What is hidden, and What is revealed

By Hazzan Jenna Greenberg.

In parashat Nitzavim, we read the following in Deuteronomy 29:28: “Concealed acts, hanistarot, concern the Lord our God; but with overt acts, haniglot, it is for us and our children, Lanu ul’vaneinu, ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching, HaTorah hazot.” In the context of our parasha, hanistarot and haniglot are acts understood as concealed sins and revealed sins, respectively.

Rashi explains that the concealed or hidden things are between us and God, but the overt or revealed ones have greater potential to affect others. In other words, Kol Yisrael aravim ze bazeh: All Jews are responsible for one another.

Another commentator, the Netziv, explains that this verse is letting us know what our job is to understand about the world. The “hidden things” are the reasons God knows for why things happen, and it’s not our job to worry about those things.

When thinking about this idea of “hidden things,” I am also reminded of Psalm 81:4, the Psalm for Thursday: “Sound the shofar on the New Moon, the festival day when the moon is hidden.” We say these words in the Rosh Hashana Ma’ariv service. This imagery evokes our senses: what is missing in our sight is celebrated with the very audible primal sounding of the ancient shofar, a sound that we’ve been hearing each morning of this final month of 5784.

This announcement during Elul wakes us up each morning, hopefully driving the hidden personal goals within each of us to be revealed by the actions we take. The shofar reminds us that we are accountable to ourselves, a private agreement within each of us, but also to others, in the public ways we act in the world.

May that wake up call drive each of us to make this new year better for us as individuals and for all of us as a community.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova.