"You Are All Standing Today Before God.."

this Shabbat, we shall be reading the double Torah portion of Nitzavim and Vayelech.

And this is really the last, not really, this is the last Shabbat of 5786.

Because next week already is Rosh Hashanah is going to be on Shabbat and Sunday.

Amen.

So this is the beginning of the end of the year, and it's astonishing really how these two Torah portions are so incredibly suited to the final Shabbat of the year.

And first of all, before we forget, we have to remember, because it's just always so compelling to recall this, the last four Torah portions of the book of Deuteronomy, that is, this week's two portions of Nitzavim and Vayelech, and then the following two portions of Ha'azinu and Zotabracha, they were all said by Moshe in the same day.

This is his final parting.

from his beloved people and he is one more time causing them to, and I use these words exactly as he did, to pass over into the covenant.

And when I say it's astonishing the iconography, it's uncanny.

It's because the first Torah portion, beginning in Deuteronomy 29 and verse 9, says, you are all standing here before Hashem.

And the word, you know, there's several words that could connote standing in Hebrew, like the most common word is omed, like amida.

But the word that's used here, nitzavim, that's the plural, it's related to matzeva, which is a monument.

Yes.

In other words, something that is erect and tall and fixed.

So this is a type of standing which is purposeful.

It is conscious and is resolute.

So you're all standing here, and it's just like it's amazing because that's exactly the feeling that we have now as we enter into, as we are poised, as it were, just as they were all poised to enter into the land and into the covenant.

The whole world now is poised to enter into the new year.

And it's a thing.

It's an entity.

It's not just the turn of a page.

It's not just something, you know, calendrial.

It's actually an entity.

Time is an entity.

Space-time continuum.