Miller's Musings Parshas Nitzovim: The Unaswerable Questions

בס''ד

Although the Parsha begins pleasantly enough, including a quick foray into establishing the nature of Hashem’s covenant with us, it then ‘descends’ quickly into the theme of the previous Parsha, that of the curses that will be incurred by the Jewish people should they choose to forsake the way of Hashem.  Having completed the full gamut of potential calamities that could befall the wayward Jewish people, the Torah then proclaims “The hidden things are for Hashem our G-d, but the revealed things are for us…to carry out all the words of the Torah”.  This is surely rather puzzling, being a rather enigmatic and incongruous passage as a continuation and climax to the theme of retribution.

For every misfortune that we encounter, be it trivial or life-defining, there is a right response and a wrong one.  The correct one sees the ordeal as an opportunity for growth, whereas the incorrect one allows it to draw us away from our true purpose.  But the truth is that even if we make the right choice, we can still err by trying to discern Hashem’s precise motive behind the suffering when this is in fact inaccessible to us.  This is perhaps what Hashem is warning us of here.  When trying to endure the difficulty we must realise that “the hidden things”, the exact reasons for the hardship, “are for Hashem” exclusively.  We can never truly and definitively identify the cause.  This, however, does not mean that we remain passive to these experiences, for “the revealed things” are for us. This perhaps indicates that our task is to utilise what we can see clearly, the fact that Hashem is certainly trying to alert us to something and the areas that we know we can improve on, and use them to our advantage in refining ourselves and to further “carry out the words of the Torah”.

When we look back over the past year and any troubles or tragedies we have faced, it can be damaging and counter-productive to solely focus on what it was that we did wrong and what may have been its source.  Although it is incumbent upon us to examine our deeds for a possible cause in order to correct it, we can never truly know what it was, so would be opening ourselves up to erroneously based conclusions and decisions.  What we can do however is face up to the realities that are manifest before us; the fact that Hashem is trying to awaken us to something and the reality of where we have fallen short of who we should be.  There are truths that we can see clearly that should guide us, but there are secrets that Hashem wishes to be concealed from us until such time that we can see all of history unfold into a perfect picture.  Until then we must move ever forward through the dark, with whatever light we can generate on our own, creating pathways of G-dliness until we find our way home.

*May the illumination of Shabbos shatter the darkness once and for all.* 

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם