Not Beyond the Sea (Nitzavim 5779)

The Rabbi Sacks Legacy

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2019

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"I am delighted to share with you the newest cycle of Covenant & Conversation essays on the weekly parsha (Torah reading). I am particularly excited to introduce a Family Edition accompaniment to this year's series which has two main aims. First, to present the ideas in Covenant & Conversation in a simplified way, making my ideas more accessible to children and teenagers. Second, to act as an educational resource for parents, teachers and anyone else to engage their children and students in meaningful and stimulating conversations about the parsha." Main edition: rabbisacks.org/nitzavim-5779/ Family edition: rabbisacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/CandC-Family-Nitzavim-FINAL.pdf

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another episode of Covenant and Conversation with me, Rabbi Sachs.
0:14.6	In each new episode, we'll explore a Jewish idea from the Hebrew Bible based on the terror reading of the week.
0:27.1	Nizovim, not beyond the sea. When I was a student at university in the late 1960s, that era of
0:34.4	psychedelic drugs and Beatles meditating with the Maharishi Maheshiyogi, a story went the
0:40.4	rounds. An American Jewish woman in her 60s traveled to North India to see a celebrated guru.
0:47.7	There were huge crowds waiting to see the Holy Man, but she put through saying that she needed to
0:53.3	see him urgently. Eventually, after
0:55.3	weaving through the swaying crowds, she entered the tent and stood in the presence of the master
1:00.1	himself. What she said that day has entered the realm of legend. She said, Marvin, listen to your
1:06.6	mother. Enough already. Come home. Starting in the 60s, Jews made their way into many religions and
1:14.8	cultures with one notable exception, namely their own. Yet Judaism has historically had its mystics
1:22.3	and meditages, its poets and philosophers, its holy men and women, its visionaries and prophets.
1:29.0	It's often seen as if the longing we have for spiritual enlightenment
1:33.4	is in direct proportion to its distance, its foreignness, its unfamiliarity.
1:41.3	We prefer the far to the near. Moses already foresaw this possibility. And this is what he
1:49.6	says in this week's parisher. Now what I'm commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond
1:54.5	your reach. It isn't in heaven so that you have to ask who will ascend into heaven to get it
1:59.9	and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it. Nor is it beyond the sea so that we have to ask who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it,
2:03.2	nor is it beyond the sea so that you have to ask who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it.
2:10.8	No, the word is very near to you. It's in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it.
2:20.9	Moses sensed prophetically that in the future Jews would say that to find inspiration we have to ascend to heaven or cross the sea. It's
2:26.2	anywhere but here. So it was for much of Israel's history during the first and second temple periods.
	...

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