Deuteronomy Cycle Seven Netzavim/Vayelekh

 Netzavim/Vayelekh

In this weeks parasha we are told that there are the things that are revealed to us: The things that are concealed are for Hashem. It looks like there’s a simple duality of vision. There’s one way or the other.  And, oh yes, (it seems) we are only responsible for what we see. Please pay attention though. This line does not mean we are off the hook. In fact, we might want to look at ourselves with a keen eye,  notice the limp reach of our  day-to-day vision. and step up to an under-represented  Behavior of Peace.

 This is the equation: The more we see the more we own, the more we must stand up to, the more we must announce, the more that demands our action. And, as much as we would like it, this connection of behavior to vision is not just a two part thing. There are millions of intricate steps of vision, therefore steps of behavior and as we might expect, there’s basement-grunge vision (the type that propels us a million parsangs away from Sinai)  as well as that of the Divine.

   

Depending on where we stand therefore, there are wider openings of soul and light and a greater desperation to act on those openings, such a great desperation that those visions become a part of us. We own them. We own our behavior around them. We are ostracized because of them as well. We become invisible to the blind beings as our own eyes take on greater depth and reach. The frustration almost becomes unbearable.  Think of Jeremiah’s words (20:7-8):

               Everyone mocks me

               For as often as I speak I have to cry out

               Have to complain of violence and abuse

               For the word of the Lord has become for me

               A reproach and a division all day long

The responsibility that comes with vision makes many of us want to say forget it:  We can just be  ignorant and void of responsibility.  We can decide not to know God and pray to the mannikins in the store windows and to the constructs that have been prayed to by scholars historically and to the people who need to be seen as seers to keep their very jobs. We can pray to money gods and food gods and liturgy gods and drug gods and in-your-face intimate gods who really just want your love for soul-blood. We can decide to be blind and simply lean on the great pretenders so that we can at least pretend that someone is seeing for us.  We can do a million things to avoid the obligation of climbing the steps of vision, to avoid our very re-creation and transformation as a people.  After all, who wants to even come close to seeing what the prophet sees? The prophetic behavior attached with that vision might be full time. It might take us away from our job, our video games, our meditation, our self-imposed boundaries. It might wake us up and there’s nothing more frightening than waking up after centuries of sleep.

 The truth is though the word netzavim…at the beginning of the parasha… is not used here casually. Netzavim is used to refer to angels. In other words, since the people are netzavim at Mt Sinai, the people are metaphorically doing the angel-way of standing.  (For another example, netzav is also used to describe the ladder dreamed of by Jacob (Gen 28:12).

  

As we might remember,  (at Mt Sinai) Moses is very specific in that he’s speaking to those who can’t be there as well as those who are before him. It is not to you alone I speak (he says) it’s also to those who can’t be here today. 

Perhaps, these people who aren’t there are the ones who have approached that place of vision beyond the seeming dichotomy mentioned above…. who have come so close to Godly vision that they can’t even be seen by us, humanity.

If they are there at Mt Sinai however, it means that in their reach for Hashem they have not gone beyond the parameters of community, even if brave vision demands a physical form and behavior that might cause them to feel isolated.

This brings us back to the seeming dichotomy again.  We are not responsible for the works of God. Oh, but we are responsible to raise our eyes and look up and move closer and closer to those same concealed works....until we too are concealed.  In fact, it is not a responsibility. It’s an obligation, the very action that makes us Jewish (see Levinas, Heschel, and for ancient rabbinic literature, any words from Rabbi Akiva or Rabbi Johanon ben Zakkai).

This is about placing ourselves in that vulnerable, heart aching, trembling, fiery place of pure self-honesty, alone within a community, centered and ready. It means saying to hell with it to anything that might be a stumbling block and letting our heart and mind fly into a prophetic light that won’t hurt (no it won’t hurt that much) as the concealed sparks of Hashem become gloriously real on this earth.

 As we approach Rosh HaShanah  may we all have the courage to be an angel who is not seen and to move into the connected realm of conscious action.