Nizavin

Sometime  Torah cycle, Nitzavim, the fifty-first  ‘51’ Torah Portion reading, is read together with the next portion of Vayelech. As we saw in the portion of Ki Tetze, one of the most important support structures for our spiritual work is teshuveh, or repentance.

Most believers think that the process of teshuveh is just about saying I am sorry, it is more about changing our focus; by changing how we view others or even the circumstances in our lives, is even more important. When we focus only on ourselves, or satisfying our own Ego, it is not teshuvah.

Every year at this time we have the opportunity to undergone the process of teshuvah, we know we are not going to be able to cleanse ourselves of all our short comings at once. Each year if we still have baggages from the last, then the full gamet of blessing instore for us will not be given to us at Rosh Hashanac.

The way ABBA YAHVEH act with us is dependent on how we act with other people. How we look at, how we judge, and how we interact with other people is exactly how the CREATOR will look at us on Rosh Hashanah.

The slichot prayer that we recite every day in Elul say that one of the qualities of ABBA YAHVEH is ve’over al peshah,  which literally means that ABBA YAHVEH skips over anything negative acts that we have done.

How can ABBA YAHVEH skip over our negative actions, as if they did not exist? The answer lies in the fact that on Rosh Hashanah, ABBA YAHVEH does not judge us, HE look at the way we treat other who have acted negative against us, and treat us accordingly.

Cleaning up old negative traits is a three step process:

First, do not judge others, for passing judgment blocks our forgiveness. By having the consciousness of ve’over al peshah help keep our baggage from the past from wreaking havoc with our life today.

 Secondly, when we see someone doing something negative, we should try to help that person.

Third, if we cannot help then pray for them.

Although it is important not to judge others, it is just as important to understand why. The message of the Sabbath of Nitzavim is that there are many reasons for this, including cleansing ourselves of the selfish acts we committed in the past incarnations. But the most important reason of all, as we approach Rosh Hashanah, is our awareness that as we act, so the CREATOR will Act towards us.   

Moses was about to deliver his final charge to the people, which take up most of the remainder of the Torah. He begins by putting the wilderness years into perspective. Only after forty years of miraculous survival and the beginning of a conquest that was clearly accomplished by Moses, he was about to deliver his final charge to the people, which take up most of the remainder of the Torah.

Only now after forty years of miraculous survival and the beginning of a conquest that was clearly accomplished by יהוה, could the people fully appreciate the awesome degree of gratitude they owed Father יהוה. A child does not fully appreciate a parent until he is over forty.

Deu 29:9 “Therefore you shall guard the words of this covenant, and do them, so that you prosper in all that you do. – One of the commonest warning every given to the Hebrew people is in this verse, “If you guard the words of the covenant”. Yet how many times have you heard that the laws were nail to the Cross.

This is the only condition for us to be prosperous, in the physical sense. It is not believing in Yahushua, it is obedience to the Word. The Jewish people have practice this principle and they a prosperous any were they go. To be prosperous in the spiritual sense we must keep Torah and believe in Yahushua.

Deu 29:10 “All of you are standing today before יהוה your Elohim: your leaders, your tribes, your elders and your officers, all the men of Yisra’ĕl, - Moses in this verse emphasized that the people were standing before יהוה, because the purpose of the covenant was to bind them to Torah, or he meant to say that they were standing before the Ark of יהוה.

Moses divided the people into categories to suggest that everyone is responsible according to how many people he or she can influence.

Leaders may be able to effect masses of people; women, their immediate families and neighbors; children, only a few friends and classmate; common laborers, hardly anyone. יהוה does not demand more than is possible, but He is not satisfied with less. 

Deu 29:11 your little ones, your wives, and your sojourner who is in the midst of your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water, - Even though children, wives and sojourner are not consider leaders of household, the Torah require that they must be part of the establishing of the Covenant, as the next verse implies.

Deu 29:12 so that you should enter into covenant with יהוה your Elohim, and into His oath, which יהוה your Elohim makes with you today, - this covenant must be a all inclusive package for the entire household, and all of humanity.

Deu 29:13 in order to establish you today as a people for Himself, and He Himself be your Elohim, as He has spoken to you, and as He has sworn to your fathers, to Aḇraham, to Yitsḥaq, and to Yaʽaqoḇ. - The summary of this covenant. All the precepts and all the promises of the covenant are included in the covenant-relation between YAHVEH and Yisrael. That they should be appointed, raised up, established, themselves as a people to HIM, to observe and obey HIM, to be devoted to HIM and dependent on HIM, and that HE should be to them a EL, according to the tenour of the covenant made with their fathers, to make them holy, high, and happy.

 Their fathers are here named, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as examples of piety, which those were to set themselves to imitate who expected any benefit from the covenant made with them.

A due consideration of the relation we stand in to YAHVEH as our EL, and of the obligation we lie under as a people to HIM, is enough to bring us to all the duties and all the comforts of the covenant.