Parashat Nitzavim – Vayelech, 5786
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites
One of the defining characteristics of the Western world is its preoccupation with personal achievements and the pursuit of phenomenal success. Billions of people move alongside one another, viewing others as competitors for success and as threats to their privacy.
This outlook creates a fundamental social problem. A healthy society is based on mutual assistance, in which it is the strong person’s role to support the weak and help them emerge from their difficult circumstances. It is founded on the understanding that the wheel turns: today I help you, and tomorrow your child will help my child. But when every person is preoccupied with themselves, people have neither the time nor the inclination to think about the problems of others. An ideology of supposed indifference develops from this: people should be left to manage on their own; they cannot become a burden on society; and every person is responsible for themselves.
The attitude of “leave me in peace”, in which the main concern is that things should be good for me, is a dangerous one. Ultimately, the problems around us reach us as well and they cannot simply be ignored.
This approach is also evident in spiritual and moral matters. Here, in particular, a taboo sometimes develops according to which one should not interfere in another person’s life, and a person has neither the right nor the authority to tell someone else what is true or what is right for them. Thus, people live according to the principle of “everyone does what is right in his own eyes,” while moral values gradually erode. The enlightened world sometimes prefers to ignore the consequences as long as things are good for me.
Parashat Nitzavim, which is read in the period leading up to Rosh Hashanah, comes to proclaim loudly that the only way to ensure a good and successful new year and a repaired and improved world is through the concept of mutual responsibility.
This approach, known in the world as “social responsibility,” is based on a popular parable about a group of people sitting aboard a ship. One of the passengers took a drill and began drilling a hole in the floor beneath his seat. The other passengers saw him and exclaimed in panic, “What are you doing?!”
He replied, “Why should you care? I’m drilling underneath my seat, not yours!”
They answered him, “We care about the damage, because the water will rise and sink the entire ship, and we will all drown together with you.”
The understanding that when murky waters are flowing through someone else’s home, they may eventually flood the entire world, is a description of human reality. This is precisely the starting point of the idea of mutual responsibility: there is really no such thing as “only under my seat.” What happens to one person may ultimately affect society as a whole.
This concept is the foundation of the Jewish approach to the values of truth and the shaping of the inner soul. We cannot leave the world without anyone taking responsibility, allowing everyone to behave however is convenient for them. Ultimately, the ship carrying our collective values may sink, and the world may reach the state described in the generation of the Flood, when “the earth was filled with violence.”
To understand the importance of this idea, the parasha opens with the words:
“You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers – every man of Israel. Your little ones, your wives, and your stranger who is in the midst of your camp, from the woodchopper to the water drawer.”
(Deuteronomy 29:9–10)
The Torah, which is meticulous about every word and formulation and contains nothing superfluous, nevertheless chooses here to elaborate and enumerate all the different types of people who make up the Jewish people: leaders and ordinary people, men and women, adults and children, native-born and converts. They all stand together.
The message is that the way to build a repaired and improved world cannot rely on individuals alone. Everyone is a partner, everyone is needed, and every person has a place and a role in the collective effort.
This commitment took on even greater significance when the principle of mutual responsibility was established anew among the Jewish people. The parasha describes how Moses, on his final day on earth, gathers the entire Jewish people and presents them with a new standard of the covenant with God. From that point onward, every member of the Jewish people would also bear responsibility for the actions of others. In the words of the Talmud:
“All Jews are responsible for one another.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 27b)
Once the principle of mutual responsibility was renewed among the Jewish people, it was no longer a matter of personal opinion. Whoever has the ability to influence those around them and fails to do so bears responsibility for the consequences, as the Talmud teaches:
“Whoever is able to protest against the members of his household but does not, is held accountable for the members of his household; against the people of his city but does not, is held accountable for the people of his city; against the entire world but does not, is held accountable for the entire world.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b)
Anyone who possesses the knowledge, tools, and ability to influence others, both physically and spiritually, is obligated to become involved and offer assistance, particularly to those who are influenced by them.
The entire idea is encapsulated in the wonderful words of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, former chief rabbi of Britain: “I don’t need you to agree with me; I need you to care about me!” There is no need for everyone to think alike. Nor is there any need for everyone to live in the same way. But it is important that everyone care about the people who are in the same boat with them.
This is the important message that Parashat Nitzavim comes to teach us as we prepare for the new year: not only to care for ourselves, but also to see the person beside us – because ultimately, we are all in the same boat. And this is the surest path to a good and sweet new year.
