Nitzavim: Taking a stand for truth

The parsha opens with:

אַתֶּ֨ם נִצָּבִ֤ים הַיּוֹם֙

You stand this day

This is a special day in our family. It is the yahrzeit, the anniversary of the death, of my father, Shmuel Chaim. It is the Shabbath before Rosh Hashana. Yisroel Arye Treiger, Karen and Louis' father, was born on Rosh Hashana. In seven years, our grandson, Yisrael Arye (aka Theodore, aka Srulik) Goldberg will be Bar mitzvah on this Shabbath. 

Nitzavim does not mean an incidental erect posture. It does not mean that a person happens to be standing. It means they are standing for something.  The word nitzavim implies  purpose.  In this week's parsha the purpose is given: 

לְעׇבְרְךָ֗ בִּבְרִ֛ית יְ

 to enter into the covenant of your G-d.

This has some poignancy on the Shabbath before Rosh Hashana. During the 10 days of penitence we  hope to benefit from that covenant and we realize that we did not always keep our side of the contract.

During this week leading up to Rosh Hashanah and continuing through Yom Kippur we recite selichoth, prayers for forgiveness. These prayers are built around a formula, the thirteen attributes (or paths) that Gd revealed to Moses when Moses sought forgiveness for the sin of the golden calf. We recite  parts of two verses (Exodus 34:6,7).  The first is descriptive, a series of adjectives. The second verse describes Gd's forbearing actions.  The first verse ends with וֶאֱמֶֽת, "and truth.": The ultimate descriptor of Gd's way is truth. The men I remember today were men who stood up, נִצָּבִ֤ים, for the truth.

My father is one of the 60 survivors of Treblinka, the death camp that gassed, murdered and burned 875,000 Jews. He was in that small group of men that staged the Treblinka uprising. Twelve men survived the uprising. They were נִצָּבִ֤ים nitzavim. They confronted their hopeless situation and weighed it against the alternatives.  My father survived because he confronted the truth and stood up to impossible odds. 

A few years ago, reading a novel by Philip Roth, I realized that there was another episode when my father stood up for the truth in a very significant way.  After my mother died, my father and I would take a trip every year to Israel to visit her grave. One of those years, I was able to contact  Eliyahu Rosenberg. Mr Rosenberg was a Treblinka survivor who organized events that other Israeli Treblinka survivors would attend. He organized a luncheon for the 6 remaining Israeli survivors. At that luncheon, I saw Mr. Rosenberg and the others pressure my father to testify at the Demjanjuk trial. 

John Demjanjuk had been a Nazi guard. He had been captured in Detroit and extradited to Israel to stand trial for the cruelties of Ivan the Terrible, a notorious, murderous Treblinka guard. Rosenberg and the others pressured my father to testify. "Surely you remember his footsteps," they told him. My father said that he  could not identify this octogenarian as the guard he had seen more than 50 years ago. After the meeting, I was a confused, maybe embarrassed, by my father's reluctance to help the anti Nazi cause after so much encouragement by his fellow survivors. 

Many years later I learned that the inconsistencies in Rosenberg's testimony was part of he reason that Demjanjuk was acquitted.  I discovered this while reading a novel by Philip Roth, The Shylock Project , and confirmed it. It was subsequently discovered, from Russian evidence, that Demjanjuk was never at Treblinka, but he had been a sadistic guard at Sobibor and was convicted in a German court. 

I married the daughter of a man of truth. Irwin Treiger was a pillar of the Seattle Jewish community. By his work as a fund raiser, he supported numerous important Jewish causes. He was a founder of  the Samis foundation, an organization that is  critical to Jewish education in Seattle. He made his reputation as a pre-eminent  attorney  through a quality that exceeded normal honesty. He would confront the truth.  This standing up to reality is a way to understand  the  נִצָּבִ֤ים that introduces today's parsha.  It is in the spirit of the season.

 All through Elul, as we recite selichoth before sunrise. we say 

 וַיֵּ֤רֶד יְ

בֶּֽעָנָ֔ן וַיִּתְיַצֵּ֥ב עִמּ֖וֹ שָׁ֑ם וַיִּקְרָ֥א בְשֵׁ֖ם יְ

And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

Vayithyatzev, and he stood, comes from the same root as Nitzavim.  It is a significant standing.

 

The scene described in selichoth is the unique appearance of Gd to the human Moshe, declaring the thirteen axes of forgiveness that are available. Moshe is asking for forbearance for the golden calf, the graven image created by the Israelite community in Moses's absence. This was a violation of both commandments that the Israelites heard, with their own ears from Gd. No excuse is possible, but somehow the thirteen attributes find a way. They are the formula that Gd taught Moshe and we use to find our way back to Gd's grace. At the center of that formula is אֱמֶֽת, truth.

The parsha instructs to come to this difficult, confrontational truth. The hayom, today, in the verse  refers to the day when  you realize  what is said at the end of the parsha: 

כִּֽי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד בְּפִ֥יךָ וּבִֽלְבָבְךָ֖ לַעֲשֹׂתֽוֹ

For the matter is extremely close to you; in your mouth and in your mind to fulfill it.

The Torah, its truth, is close to you. Recognize it. Stand with it. Let it confront you.