Nitzavim Vayekech: time

Nitzavim Vayekech: time

There is currently a commercial on TV for an asthma inhaler. In addition to extolling the virtues of the  product ( including an increased risk of death), the commercial repeats again and again, TODAY.  All of the background material says TODAY. The eye chart says TODAY, the sign in the store says TODAY, the street sign says TODAY,  The advertiser knows that if the action is not taken TODAY, the chances that it will happen deteriorate rapidly,

The parsha informs the reader ( you and me) that we are standing before the Lrd TODAY. ( The feeling is reinforced by the impending Rosh Hashannah). Yet, the covenant extends to those not present,. People who are subject to time,  people not yet convinced, people not yet conceived. This is the universal and representative commitment

In our time, the eventual reveals the underlying principles. Fossils demonstrate the  steps of evolution, rocks reveal the travels  of  ice sheets, the planets demonstrate universal gravitation and Newton's laws.  In our time layers of truth are revealed.  

The secret things belong unto the LRD our Gd; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

There is a deeper truth, a secret truth.   What out senses and reason tell us  is incomplete, possibly wrong.   The fully informed law is the guide, the guidelines based upon the biggest of all data

The establishment of guidelines is a current trend in medicine.  The outcomes of a tens of thousands of cases are analyzed as a conglomerate.  The individual is thoroughly blurred out by the data.  This corrects for the inconvenient variations among people.  The cause, the physiology, of a disease is no longer important. Criteria are met, a treatment that worked best for the largest number  of cases is given - that is now called " best practice" But every patient is an outlier, an exception.  Years later the heterogeneity of the group is revealed

The secret things belong unto the LRD our Gd; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.


The remainder of the double parsha deals with the prediction that Israel will stray from following the law. The rebellion is so predictable that it borders on the non-prophetic. It is a certainty that variations of ritual will creep in, that curiosity will capture a man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away

Be Here Now

Ki Thavoh: are we there yet?

 Ki thavoh: when you arrive. . The first instruction, the tax (tithe)  declaration, which includes a statement
'I profess this day unto the LRD thy Gd, that I am come unto the land which the LRD swore unto our fathers to give us.
 As if to say that there is some uncertainty  about whether he has actually arrived
What?--the ground needs to be tilled? What - honey does not effortlessly grow from the ground?   It is always impossible to fulfill the fantasy, nothing can be as good  ( or as bad) as it was pre- imagined.

When my parents came to America from DP camp, the change in language, and the change in architecture,  and the change in attitude told them that they had arrived ( in the Goldene Medinah).  But they were poor and struggled to find work ... Did they ever arrive?  Paying American taxes may have been convincing.

The blessings and (especially) the curses in this parsha are a progression.  In the parsha, one arrives at the end.  My parents saw the curses . I have seen the blessings. We are not there yet.

Everyone knows she will eventually arrive and descend into the ultimate promised land. Until that time, things  could be better, could be worse.... not there yet.