Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Moshe is down to his last day, and he stops the whole nation - "אַתֶּ֨ם נִצָּבִ֤ים הַיּוֹם֙", you are standing here today, all of you, from woodchopper to waterdrawer - to say one thing about the Torah he is leaving behind.

It's "לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑וא", not in the heavens. Not beyond the sea.

"כִּֽי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד" - the thing is very close to you, "in your mouth and in your heart, to do it."

Easy to say, but hard to believe.

I'm sure sometimes we picture the "holy stuff" as being beyond us, somewhere up where we can't get to.

- Up the mountain, - Past a rope, - In section 119 for NYE at MSG...

"I'll get there at some point," you tell yourself, "...maybe when the kids are older, when work slows down a bit... or when it finally clicks and I feel it for real..."

So we wait and wait.

'I'm stuck here as the years slide by'

The Mei HaShiloach comes and explains why Torah and holiness feel so far off. The Zohar calls Torah's words "כַּמָּה יַקִּירִין מִילִּין דְּאוֹרַיְיתָא" - kama yakirin milin d'Oraita, "precious words of Torah" - and "כַּמָּה עִלָּאִין מִילִּין דְּאוֹרַיְיתָא" - kama ila'in milin d'Oraita, "lofty words of Torah."

Precious feels like across the sea.

Lofty feels like in the heavens.

Those two verses in our parsha are describing a FEELING - what Torah looks like from someone looking in at it from outside.

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Then he brings a parable from Tanna d'Bei Eliyahu:

A king builds a wall around his palace, and in that wall he puts one opening - "פֶּתַח צַר" - a narrow gate. Someone who doesn't love the king takes one look and doesn't bother. But the one who loves him squeezes through, "שֶׁהוּא יוֹדֵעַ שֶׁאַחַר הַצַּעַר מִיָּד יָבֹא לְתַעֲנוּגִים גְּדוֹלִים" - because he knows that right after the squeeze come the great delights.

Read that again. The gate is not FAR AWAY! The gate is just NARROW.

And to squeeze through a narrow opening is a completely different challenge than reaching something far beyond me.

👉 Far = I can't get there.

👉 Narrow = I have to WANT it enough to PUSH THROUGH!

'flowing through the hourglass pushing through the funnel'

And The Ishbitzer is specific about what changes once you get through the narrow gate. While you're still outside, "צָּרִיךְ הָאָדָם לִגְדָרִים וּסְיָיגִים" - you need fences and safeguards - the extra distance, the things you abstain from because you don't trust yourself with them yet. The hedges around the hedges.

But "כְּשֶׁהִשִּׂיג בִּשְׁלֵימוּת אֵינוֹ צָרִיךְ לָזֶה" - once you've actually gotten inside, you don't need that cautionary distance anymore.

The hedges/fences are for when you're just beginning. He says, at the start, "אִי אֶפְשָׁר לָבֹא לְד"ת רַק בִּפְרִישׁוּת גָּדוֹל", there's no way in except through serious holding-back. "אֲבָל אֵין זֶה עִיקָּר" - but that was never the point.

"כִּי עִיקָּר הוּא הָעֲשִׂיָּיה" - the point is the DOING!

And "across the sea"? The sea, he says, is desire. Wanting things. And the verse is telling us that we do NOT need to be far from everything this world has to offer in order to be close to Hashem.

He pulls from Ta'anit 10b: Abaye says: "טוֹבְעָנָא וְלֹא יוֹבְשָׁנָא" - better flooded than dry. It's a line about mud. The Ishbitzer picks it up and makes it a line about a person: better to be a little sunk in your wants than to be bone dry.

👉 A field with no water grows nothing.

👉 Neither does a Yid with no wants.

'I'm the plowman in the valley with a face full of mud'

So is the Mei Hashiloach giving us a free pass?

NO.

Elsewhere the Ishbitzer says that the desire in our heart is a chesed from Hashem, given to us to bring it INTO holiness - and if you take that same desire and express it in the wrong place, he calls us an ish kazav. A liar.

Hashem gave us a chesed. Let's not lie about what it's really for.

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Now let's bring this home, for the last Shabbos of the year.

'If I were near you, I wouldn't be far from you'

You know the reactions from colleagues when you tell them you're hitting the road to go on tour?

To follow around a bunch of geeky dudes from Vermont who noodle their way through 35 minutes of a song called Tweezer?

From the outside, what we do looks insane.

👉 The drive

👉 The lot

👉 The money.

Through rain, sleet, and snow - to see a band we've seen a hundred times.

For normal folks out there, they take one look at the effort and decide not to bother with it.

But true Phans? We know what's on the other side of the squeeze, so we push through the narrow gate every single time.

'Won't you step into the freezer'

That's the invitation. It was always an invitation.

'Your time is near, the mission's clear'

And that line is the Vayeilech half of this week - Moshe calls Yehoshua up in front of the whole nation and hands him the job: "חֲזַ֣ק וֶאֱמָץ֒". Be strong. It's yours now, and time is of the essence.

I bless us all to believe fully in what Hashem already put in our mouths and in our hearts... to find the narrow gate and push through, knowing exactly what's on the other side... and to walk into this new year a little muddy, a little sunk, and a lot closer to what's real.

Good Shabbos, phriends.