As we enter the Torah reading, I would like to offer you the chance to lose yourself. Today, we read from Niztavim, a passage in which Moses delivers a powerful speech to the Israelites, imploring them to enter a covenant with the divine, on the final day of his life. It is a powerful moment, as Moses, once a man lost for words, finds his voice in his final message to the Israelites.
In Verse 30, the Hebrew verb shuv, meaning “return,” from which the word teshuva derives, is repeated seven times. The use of this verb is dizzying, turning, and returning us like we are children spinning and playing during recess. I remember growing up at Jewish summer camp playing a game in which we spun ourselves around in the dark until we were too dizzy to stand. It was fun, intoxicating, the lack of control with a simple motion repeated so many times that it became a source that could knock us over.
The day before Rosh Hashanah, I went on a Ferris wheel in Penn’s Landing, Philadelphia with my partner. When it started moving, my partner began laughing with joy and fear as our little compartment started turning too quickly around the rim. It was in the giddy motion of a Ferris wheel going too fast that I saw the sunset kissing the Delaware River like never before, and I caught a glimpse of unrestrained emotion on my partner’s face that spoke precisely to the fear and elation of entering a new relationship.
It is often in these dizzying places that we find ourselves, the places where we lose our sense of self in the spin of the world and all its pain and joy. We can access the core of ourselves when our worlds turn upside down. For some of us it comes in the form of political revelation, for others of us it is the dawning recognition of gender transition. Sometimes, we suddenly realize boundaries we need to set, and other times, we recognize our need to let go of self-imposed rules and limitations on our potential.
Throughout Niztavim, Moses forms his words with a sense of desperation and urgency; he begs and pleads with the Israelites to hold tightly to their covenant, then threateningly reminds them of what will happen if they do not. He recalls their ancestral promises, saying “I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Divine and those who are not with us here on this day.” On the last day of his life, he asks the Israelites to lose themselves in the possibilities of the covenant, to connect with their ancestors who brought them to this place, and to feel layers of fear and hope as they look into the future.
This summer, I spent ten weeks in Palestine which left me feeling lost. I was caught the dizzying sweep of being in a place in which settler colonialism, military violence, trauma, apathy, and racism kept people spinning so quickly there was no time to slow down and feel what was happening. But it was also during this disequilibrium that I felt my connection to the Divine come alive, drew on my friendships near and far to ground me, and wept as I realized the call to justice would be the only thing leading me out of this narrow, spinning place.
As we begin our Torah service, I invite you to get lost in the turning and returning of sacred words. Perhaps looking at Hebrew on the page makes you feel like you are swimming through dizzying waves. Perhaps hearing melodies that you haven’t heard since childhood lets you fall into a place you thought was lost. Read the words, listen to the chants, and remember to breathe during the moments of shuffling and transition. With care, give yourself permission to get lost in the moment, in song and memory. And while you are there, see what calls you and holds you when you are turned upside down.
Our covenant with ourselves, with the divine, and with our community emerges from that holding place.