Why a Second Covenant? On the final day of his life, Moses gathers all the Jewish people and told them: You are all standing this day before the Lord your God the leaders of your tribes, your elders and your officers, every man of Israel, your young children, your women, and your convert who is within your camp both your woodcutters and your water drawers. (Deuteronomy 29:9-10) What was the purpose of this gathering? Moses continues: That you may enter the covenant of the Lord, your God, and His oath, which the Lord, your God, is making with you this day. (Deuteronomy 29:11) Why would the Jewish people need to accept another covenant, in addition to the covenant they accepted at Sinai? Our sages explain that the covenant at Sinai was a covenant between each individual and G-d, whereas forty years later, at the bank of the Jordan River, the covenant was established between G-d and the entire Jewish people. The second covenant established a community, where every individual becomes part of a collective and therefore responsible for one another. As the Talmud states, "all Jews are guarantors {meaning responsible} for one another". The principle that all Jews are guarantors for each other is not merely a mystical teaching; it is expressed practically in Jewish law. Although it is prohibited to say G-d’s name in vain, we are nevertheless permitted to evoke G-d’s name in a blessing for a Mitzvah on behalf of someone else, even if we have already fulfilled our personal obligation. For example, if one has already heard the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah, he may recite the blessing, describing the commandment to hear the shofar, on behalf of someone who has not yet heard the Shofar. But how can he imply that he is about to fulfil the commandment, if he has already fulfilled his obligation? The reason is that since another Jew has not yet heard the Shofar he is the “gaurentour” and therefore obligated to help facilitate the commandment for his fellow! Only at the bank of the Jordan River, only as they approached the land of Israel, did the Jewish people receive this extraordinary second covenant that united them not only with God but also with each other. That is because for people to see their unique individual self as being interconnected and part of a greater whole, there had to be a greater concept, a shared vision, a unifying purpose, that they were each a part of. The physical land of Israel served as the greater project, the greater land, that encompassed every individual. Chassidic philosophy adds that upon entry to the land of Israel, the Jewish people accessed a far superior intensity of holy light, which was granted to them in order to enable them to fulfill their mission of transforming the material soil into a holy land. The encompassing light, the intensity of the holiness, flows through each individual binding them together to create a greater whole. The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement, would say that the verse “You are all standing this day before the Lord, your God” applies also to the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. At the beginning of each year, we stand before G-d not alone but interconnected to a larger community. Each year on Rosh Hashanah, we celebrate not only our personal, individual connection to God but also our collective mission. As we stand in the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, hearing the sound of the shofar, we sense that we are indeed part of a greater community, interconnected with a common purpose of transforming the world, making it a home for the Divine, a place of goodness and kindness, a mission we can only fulfill together. Adapted from the teachings of the Rebbe, Lekutei Sichos vol. 4, Nitzavim
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