to keep it alive and make it flourish.  If Moses, who convened multitudes, did it, we can surely do it as well.

Shabbat shalom, gmar chatimah tovah,

Rabbi Rami Ravolotzky