Shabbat Vayeylech and Shuva: Why God hides
The Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is always called the Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of Return.
In the Torah reading this week, Moses, in his farewell speech to the Children of Israel before he dies, says that he knows that they will abandon God and reject the Torah. He keeps on repeating this cynical, pessimistic view. He knows what he is talking about because he has seen that regardless of the exodus, the miracles, and their survival in the desert, they do indeed keep going off track. And it has continued this way since then to this very day. In every generation, many Jews have abandoned the Jewish way of life.
When this happens, Moses says, God turns away from us and leaves us to our own devices. The term the mystics use is Hester Panim, God Hides or turns away. This beautiful metaphor of unrequited love and alienation increases the gap between us. God, so to speak, is there all the time for us to tap into that energy. And if we do, we will feel reciprocity, a sense of connection. Otherwise, God, so to speak, turns away from us.
But Moses insists several times that the Torah is a poem or a song. A love poem between God and us that should be written down by us all if possible, and displayed for everyone to see in the hope that even if it is ignored, it will not be forgotten. And it is this that ensures our continuity and has been crucial in enabling us to come back and survive.
Moses, in his speech, has repeated seven times the idea of return, TeShuva. However much we Jews stray, there is always a chance to return. This idea of returning gives its name to this Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Of course, we can repent at any time. But it is this communal experience of return during these ten days, the community spirit, that reinforces our identities and our roots.
The song we sing is a love song to our heritage. True love is difficult to find. Love hurts, it often is hard work. It has to be reciprocal and when it is, there is nothing quite like it. And the same goes for our relationship with our people and our faith.
May your Shabbat Shuvah and Yom Kippur be meaningful and inspirational whoever or wherever you are.
Deuteronomy 31
