Parashat Nitzavim - Fourth Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
From taking it to heart to a new heart
The aliyah deals with the moment after the crisis. The Torah describes a situation in which the blessing and the curse have already come about, Israel are among the nations, and then a process of change begins: a person takes to heart what they have been through, and out of that reflection they return to God and listen to his voice with all their heart and with all their soul.
The return does not remain an inner process only. Following it, a movement in the opposite direction from exile is described: God returns the fortunes of Israel, has mercy on them and gathers them from all the peoples to which they were scattered. Even if the dispersed are at the end of the heavens, from there they are gathered and brought back to the land their fathers inherited.
The return to the land is accompanied by a renewed blessing as well. Israel inherit the land again and receive goodness and increase, but the peak of the aliyah is not the material abundance but a deep change in the heart. God circumcises the heart of the people and the heart of their offspring, so that they will be able to love him with all their heart and with all their soul. That is, the redemption described here is both national and inner.
Insights from the aliyah
Return begins with taking it to heart
Before the actual return there is reflection. A person stops, connects what they have been through with the way they live, and lets it into their heart. Real change begins at the moment when reality stops passing us by and starts speaking to us.
Even after exile there is a way back
The aliyah opens after a very hard description of blessing and curse, and even so it does not present a hopeless state. Even after a great distancing there remains a possibility of return, repair and regathering.
The return belongs to the person and to the coming generations
The verses include the person and their children. At the level of the idea, deep change is not only a repair of the present, but can change the direction of the family and of the generations to come.
No place is too far
Even someone at the end of the heavens is not outside the possibility of being gathered in. This is a strong image, in which geographical, spiritual or historical distance is not necessarily the end of the story.
Redemption does not end with the return to the land
After the gathering and the inheritance comes the change of the heart. This teaches that coming back to the right place is not enough if a person inside stays as they were before. Complete repair includes a new heart and a renewed capacity to love.
Love is the peak of the process
The aliyah begins with blessing and curse, exile and return, and ends with the love of God with all the heart and all the soul. At the level of the idea, the goal is not only to avoid punishment or to get back to a good state, but to rebuild a living and deep bond.
Mercy appears inside the process of return
The gathering is described together with mercy. This underlines that return is not only a cold human effort, but a meeting between a person’s will to come back and the opening of a way from God to receive, to gather and to bring home.
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