(Delivered September 28, 2024)

Shabbat shalom! 

It’s possible you might have noticed this already, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I like to look good, not in the sense of physical beauty but rather in the sense of seeming to know what I’m doing. I don’t have an easy time letting people see my flaws. Not to say I’m a control freak, but maybe I am just a bissl. There is, in fact, a member of this community, a fellow perfectionist, (you know who you are) who has been giving me a hard time, encouraging me to write a mediocre dvar Torah, just to get the congregation used to the occasional dog. Well, my friend. This is your moment!

It wasn’t entirely clear to me that I’d even write a dvar Torah this week. With Rosh Hashanah breathing down our necks and several deaths in the community, plus two presentations to make at rabbinical school, I thought, Nah. Let someone else do it. Although a volunteer darshan didn’t miraculously appear, I figured, as my sweet, 91-year-old dad often says, God will provide. I wasn’t quite sure what that would look like—God providing—but guess what. Dad was right!

This week’s Torah verses seem tailor designed for perfectionist control freaks like me. So many passages spoke directly to my heart as I was learning the portion this week, all the more so as responsibilities kept piling up and it became clear that I was going to fall over if I didn’t ask for and accept help.

Look, for example, at chapter 29 verse 28, which says, in part, 

הַנִּסְתָּרֹת לַיי אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְהַנִּגְלֹת לָנוּ וּלְבָנֵינוּ

Hidden matters are for Adonai our God,
but revealed matters are for us, and for our children.

Rashi points out this verse is referring to sins, those that are known in public and those that are only known to the sinner. Yet in these words, in the realm of metaphor, we perfectionists can find a sense of relief, as we imagine the hidden things that only God knows: our struggles and our good intentions, our ambitions and our utterly unrealistic standards. Perhaps, knowing that God can see the best in us can help us both to allow our own imperfections to be revealed, and to be at peace with being known and seen in all our messiness and humanity. Not to mention: to allow for our children to see us that way too.

And yet when all is said and done, and our faults land us in moral dilemmas, with our virtues scattered to the winds. Then we do the work of repair, and return to God בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשֶׁךָ—with commitment of heart and soul—and God meets us halfway. At such time, chapter 30 verse three, says:

וְשָׁב יי אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֶת־שְׁבוּתְךָ וְרִחֲמֶךָ
וְשָׁב וְקִבֶּצְךָ מִכׇּל־הָעַמִּים אֲשֶׁר הֱפִיצְךָ יי אֱלֹהֶיךָ שָׁמָּה

And Adonai your God will restore your fortunes and take you back in love;
and will return your estranged from all the peoples amongst whom God scattered them.

The notion that God could and would gather us back in love, even when we have lost our own center, gives us a sense of hope and possibility when we need it the most.

Likewise, the repetition of the covenant that opens Parshat Nitzavim offers deep relief for those of us with too-high standards. When Moses says, 

וְלֹא אִתְּכֶם לְבַדְּכֶם אָנֹכִי כֹּרֵת אֶת־הַבְּרִית הַזֹּאת וְאֶת־הָאָלָה הַזֹּאת׃

כִּי אֶת־אֲשֶׁר יֶשְׁנוֹ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ עֹמֵד הַיּוֹם לִפְנֵי יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ
וְאֵת אֲשֶׁר אֵינֶנּוּ פֹּה עִמָּנוּ הַיּוֹם׃

Not only with you do I make this covenant and this oath, but with those who are here with us today before Adonai our God
and those who are not here with us today.

This covenant between God and the Israelites applies to all of us: whether we are doing everything perfectly or barely holding on, whether we write brilliant divrei Torah or just dig out a few gems worth sharing. In this season of teshuvah as we gather up our errors and missteps, it’s worth remembering the God who takes us back in love, the God who counts us even when we cannot count ourselves.

At the end of Vayelech, God demands that Moses write a poem that will somehow magically keep the Israelites in line after Moses is gone and Joshua has taken over leadership. (Talk about unrealistic standards!) My friend, Rabbi Joey Glick offers a radical reading of this passage. The last section of the parsha repeats the phrase הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת—this song—almost as if the phrase is itself a melody that keeps coming back. Citing the Ibn Ezra comment that picks up on a grammatical quirk, Joey writes, in part: Ibn Ezra deduces from this plural that the task is not given to Moses alone but rather, in the words of the commentator, to anyone—מבין לכתוב—who understands how to write. As Moses penned and then sang out the empty words “this song,” he might have been calling out … not only to the Israelites in the desert with him, but up through the generations to us today. He might have been inviting all of us to write a song, for Moshe, for God, and for our own hearts, that could provide love and strength to all.

In short, in Joey’s interpretation, Moses writes what he can and then steps aside. He asks for and accepts help, much as I have had to do this week. Thankfully, members of this wonderful community have shown their care for me: with hugs, practical suggestions—like don’t forget to eat, words of support, and offers to host me for meals. What I’m saying is, our Torah teaches us, and we teach one another, to take care of each other, and this lightens our burdens, always.

In thinking about perfectionism, I started to muse that back in Breishit, when God created the world, it doesn’t say, “God saw that it was perfect.” Rather, God said וְהִנֵּה־טוֹב מְאֹד—look, this is very good. 

I have always loved the passage in our parsha today that says לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִוא—the Torah is not too abstruse or mysterious that it resides only in heaven or across a mighty sea. Rather it is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart. Ultimately, Torah is in our best thoughts and our kindest actions. It’s in the ways in which we support one another in good times and in hard times, the ways in which we allow for one anothers’ imperfections to be incidental, normal, and even… טוֹב מְאֹד

Shabbat shalom!