Parashas Nitzavim
Deuteronomy
29:9 – 30:20
Please pray this prayer
before reading
Prayer
In the name of Yahushua
Our MessiYah,
I pray for the Spirit of Understanding
The Spirit of Knowledge and
The Spirit of Wisdom
As I read through this Parasha
That the Truth of Torah may
Come forth. Amen
Sometime
Torah cycle, Nitzavim, the
fifty-first ‘51’ Torah Portion reading,
and sometime it 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 baggage from the last, then the full gamete
of blessing in-store 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.
Deu 29:14 - 15 “And not with you alone I am making this covenant and this oath,- but with him who stands here with us
today before יהוה our Elohim, as
well as with him who is not here with us today. – I am treating verse 13 – 15 as one.
The objective of Creation is laid out here. It is to establish a covenant with
a type of people, and it is those who keep His Commandment.
This promise was made to the people in Moses days as it
is with us today. Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, since a promise
remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of us seem to have come
short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as
to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed
with faith in those who heard it. 3 For we who have believed do
enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter
My rest,’ ” although the works were
finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a
certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And Elohim rested on the seventh
day from all His works”; 5and again in this place: “They shall not
enter My rest.” 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter
it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of
disobedience, 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David,
“Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear
His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” 8 For if Joshua had given
them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There
remains therefore a rest for the people of YAHVEH. 10 For he who has
entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as YAHVEH did from His.
11 Let us therefore be diligent to
enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of
disobedience. 12 For the Word of YAHVEH is living and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit,
and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all
things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
14 Seeing then that we have a great
High Priest who has passed through the Heavens, Yahushua the Son of YAHVEH, let
us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who
cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are,
yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of
grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Deu 29:16 “For you know how we dwelt in the land
of Mitsrayim and how we passed through the nations which you passed through, - For
those of us who had suffered under a repressive regime of sin. The journey we
had to endure to rid ourselves of the Egyptians mindset should be a welcome
relief. The Kingdom of the Heavens is always a welcome relief.
Deu 29:17 and you saw their abominations and their idols, wood and stone, silver
and gold, which were with them, - The
principal design of the renewing of the covenant at this time was to fortify
them against temptations to idolatry. Though other sins will be the sinner’s
ruin, yet this was the sin that was likely to be their ruin.
Now concerning this
he shows, the danger they were in of being tempted to it: "You know we have dwelt in the land of
Egypt, a country addicted to idolatry; and it were well if there were
not among you some remains of the infection of that idolatry; we have passed by other nations, the Edomites,
Moabites, etc. and have seen
their abominations and their
idols, and some among you, it may be, have liked them too well, and
still hanker after them.
As human we would
rather worship a wooden god that they can see, than an infinite Spirit whom
they never see.’’ It is human nature to focus on the 5% of our existence that
the flesh represent, than the 95% that our spiritusl man represent. It is to be
hoped that there were those among us who, the more they saw of these
abominations and idols, the more they hated them; but there were some among us
that were smitten with the sight of them, saw the accursed things and coveted
them.
The danger was and
still is that, if they yielded to the temptation. He gives them fair warning:
it was at their peril if they forsook יהוה to serve idols. If they would not be bound and held
by the precepts of the covenant, they would find that the curses of the
covenant would be strong enough to bind and hold them together.
