The first part of this week's double parashah is called Nitzavim: all of you stand. From the end of last week's parashah to the beginning of this week a dramatic transformation has occurred for Am Yisrael. At the end of Ki-Tavo we are told that G-d did before our eyes many wonders, but "Ha-Shem has not given to you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, until this day." (Dvrm., 29:3) We were granted, as entire people a new level of consciousness -- no longer are we to follow G-d as children who do not understand what is going on around us; we are to stand on our own two feet, as fully aware human beings. This is an intensely awesome and potentially terrifying place. We are gifted the awareness not only of a supreme and awesome Presence who is the Creator of everything including our very being, we are also gifted the awareness of our own being - and its startling ability to stand and exist in the face of the Holy One, Blessed Be He. From last weeks parashah regarding blessings and curses we learn the amazing ability of this human being to wield its will and to affect the reality with which it is presented. In other words we are given the seed of the divine, to participate in the creation of the world. The freedom and responsibility that this creative will entails can feel like a tremendous burden. There is an impulse inside us, under the enormity of this newly realized freedom and responsibility, to crumble, to want to nullify our individual beings completely before the awesomeness of the One. For this reason we are told, "I have set before you, life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both you and your seed may live." To live we may not crumble. Opting out is not an option.
Thankfully, G-d provides us a soothing salve for the rawness of our new awareness. As it is written, "For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not hidden from you, and it is not far off…(rather) the word/the thing is close to you, very much so; in your mouth and in your heart for the doing." What do we do then with our fears and anxieties? Our parashah suggests the following: "The hidden things, to Ha-Shem" (Devarim. 29:28). What are the hidden things? From Isaiah we learn, "I give to you the secrets of the dark and the treasures of the hidden things, that you will know that I am Ha-Shem" (Yeshayahu. 45:3). What can we synthesize from knowing that the word/thing is very close to us, in our mouths and hearts, in conjunction with the knowledge that the hidden things are our path to knowing G-d? Perhaps we can come to realize that one of the ways to access G-d is through the hidden things of our heart, the secrets that lie in the dark. We should not be fooled; going into the dark is not an easy task. It was written regarding Avraham, when he was still Avram longing to connect with G-d in the light of the day: "And behold, a horror of great darkness fell upon him" (Bereshit. 15:12). Avraham had to pass through the horror of darkness, and learn that his decedents would also pass through the darkness (marked by 400 years in Mitzryim) in order to come into the light, blessing, and knowledge of the Holy One, Blessed Be He.
Why? Why must we pass through the darkness, investigate the hidden things of our own hearts and mouths, in order to come close to G-d? Why can we not stick with that which is already revealed? It seems that Hashem made things this way in order that we realize ourselves, our own two feet, standing before the wholeness of the One. In order that we realize that the darkness that seems separate from the light is nevertheless a pathway to light. That we, as dark-hearted creatures, are pathways to the divine.