On the afternoon of Shabbat Nitzavim 5785, HaRav Ginsburgh gave a class at his home to the students of the Shiloh Hesder Yeshivah. One part of the class analyzed the four themes found in the parashah. The first two—unity (achdut, in Hebrew) and mutual responsibility (arvut, in Hebrew)—are here analyzed in a beautiful way that helps us understand our role in life as well as providing us with a better sense of what we need to work on to create more unity among the Jewish people.
This excerpt from the class was first published in the Ha’azinu-Sukkot 5786 edition of Nifla’ot.
Unity and Mutual Responsibility
Two of the four topics of parashat Nitzavim are unity and mutual responsibility. They are close in nature, but still different. Let us see how.
Unity of the Jewish people in Hebrew is תדו חא. Mutual responsibility is known as תבו ר ע.
Unity is associated with the sefirah of crown—there we are all united as one, one integrated piece. But mutual responsibility—being held accountable for one another—implies that there is some separation, so the unity has descended into our reality where people lead separate lives. Still, the Torah tells us that despite the perceived separation, we are nonetheless responsible for one another’s conduct. Mutual responsibility is associated with the sefirah of wisdom, because the inner experience of wisdom is self-nullification. To ensure that others are not harmed because of my personal conduct, which is the goal of mutual responsibility, we must each nullify ourselves, our egotistical and conceited interests, and by doing so bridge the gap between us and others created in this physical reality. Self-nullification is thus the remedy for conscious separation between people.
Unity is discussed in parashat Nitzavim’s first verse, “You stand today, all of you, before Havayah your God... both those who are present and standing with us today before Havayah our God as well as those who are not here with us today.” Mutual responsibility appears a little later in the parashah in the words, “the concealed [conduct] is the domain of Havayah our God, but the revealed [conduct] is for us and our children forever, to ensure that all of this Torah be kept.”
An interesting question to ask is what happened to break the unity and to create people with separate realities that must strive for mutual responsibility for one another? What caused this descent from the crown to wisdom? Between the two verses quoted, the Torah describes many calamities that are almost as harsh as the curses in parashat Ki Tavo. Why does the Torah mention these here? “Lest there is among you some man or woman... whose heart is even now turning away from Havayah our God...; Lest there is among you a stock sprouting poison weed and wormwood.” These weeds of sin break apart the unity.
Sins cause our united state to fall apart, in a negative manner. If follows that the disunity between souls is the main negative meaning of sin and that teshuvah for a sin mainly means restoring that unity. Normally the effect of sin is described in Chasidut as causing some blemish above. There are Divine channels that bring effluence down and sins damage them, clogging them. But what parashat Nitzavim is calling us to meditate upon is that sins cause disunity among the Jewish people. A sin is the product of separate egotism. When a person sins, he or she is setting themselves apart, feeling that they are a separate reality from the rest of Israel. The goal of our Divine service is “to unite the Holy Blessed One and His Shechinah [Presence], in the name of all of Israel.” But sin derails us from achieving this goal.
The End and the Means
To understand the relationship between unity and mutual responsibility, let’s take a deeper look at their correspondence to crown and wisdom. The sefirah of crown is known in Kabbalah as “the infinite.” Thus, the crown is limitless and has no boundaries. Wisdom is where contraction from the infinite (light, or revelation of Godliness) to a single point occurs. The contraction is needed because the vessels cannot contain the light of the infinite, the light of the crown. Vessels are mostly associated with the sefirah of understanding (binah), but they begin to form already in wisdom, there they are known as “abbreviated letters” (תורוצ תקוי תאו). When we translate these concepts to the realm of souls and the Jewish people, we can see that a certain contraction is needed between the souls as they make up a single united whole and the way in which they are imbued in bodies in this physical reality. As explained, the contraction—the movement from unity to mutual responsibility happens because of sin, which contracts the light of unity. In other words, the Almighty wants this contraction to occur, which is why reality was created intentionally with the potential for egotism. Otherwise, there would be no room for vessels to form. Incidentally, the vessels are fully formed when an individual...
