We blow the Shofar throughout the month of Elul to wake us up so that we can correct our mistakes from last year. This is preparing for Rosh Hashana.

Now for a quick Devar Torah.

All month long, during Elul, we’ve been blowing the shofar. Every morning we hear that sound reminding us that Rosh Hashanah is getting closer.

But tomorrow—nothing. No shofar.

So the obvious question is: Why?

We blow the shofar throughout Elul, and then, on Erev Rosh Hashanah, the very day before Rosh Hashanah, we suddenly stop. This year, because the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, we won’t hear the Rosh Hashanah shofar until the second day.

What is going on?

The shofar blowing during Elul is a custom. It is our spiritual alarm clock. It tells us: Wake up! Rosh Hashanah is coming. The Ten Days of Repentance are coming. Yom Kippur is right around the corner.

For an entire month, we have been practicing—not merely practicing how to blow the shofar, but practicing how to wake ourselves up.

Because we all make mistakes.

I don’t know about you, but perhaps I did one or two things this year that weren’t exactly right.

“No! Impossible!”

Well, maybe.

But that is part of being human. No matter how hard we try, we make mistakes. And very often, the people we hurt are precisely the people closest to us—our spouses, our families, and our friends. You say something without thinking, and suddenly you have an explosion on your hands.

Elul is the time to recognize it.

The shofar says: Wake up. Look at yourself. Where did you go wrong? Whom did you hurt? What can you do differently next year?

And there is another important lesson as we approach Yom Kippur. We cannot simply ask Hashem to forgive us for everything and ignore the people we have hurt. For sins between one person and another, Yom Kippur does not bring atonement until we have tried to make things right with the person we harmed.

That is an extraordinary idea.

Before we stand before God asking for forgiveness, we have to be willing to stand before another human being and say two of the most difficult words in the English language:

“I’m sorry.”

That is what the shofar of Elul has been telling us all month.

Wake up. Think about the year. Maybe you goofed up here or there. We all have. The question isn’t whether we made mistakes. The question is whether we recognize them, try to repair the damage, and resolve to do better.

And perhaps that is why, on Erev Rosh Hashanah, the shofar becomes silent.

The alarm clock has been ringing for an entire month.

Now it is time to get out of bed.

And on behalf of the shul and its leadership, if during this past year we said or did something that offended or hurt someone, it certainly was not our intention. We ask forgiveness and hope that the coming year will be one of greater understanding, patience, friendship, and peace.

The shofar has done its job.

Now the job is ours.

Something to think about.

Next week we change our prayers to reflect the fact that God is our sovereign.

One of the interesting things that happens during the period from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur is that we change the wording of the Amidah. Instead of saying HaEl HaKadosh—“the Holy God”—we say HaMelech HaKadosh—“the Holy King.”

We do this every year, but it is worth stopping and thinking about what those words mean.

During the Ten Days of Repentance, we emphasize the sovereignty of God. God is not simply our God; He is Melech—King, Sovereign of the universe. Rosh Hashanah, in particular, is filled with this theme of Malchuyot, recognizing God’s kingship.

This idea goes back throughout Tanach. When Gideon was asked to establish a hereditary rule over Israel, he refused, saying, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.” Human rulers may govern, but ultimate sovereignty belongs to God.

That brings me to something interesting that I have noticed over many years of traveling. Americans frequently speak about our “God-given rights.” That language is deeply embedded in the American political tradition. The Declaration of Independence says that human beings “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

The government does not create those rights. If they come from the Creator, government is obligated to respect them.

This provides an interesting contrast with the Torah.

American political thought frequently speaks in the language of rights, with obligations implied alongside them. The Torah generally approaches society from the opposite direction. It speaks primarily in the language of obligations.

I am obligated not to steal. Therefore, you have a right to your property.

I am obligated to pay my worker on time. Therefore, the worker has a right to receive his wages.

I am obligated not to oppress the stranger, widow, or orphan. Therefore, the vulnerable have a right to protection.

The Torah does not need to begin by saying, “You have a right.” It begins by telling the other person, “You have an obligation.”

And even the king is subject to those obligations.

Throughout Tanach, the prophets confront kings. Nathan confronts David. Elijah confronts Ahab. The king cannot simply answer, “I am the king, therefore whatever I do is right.” There is a law above the king because there is a Sovereign above the king.

That is one of the great messages of Rosh Hashanah.

When we change the words of our prayers and say HaMelech HaKadosh, we are reminding ourselves that ultimately we are not sovereign. God is.

And if God is sovereign, then the question during these days is not simply, “What am I entitled to?” It is also, and perhaps more importantly, “What am I obligated to do?”

What obligations have I fulfilled this past year? Where have I failed? Whom have I hurt? What responsibilities have I neglected? And what can I do differently in the coming year?

Recognizing God as King is not merely a theological statement. It places demands upon us.

During these days leading from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, we acknowledge that we are not completely in control. What we can control is how we respond to the responsibilities God has placed before us—and whether we make the effort to become better people in the year ahead.

Something to think about.

While Nisan is the beginning of the Jewish people, Tishei reminds us that we are responsible for our actions as a free people.

Good morning. Now for a quick Devar Torah.

As we know, Rosh Hashanah is approaching. But there is something very interesting about the way the Torah describes the Jewish calendar.

The Torah refers to Nisan as the first month, while Tishrei—the month in which we celebrate Rosh Hashanah—is actually the seventh month.

So how can the Jewish New Year begin in the seventh month?

It sounds like a contradiction, but in actuality it teaches us something very important.

The Mishnah tells us that there are four Jewish New Years. I want to concentrate on two of them: Nisan and Tishrei.

Nisan represents the birth of the Jewish people as a free nation. It is the month in which God took us out of Egypt. And significantly, one of the first commandments given to the Jewish people as a nation was the commandment to establish our own calendar.

Why is that so important?

Because one of the hallmarks of freedom is control over your own time.

A slave does not control his time. His master tells him when to work, when to rest, where to go, and what to do. His time belongs to somebody else.

A free person controls his own time.

So in Nisan, God tells the Jewish people, in effect: You are free. Your time now belongs to you.

But that raises another question: Freedom to do what?

Freedom does not mean that we can simply do whatever we want. Freedom without responsibility can quickly become chaos.

Fifty days after leaving Egypt comes Shavuot, when we receive the Torah at Mount Sinai. We have been given freedom, but now we are given law. We are taught how free people are supposed to live together and how to build a moral and ethical society.

And eventually we arrive at Tishrei and Rosh Hashanah.

If Nisan represents freedom, Tishrei represents responsibility.

Rosh Hashanah reminds us that because we are free human beings, we are responsible for the choices we make.

That is why Rosh Hashanah begins a period of judgment, reflection, and ultimately Yom Kippur. We look back over the past year and ask ourselves: What did I do with the freedom God gave me? What choices did I make? Whom did I help? Whom did I hurt? Where did I succeed, and where must I do better?

There is a progression here:

Nisan says: You are free.

Shavuot says: Here is the law that teaches you how to use that freedom.

Tishrei says: Now you are responsible for what you have done with it.

Perhaps that is why there is no contradiction between Nisan being the first month and Rosh Hashanah occurring in the seventh.

Nisan marks the beginning of our national freedom.

Tishrei marks the renewal of our personal responsibility.

Freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. We cannot truly have one without the other.

Something to think about as we approach Rosh Hashanah.

One of the most important lessons of the Torah is that we have to make an effort and God will then help us. That said, we should never say that God did not have a hand in our success.

Now for a quick Devar Torah.

This week we read Parshat Haazinu, and we read it during the season of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This year, we will read it on Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

That timing is no accident.

Haazinu is essentially Moses’ final speech to the Jewish people. Moses knows that he is going to die. He knows that the Jewish people are about to enter the Land of Israel without him, and he has one last opportunity to prepare them for what lies ahead.

His warning is straightforward: remember the Torah. Remember the mitzvot. Remember where you came from, and above all, remember where your blessings come from.

That is also the message of this season.

As we approach Yom Kippur, we look back over the past year and ask ourselves: What did I do right? What did I do wrong? Whom did I hurt, knowingly or unknowingly? Where did I fall short? And perhaps most importantly: What can I do better in the coming year?

One of Moses’ great warnings is about the danger that comes with success. When things are going well, it is very easy to say, “I did this. I built this. I succeeded because of my own intelligence and hard work.”

Of course we have to work hard. Judaism does not teach us to sit back and wait for miracles. God expects us to make an effort.

But we must never confuse making the effort with controlling the outcome.

You can open the greatest business in the world, but if no customers walk through the door, you don’t have much of a business. You can work hard, plan carefully, and do everything correctly—and still need a little help from Above.

There is an old joke about a man who goes to synagogue every day and prays, “God, please let me win the lottery.”

He does this day after day, year after year.

Finally, after twenty years, the ministering angels turn to God and say, “Why don’t You let this poor fellow win already? He’s been praying with all his heart for twenty years!”

And God replies, “I’d like to—but first he has to buy a ticket.”

That’s the point.

God’s help does not relieve us of the responsibility to act. We have to buy the ticket. We have to start the business. We have to make the phone call. We have to get into the batter’s box.

And if you want to get a hit, eventually you have to swing at the pitch.

You may swing and miss. There are no guarantees in life. But if you never swing, you certainly won’t get a hit.

That is an important message as we approach Yom Kippur. Teshuvah isn’t simply saying, “God, make me a better person.” We have to take the first step. We have to make the effort to change.

And when we do succeed, Moses reminds us not to say, “My own power and the strength of my hand accomplished all of this.”

Yes, we worked for it. Yes, we made the effort.

But God gave us the ability to make that effort, the opportunities to use it, and the blessings that allowed that effort to bear fruit.

Our responsibility is to step up to the plate and swing.

And then, with God’s help, perhaps we can get the hit.

Something to think about.

Moses’s final message to the Jewish people is that they have to maintain the standard of morality that they achieved in the wilderness.

This week we begin reading Parshat Haazinu, which we will return to after Rosh Hashanah. Haazinu is vitally important because we are approaching the end of Moshe Rabbeinu’s life and leadership.

Think about what Moshe has accomplished. For more than forty years, he has led the Jewish people. He led us out of Egypt, brought us to Mount Sinai, and guided us through forty years in the wilderness.

Yet at the end, Moshe essentially tells the Jewish people: Don’t think this was about me. I’m small potatoes. It was Hashem.

Hashem took us out of Egypt. Hashem protected us. Hashem provided our food and water. Hashem sustained an entire nation through forty years in the wilderness.

But now everything is about to change.

The Jewish people are entering the Land of Israel. There will still be miracles, but life will no longer be one continuous, obvious miracle as it was in the wilderness. The manna will stop falling from heaven. We will have to plant crops, raise animals, build homes, conduct business, establish courts, defend the country, and create a functioning society.

In a sense, for forty years we attended the greatest yeshiva in the history of the world. Moshe Rabbeinu was the Rosh Yeshiva, Aharon was the spiritual guide, and Hashem provided room and board.

Now graduation day has arrived.

And what is the purpose of going to yeshiva? Eventually, you have to take what you learned inside the beit midrash and apply it to the real world.

That is what Moshe is preparing the Jewish people to do.

He is teaching them two essential lessons. First, always remember that Hashem is with you. Second, understand what Hashem expects from you: to build a society based upon morality, ethics, and justice.

That was a revolutionary concept in the ancient world. Among many ancient peoples, religion and morality were not necessarily connected. A person could perform the proper ritual and make the proper sacrifice without believing that his god demanded that he be an ethical human being.

The Torah says something radically different.

Hashem cares not only about the offering you bring, but how you obtained the animal you are offering. You cannot steal someone else’s sheep and then bring it as a korban. An act of religious devotion cannot be built upon an act of injustice.

You cannot separate your relationship with God from the way you treat other human beings.

And Moshe is conveying another crucial message: I am leaving.

For forty years, Moshe has been the indispensable leader of the Jewish people. But now they must learn that ultimately no leader is indispensable.

Leaders come and leaders go. No matter how great a leader may be, eventually that leadership ends—through death, retirement, or replacement.

But the Torah remains.

The institutions remain.

The values remain.

And the responsibility of the people remains.

Once a society has been placed upon the proper path, its future cannot depend entirely upon one individual. What ultimately matters is what we do—as a nation, as a community, and as individuals.

That is an especially powerful message as we approach Rosh Hashanah.

We cannot simply ask who our leaders are or what other people are doing. We have to ask ourselves: What am I doing? Am I taking what I have learned and applying it to the real world? Am I living morally and ethically when I leave the synagogue and enter the marketplace?

Moshe Rabbeinu could bring the Jewish people to the edge of the Promised Land.

But ultimately, they had to walk into it themselves.

And so do we.

The central message of this week’s portion is that leaders come and go but the institutions of the Torah are eternal,

Shabbat Shalom.

This week we come very close to the end of the Torah. We are approaching Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and soon, on Simchat Torah, we will read the final portion, V’Zot HaBracha, and immediately begin the Torah again from Bereishit.

So what is the message of Vayeilech, especially as we approach the end?

This is Moses’ final day of life. He knows that he will not enter the Land of Israel with the Jewish people. For forty years, he has been their leader. He took them out of Egypt, stood with them at Mount Sinai, led them through the wilderness, taught them the Torah, and prepared them to establish a nation in their own land.

But now Moses tells them something extraordinarily important: I am leaving, but the nation will continue.

Joshua has been appointed to succeed him. Moses will no longer be the leader. His job is finished. But the institutions established by the Torah will remain.

That is a fundamental lesson about leadership.

Leaders come and go. Some are great. Some are mediocre. Some may even be terrible. But a nation cannot depend entirely upon one individual. What matters is whether its laws, institutions, and values are strong enough to survive the departure of any particular leader.

We understand something similar here in the United States. Presidents come and go. America has had great presidents, average presidents, and presidents whom history has judged very harshly. Yet the country continues because the presidency is bigger than the president. Congress is bigger than any particular member of Congress. The courts are bigger than any individual judge.

The strength of the system is that the institutions continue.

Moses is teaching the Jewish people a similar lesson. For forty years, they may have thought, “Moses is our leader. Moses speaks to God. Moses will tell us what to do.”

Now Moses effectively tells them: You cannot depend upon Moses forever.

You have the Torah. You have judges and a system of law. You have Joshua to lead you into the land. Most importantly, you have spent forty years learning what kind of nation you are supposed to build.

You are supposed to establish a society based upon morality, ethics, justice, and responsibility toward one another.

Your parents and grandparents stood at the foot of Mount Sinai. The Torah was not given merely to Moses as a private revelation. It was given to the Jewish people as an eternal covenant.

Moses will die. Joshua will eventually die. Every leader who follows them will eventually leave the stage.

But the Torah remains.

Perhaps that is one of the most important messages Moses can give the Jewish people on his final day: Do not build your society around an individual. Build it around enduring principles and institutions.

Leadership changes. Generations change. Circumstances change.

But our responsibility does not.

The Torah is for eternity, and every generation must recommit itself to building the moral and ethical society that Moses spent his final days preparing us to create.

Something to think about. Shabbat Shalom.

The last portion of the Torah that we read before completing it is Moses giving over the leadership to Joshua. This shows that there will be a continuality in the Torah. From generation to generation.

The Torah Is in Our Hands

We are now coming, basically, to the end of the Torah. In the two parshiyot we read this Shabbat, Nitzavim and Vayelech, Moses is preparing the Jewish people for one of the greatest transitions in our history.

They are about to leave the wilderness and enter the Land of Israel.

Moses gathers the entire nation together—from its leaders and elders to its children, converts, woodcutters, and water carriers. Everyone is included because everyone is part of the covenant. They are no longer going to live in the wilderness under the direct leadership of Moses. They are going to enter the land and build a functioning society based upon the Torah.

And Moses reminds them: Know where you came from, and know where you are going.

This is not a nation built around the claim that one individual had a private revelation and everyone else simply had to believe him. The Jewish national tradition is rooted in a collective experience. The nation stood at Mount Sinai. The nation experienced the Exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the sea, and forty years in the wilderness. Their parents and grandparents lived through these events, and now a new generation must carry that covenant forward.

But remembering the past is not enough.

They are going to a land of milk and honey, where they must create a society. And the society envisioned by the Torah is one in which morality and ethics are fundamental. The God of Israel demands not only ritual observance but justice, honesty, concern for the poor, protection of the vulnerable, fair courts, and ethical behavior between one human being and another.

That is the society Moses is preparing them to build.

There is another enormous transition taking place. Moses knows that he will not be going with them. His days are ending, and Joshua will become the new leader.

In a sense, Moses’ greatest legacy will not be a monument or a building. His legacy will be the Jewish people themselves.

Will they continue to live according to the Torah after he is gone? Will they build the society they were commanded to create?

Moses therefore gives them one of the Torah’s most remarkable teachings:

“It is not in heaven.”

The Torah has been given to human beings. Jewish tradition will not depend upon new voices coming from heaven every time there is a disagreement. Through the system of the Oral Torah, interpretation and application are entrusted to the sages and recognized rabbinic authorities working within the Torah’s own rules and traditions.

Moses is preparing the Jewish people to grow up.

For forty years, he has led them. Now they must move forward without him. They must enter the land, establish their institutions, interpret and apply the Torah, and build a moral and ethical society.

The wilderness is ending.

The responsibility is now in our hands.

Something to think about.

One of the most famous and important statements in this week’s portion is the statement that the Torah is not in Heaven. That means that we have been given the tools to interpret the Torah. God wants us to use our abilities to make the world a better place.

It Is Not in Heaven — God Wants Us to Think

This week’s portion contains perhaps one of the most remarkable statements in the entire Torah:

“It is not in heaven.”

The Torah is telling us that its teachings are accessible to us. We have the Written Torah, but we also have the Oral Torah—the tradition through which the Torah is interpreted, debated, and applied to the circumstances of human life.

The Talmud illustrates just how powerful this idea is with the famous story of the Oven of Achnai in Bava Metzia.

There was a dispute concerning the ritual status of an oven that had been cut into sections and then put back together with sand between the pieces. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that the oven was pure. The other sages disagreed.

Rabbi Eliezer presented every argument he could, but the majority would not accept his position.

Finally, he said, “If I am correct, let this carob tree prove it.”

The carob tree miraculously moved from its place.

The sages answered, in effect, “We do not decide Jewish law based upon carob trees.”

Rabbi Eliezer then said, “If I am correct, let the stream prove it.”

The water began flowing backward.

Again, the sages refused to accept the miracle as evidence.

Then Rabbi Eliezer called upon the walls of the study hall to prove that he was correct. The walls began to lean inward.

Still, the sages would not change their ruling.

Finally, Rabbi Eliezer appealed directly to Heaven.

A heavenly voice declared that Rabbi Eliezer was correct.

You would think that would settle the argument. After all, what better authority could there possibly be than God Himself?

But Rabbi Yehoshua stood up and quoted the Torah:

“It is not in heaven.”

In effect, he was saying: God, You gave us the Torah. You gave us the principles by which it is to be interpreted. You commanded us to debate it and to follow the proper legal process. Now the responsibility is ours.

That is an extraordinary concept.

The Torah does not expect us to be mindless robots waiting for a miracle or a voice from Heaven to tell us what to do. God gave human beings the responsibility to study, argue, interpret, and ultimately make decisions according to the rules of the Torah itself.

And there is an equally fascinating conclusion to the story.

The Talmud relates that Rabbi Natan later encountered Elijah the Prophet and asked him what God had done at that moment.

Elijah answered that God smiled and said:

“My children have defeated Me; My children have defeated Me.”

God was not angry. Quite the opposite. His children had understood the system He had given them.

But there is another side to the story that we should not overlook. Rabbi Eliezer was subsequently treated very harshly, and the consequences were terrible. The Talmud therefore reminds us that even when the majority has the authority to make the final decision, that does not give it the right to humiliate the minority.

You can win an argument and still behave badly toward the person who lost it.

That may be one of the most important lessons of the entire episode.

“It is not in heaven” means that God has entrusted us with tremendous responsibility. He wants us to study. He wants us to debate. He wants us to interpret. He wants us to make decisions.

But He also expects us to respect one another while doing it.

God gave us the Torah—and then trusted us enough to think.

And that is something to think about.

When we are called the Chosen people, it means that God chose us to show the world how a moral and ethical society behaves. We are not superior to others.

The Land, the Covenant, and How We Treat One Another

In this week’s portion, Moses reminds the Jewish people that keeping the covenant is not limited to the commandments between man and God. It also includes the commandments between man and man—the moral and ethical obligations that determine how we build a society and how we treat one another.

The Jewish people are about to enter the Land of Israel. This is the land promised to them, the place where they are supposed to build their national life. But Moses makes clear that possessing the land carries responsibilities.

It is not enough to perform rituals. It is not enough to say that we believe in God. If we do not behave morally and ethically toward one another—if we abandon justice, compassion, honesty, and responsibility—then eventually we will lose the privilege of remaining in the land. We will be dispersed among the nations.

But that is not the end of the story.

Moses also promises that when the Jewish people return to God and return to the values of the covenant, God will gather them from wherever they have been scattered and bring them back to the Land of Israel.

That idea makes me think of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Rav Kook, who became the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine.

Rav Kook had an extraordinary attitude toward the early Jewish pioneers. Many of these pioneers were anything but traditionally religious. Nevertheless, Rav Kook would travel to their settlements, meet with them, encourage them, and celebrate what they were accomplishing.

People asked him: Why?

These Jews were not keeping the commandments in the traditional religious sense. Why should a great rabbi celebrate what they were doing?

Rav Kook saw something deeper.

These young Jews could have left Russia and gone to New York or somewhere else where life would have been much easier. They were intelligent and capable people. They could have built businesses, entered professions, taught in universities, and created comfortable lives for themselves.

Instead, they went to the Land of Israel.

They went to places filled with swamps and malaria. They faced enormous hardship. They drained swamps, cultivated difficult land, built settlements, and worked to restore a country that had suffered centuries of neglect.

And Rav Kook recognized something important in them. Even if they did not yet express their Jewish identity through traditional religious observance, they were building communities. They cared for one another. They sacrificed for one another. They were rebuilding the Jewish homeland.

Perhaps, Rav Kook believed, something greater was taking place. Perhaps these pioneers themselves did not completely understand what was driving them. Perhaps they were participating in the beginning of the redemption.

That lesson remains important today.

The strength of Israel cannot be measured only by how many people observe one particular commandment or another. An essential question is: How do we treat one another?

And by extension: How do we treat the rest of humanity?

One of the remarkable characteristics of modern Israel is its willingness to help when disaster strikes elsewhere in the world. Earthquakes, collapsed buildings, humanitarian emergencies—Israeli medical teams, rescue personnel, and specialists have repeatedly traveled thousands of miles to help people they have never met.

Why?

Because the Jewish mission was never supposed to end at Israel’s borders.

The purpose of building a moral and ethical society in the Land of Israel is ultimately to demonstrate what a society based upon responsibility, justice, compassion, and respect for human life can look like.

That is part of what Moses is telling the Jewish people before they enter the land.

The covenant is not simply about our relationship with God. It is also about our relationship with each other.

And perhaps one of the greatest measures of our faithfulness to that covenant is not simply what we say we believe, but how we behave toward another human being.

Something to think about.

The Torah commands us to treat people as adults. That, as adults, we are responsible for our actions. We treat children as children until they reach adulthood.

With Freedom Comes Responsibility — Parshat Nitzavim

Good morning. Now for a quick devar Torah.

As I mentioned yesterday, Parshat Nitzavim takes place on the final day of Moses’ life. The Jewish people are about to enter the Land of Israel, and Moses is giving them his final instructions before they begin the next stage of their national existence.

For forty years they have lived in the wilderness under God’s direct protection. Now they are going to enter the land, establish communities, build a government, work the land, conduct business, administer justice, and create a functioning society.

And that was really the purpose of the entire journey from Egypt.

The Exodus was not simply about taking slaves out of Egypt. It was about transforming those slaves into free people capable of building an ethical and moral society based upon law. They were entering a land situated at the crossroads of the ancient world, where other nations could see what a society governed by the principles of the Torah could look like.

That is why Moses makes a remarkable point at the beginning of the parsha. He says that everyone is standing there: the leaders, the elders, the officers, the children, the strangers, even those who chop the wood and draw the water.

Everybody.

From the greatest scholar to the simplest laborer, from the wealthy to the poor, everyone is part of the same covenant.

The Torah was not given only to Moses, the priests, the judges, or an intellectual elite. It was given to the entire nation. Every person therefore has both a place in society and a responsibility toward that society.

And Moses emphasizes that this covenant is not a one-time agreement. It is an enduring commitment extending beyond the generation standing before him. The society they are about to build must transmit these principles from generation to generation.

In a sense, Moses is describing a society that must be built from the bottom up, not merely from the top down.

A society that depends entirely upon a king or ruler can change when the ruler changes. But when ordinary people accept certain principles as their own responsibilities, those principles become embedded in the culture itself. They become much harder to erase.

This brings us to another important lesson: personal responsibility.

Today we sometimes become so concerned with explaining people’s behavior that we begin excusing it. We say someone came from a difficult background, had poor opportunities, or did not know better. Those circumstances may help us understand why someone acted a certain way, and they may even affect how we judge the person. But they do not eliminate the fundamental idea that human beings are responsible for their choices.

There is an old principle in American law: ignorance of the law is generally no excuse.

Moses is making sure that the Jewish people cannot say, “Nobody told us.” The Torah has been placed before the entire nation. They have accepted it, and therefore they have responsibilities under it.

That responsibility is itself part of what it means to be free.

We cannot blame a lion for killing an antelope. The lion follows its nature. We cannot blame the antelope for running from the lion. It follows its nature as well.

Human beings are different.

God gave us the ability to choose. We can consider our actions, distinguish right from wrong, and decide how we are going to behave. That freedom gives human beings tremendous dignity—but it also places a tremendous burden upon us.

We are responsible for the choices we make.

That may be one of Moses’ most important messages on the final day of his life. The Jewish people were leaving the protected existence of the wilderness and entering the responsibilities of freedom.

And the lesson remains just as important today:

Freedom without responsibility cannot build a lasting society. With freedom comes responsibility.

Something to think about.