Nitzavim-Vayeilech: Going off on Your Own

Perchance there is among you some man or woman, or some clan or tribe, whose heart is even now turning away from our God יהוה to go and worship the gods of those nations—perchance there is among you a stock sprouting poison weed and wormwood. When hearing the words of these sanctions, they may imagine a special immunity, thinking, “I shall be safe, though I follow my own willful heart”—to the utter ruin of moist and dry alike. יהוה will never forgive that party. Rather, יהוה’s anger and passion will rage against them, till every sanction recorded in this book comes down upon them, and יהוה blots out their name from under heaven. [As for such a clan or tribe,] יהוה will single it out from all the tribes of Israel for misfortune, in accordance with all the sanctions of the covenant recorded in this book of Teaching. And later generations will ask—the children who succeed you, and foreigners who come from distant lands and see the plagues and diseases that יהוה has inflicted upon that land, all its soil devastated by sulfur and salt, beyond sowing and producing, no grass growing in it, just like the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which יהוה overthrew in fierce anger— all nations will ask, “Why did יהוה do thus to this land? Wherefore that awful wrath?” They will be told, “Because they forsook the covenant that יהוה, God of their ancestors, made with them upon freeing them from the land of Egypt; they turned to the service of other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not experienced and whom [God] had not allotted to them. So יהוה was incensed at that land and brought upon it all the curses recorded in this book. יהוה uprooted them from their soil in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as is still the case.” Concealed acts concern our God יהוה; but with overt acts, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching.

למען ספות הרוה TO ADD DRUNKENNESS [TO THE THIRST] — In order that I may add punishment for him even for the sins he has committed until now inadvertently (for which the figurative expression in this sentence is הרוה, drunkenness: cf. the following passage in Rashi), and which I used to overlook; — but now he causes Me to combine them with those committed with premeditation and to exact punishment from him for everything. Onkelos, too, rendered it in a similar sense: “in order to add for him the sins of inadvertence to those of premeditation”, which can only mean. “In order that “I” may add sins of inadvertence to those of presumption”. הרוה DRUNKENNESS figuratively describes the condition of a שוגג, one who acts inadvertently. The expression is an apt one because he acts like a drunken man who does things unwittingly, הצמאה THE THIRST aptly describes the attitude of one who acts wittingly and out of desire.

Reish Lakish said: Great is repentance, as the penitent’s intentional sins are counted for him as unwitting transgressions, as it is stated: “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity” (Hosea 14:2). The Gemara analyzes this: Doesn’t “iniquity” mean an intentional sin? Yet the prophet calls it stumbling, implying that one who repents is considered as though he only stumbled accidentally in his transgression. The Gemara asks: Is that so? Didn’t Reish Lakish himself say: Great is repentance, as one’s intentional sins are counted for him as merits, as it is stated: “And when the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby” (Ezekiel 33:19), and all his deeds, even his transgressions, will become praiseworthy? The Gemara reconciles: This is not difficult: Here, when one repents out of love, his sins become like merits; there, when one repents out of fear, his sins are counted as unwitting transgressions.

The basic idea underlying this verse is to warn the Israelite that anyone who attempts to get away with none or only minor punishments by only thinking about sinning but not actually violating any of the Torah's commandments will be disappointed. The Torah tells such a person that at this particular stage of his thinking he is merely a root, Le. harmless in itself; however, the outgrowth of this root will be gall and wormwood. This is why, in the first instance, the Torah speaks of פן יש בכם שדש פורה ראש ולענה, "it is first and foremost a root from which unexpected plants will grow." The clever Israelite who looks for devious ways to escape the curses of which the Torah warns first blesses himself in "his heart." This means that he says to himself that merely contemplating sins is not so bad. This is why the Torah uses the words והיה בשמעו. We have explained repeatedly that the word והיה always has a joyful connotation. This Israelite says to himself that as long as he only contemplates sinning, he is not guilty of anything. This contributes to his joy. The Torah puts the record straight telling such an individual that if he thought he could cancel the oath Moses committed him to before accepting it even if he had answered "Amen", this would not help him. We have learned in Shavuot 26 that when it comes to oaths one's mouth and one's heart must act in unison, and that if someone makes up his mind to invalidate the words of an oath he will utter, only his intention commits him, not his words. When Moses speaks of שרירות לבו, he describes a person who uses the loophole we just quoted to escape culpability. Not only that, but למען ספות הרוה את הצמאה, "in order to add the watered to the thirsty," i.e. to benefit from the blessings G'd will shower upon the Torah-observant people. The word ספות is related to כריתה, an end. The word רוה is an alternative for רבה, "increase." The word צמאה describes something small, insignificant. The Israelite intends to limit or totally cut off any punishment by cancelling the oath Moses wants him to undertake.