Daily Chumash Sunday Nitzavim Vayelech – The covenant

Rishon

1. The covenant:
   • All the Jewish people are present: [Moshe gathered the Jewish people before Hashem on the day of his passing and told them] You are all standing before Hashem today to pass into a covenant of Hashem and His oath. All the Jewish people are here including your heads, tribes, elders, officers, children, wives, converts, wood choppers and water carriers, in order to enter the covenant that Hashem will make with you today.

• Purpose of the covenant: The purpose of the covenant is for you to become Hashem’s nation and Hashem become your G-d as he promised your forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
• Applicable forever: The covenant and oath are binding and applicable not just to those present, but for all future generations, even those not here today.

2. Moshe warns Bnei Yisrael against breaking the covenant:
   • [Moshe said to the nation:] “You know what it was like to live amongst the Egyptians, and you passed through other nations [and saw their ways of living]. You saw their abominations, and detestable idols of wood, stone, silver and gold.”
   • A warning for the careless sinner: “Perhaps you have amongst you today a man or woman, family or tribe, whose heart swerves from Hashem and desires to go serve the idols of the gentiles. Perhaps you have a miscreant growing amongst you who even after hearing these words will say to himself that he can do whatever his heart desires and peace will remain upon him. So, I tell him today, no, I will add to your punishment. Hashem will not forgive him, and His wrath and vengeance will smoke against the man, and all of the oaths written in this book will befall him. Hashem will obliterate his name from under the heavens. He will be set aside from all of Israel for evil and will receive all the curses written in this book.”
   • The curses for not obeying the covenant: Your children and the nations who visit the land will see that the land is plagued and affected with illnesses by Hashem. The earth will be scorched with sulfur and salt and will not be able to be sowed or grow produce, just as occurred with Sodom and Gomorrah, Adma and Tzevoim which Hashem overturned in His anger. All the nations will ask why Hashem destroyed the earth with such anger and they will be told it is because the Jewish people left the covenant Hashem made with their ancestors when He took them out of Egypt. They went and served foreign gods, and therefore He went and brought upon them the curses written in this Sefer. Hashem will throw them off their land in anger and fury and displace them into foreign territory.
   • The hidden is to Hashem while the revealed is to man and his descendants forever, to perform this Torah.