Introduction
What if everything you thought you knew about the relationship between humanity and the Divine was based on a fundamental misunderstanding? What if the God you might associate with negative fear — demanding, harsh, intimidating — isn't God at all, but rather a distortion created by centuries of poor teaching and spiritual trauma?
This commentary on Parshat Nitzavim, one of the most transformative portions of the Torah, offers a radically different vision. Drawing from the Hebrew text with fresh eyes, Rabbi Yehoshua Eliovson reveals a Divine presence that doesn't seek to diminish us, but instead helps us to "stand upright." Not a God who waits to punish, but One who waits lovingly outside the door of our hearts, hoping we'll invite Him in.
At its core, this teaching addresses a crisis that transcends religious boundaries: the widespread fear of genuine spiritual intimacy. Whether you're a lifelong believer questioning everything you were taught, someone exploring faith for the first time, or anyone seeking a more authentic relationship with the sacred, this commentary speaks directly to the barriers we've built around our hearts.
The Hebrew word "Nitzavim" means "standing upright," and this becomes the key to understanding everything that follows. Through careful analysis of the biblical text, we discover that a relationship with HaShem (God) is not meant to bend or break us, but to help us rise to our full spiritual stature. The Torah's most profound teachings about love, purpose, and human dignity emerge not as burdens, but as pathways to genuine freedom.
What makes this commentary particularly powerful is its unflinching honesty about spiritual struggle. Rather than offering easy answers, it acknowledges the real pain many have experienced in the name of religion, while pointing toward healing and renewal. The metaphors Rabbi Eliovson explores—from "tree-cutters and water-drawers" to the image of God circumcising our hearts—reveal layers of meaning that speak to both ancient wisdom and contemporary spiritual searching.
This is not theology for theology's sake, but wisdom for living. As we approach the themes of judgment and renewal that define the High Holiday season, we're invited to discover that the God we thought we knew—distant, demanding, fearsome—has been waiting all along to be known as the source of love itself.
Whether you're Jewish or not, whether you consider yourself religious or spiritual or neither, this commentary offers something rare: a vision of the Divine that doesn't require you to diminish yourself to encounter it, but rather calls you to become more fully who you were meant to be.
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Sefer Devarim: Parshat Netzavim
Opening the Door for HaShem
Rabbi Yehoshua "Shu" Eliovson
You know, it's crazy. I prepare these teachings every week, and we share so many spiritual ideas through the course of these sessions. We learn the Torah which is given to us by HaShem, and we discuss our lives. But I'm always embarrassed, literally embarrassed, to say the most important thing that needs to be said. It just feels so awkward in our time, in our age, in our era.
I feel like if I say it straight out, I'm going to lose half my audience. People are going to say, "Whoa, now this is getting kind of weird…"
But it has to be said. We're coming up to Rosh Hashanah in a week. We're coming up to the birthday of the world. We're coming up to the renewal of our lives.
So I need to come out and say it. I need to be completely honest, completely open about this:
There is a God.
There is a God waiting out there—waiting right outside your door. The door of your house, the door of your apartment building, the door of your office, the door of your heart. And that God is waiting for you to invite Him in. He's waiting for you to invite Him into your life. The saddest part is that this idea scares the heck out of most people.
On the one hand, it's a warm feeling when you think about it: That there's a God waiting right outside your door—the door to your house, the door to your room, the door to your office, the door to your heart. It's such a wonderful feeling.
But then it quickly becomes so scary. That God has become so dreadful in our minds, so fearful, so intimidating, so demanding, so merciless that we're afraid to let Him in. We're afraid to open that door even a crack because if that God gets His foot in the door, well, it's over. So we just keep that door locked, dead-bolted, barred. We block the door with everything we can, with a dresser pushed up against it, because God forbid we should let God in.
But from where did we get that concept of God? That's not God. That's not HaShem. That's a concept and a corruption of God's name that's come through so many terrible years of bad education and miserable teachers—negative people who claim to represent HaShem, who claim to represent God, but who are doing just the opposite.
To see that, you don't need to go any further than this week's Torah portion, Nitzavim. Every element of it is allegorical, poetic, beautiful. The message is simple and clear.
It's such a short Torah portion, full of love.
In the entire Torah the word 'love' appears only nine times. Eight of those times are in the fifth book of the Torah, the book of Deuteronomy. One appears in Genesis when it talks about Isaac loving Rebecca. Another discusses God's love for the patriarchs, that God chose to love them and give His love to their children after them. The other seven times extol us as human beings, beseeching us, begging us to understand that the relationship that God seeks from us is one of love.
Of those seven appearances where God is calling to us to relate to Him through love, three appear in this week's tiny Torah portion. Three times.
Again and again, the message says to love HaShem "for the sake of your life". What does it mean "for the sake of your life"? Nitzavim, this week's Torah portion, unlocks the meaning of that.
First, to see the message where it says it three times in the Torah portion—it's so beautiful. The portion ends with these words:
"I bring as witnesses before you today the heavens and the earth: I place before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; choose life so that you may live, you and your children."
"To love HaShem your God…"
"…to hear His voice…"
"…and cleave to Him…"
Attach yourself to Him. Fuse yourself with Him.
"…for He is your life, the length of your days…" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
Love HaShem—because that's your life.
What is life? Earlier it says:
"I give you life, the good; and death, the bad…"
"…Love HaShem. Walk in His ways. Follow his guidance…You will live, you will survive and you will flourish…" (30:15-16)
Everything will come together if you just connect with that love. If you could find that love. If your relationship with HaShem was one of love, it would be life, it would be blessing. Everything would work. Your relationship with HaShem would feel beautiful. It's not meant to be painful.
You might say, "What do you mean 'my relationship with HaShem is not meant to be painful'?! I sat in those classes in religious school. I heard all the harsh and judgmental teachings. We were so smothered, so overwhelmed with so many instructions! What are you supposed to do? Sometimes it's just too much!"
So the Torah portion starts out by saying:
"You are standing upright today, each and every one of you…" (29:9)
The word used is "Nitzavim"—it means "you are standing upright." The Torah is not meant to bend you. It is meant to uplift you. We say it every morning in our blessings: *Zokef kefufim*—God straightens those who are bent. God is not a King who wants to bend you. God is your creator. God is there to help you rise.
Who is meant to stand upright before God? Perhaps just the Rabbis? Perhaps just the priests? Perhaps just the saints?
The Torah says: "Every one of you."
The Torah goes on to list the men, the women, even the babies! Every single human being is meant to stand upright before God.
But then there's this strange, specific, amazing expression at the end of the list of all those who should be standing before God. After providing a general list of all the types of people that make up a Jewish community, HaShem then says that this 'Upright Gathering' must include "The lumberjack and the water-drawer"—the cutter of trees and the one who draws water from rivers and springs.
It's the strangest phrase. What does it mean? I understand when it says your elders, your leaders, your officers, children, women, strangers, everyone in your camp. I get it. But the tree-cutters and water-drawers?
The poetry of the words is enormous.
A tree is something permanent. Something rigid. Something that stands. It's there. It's established. It is what it is. Sometimes what's established, what's firm, you've got to cut it down.
To draw water—it's something that's deep in the ground. Something you haven't found. Something deep, flowing, refreshing. It's about drawing it out and bringing it up. It's about quenching a thirst.
So the nature of having an upright relationship with HaShem means that sometimes you need to draw something from deep inside. Draw something out, something that wasn't there, that wasn't apparent. You need to quench a thirst. It's something that flows.
Sometimes you need to take down that which is rigid, that which is established, that which has been standing for a long time. You need to reshape that, or you need to remove it, perhaps for the time being, perhaps forever. You need to make adjustments.
Now you say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're going a little crazy here! Seriously. Taking down things that have been standing a long time? Taking down things that are permanent? Drawing things out? Are we talking about rewriting the tradition? Are we talking about the idea that I'm going to carve out Judaism or faith in my own name?"
The answer is: Well, no. But, yeah.
What do I mean?
What Moshe is telling us, what the Torah is telling us, what HaShem is telling us is this:
The Torah is a perfect instruction. But as Moshe explained to us in last week's Torah portion, you can only begin to understand the guidance of the Torah once you leave the cocoon of HaShem caring for you in the wilderness, once you leave the cocoon of your parent's home, once you leave the cocoon of the era of the Holy Temple and you go out into the world on your own.
As you struggle to apply that guidance to ever-changing circumstances, the interpretation of the Torah's teachings will evolve. In some cases, what was good for yesterday is not good for today. What was good for deep survival in the heart of darkness of Judaism in an era of pogroms and genocide is not the same expression of Torah that is needed for a young Jew in Israel rebuilding the Jewish future!
Or as Moshe and Aharon learned so painfully—while when you bring slaves out of Egypt you have to "hit the rock" in order to wake them up to their potential, it is a grave sin to "hit the rock" when the people have realized their power and are full of energy for all the right reasons!
The trees of yesterday must sometimes be cleared to grow the new fields of today. Sometimes you must hit a rock to draw water, sometimes you must speak to it.
Returning to the opening of our Torah portion, it is clear that God is telling us: "Follow my instructions. If you truly follow what I'm trying to say to you, if you hear the essence of my guidance, it will make sense. It will feel right and good."
But the Torah then cautions us: "You have to understand. You've gone through so much suffering. I'm going to bring you into this Land. You're going to make so many mistakes. You're going to get thrown into exile. It's going to be miserable. You're going to suffer. All these curses, so to speak, all this bad fortune that I've warned you about will happen when you make bad choices. It will come upon you…"
"But eventually you're going to figure it out. You're going to come back. You're going to seek me out. You're going to realize that all the suffering was never about Me being angry at you," explains God. "It was for you. It was the journey you had to take in order to discover Truth for yourself. It was always out of love for you."
"You're going to come back to this advice and wisdom of the Torah. But when you return to the teachings of the Torah, the teaching of HaShem, the understanding is going to flow from deep inside you. It will emanate from deep within yourself."
It's such a beautiful idea, as HaShem says:
Through all these experiences, all these difficulties,
"HaShem will circumcise your heart" (30:6).
HaShem will take the husk away from your heart—that barrier that tells you, "Don't open that door. Don't let HaShem in." That barrier that came from harsh, hurtful ideas of HaShem that made you put up walls upon walls.
When you take down that barrier, you're going to discover love.
You're going to discover how much HaShem cares about you. You're going to discover that HaShem has always been in your corner. You're going to discover that it's always been about you. Here's the key to it all: Growing with HaShem, growing toward HaShem, letting HaShem and the Torah and the mitzvot be a part of your life—it's not something that's supposed to hurt. It's not. Ever.
It's not supposed to hurt.
Yes, to push a little bit, that's healthy. It's like working out in the gym. There's a degree to which you push that's healthy and builds your muscles. It tears the muscles a little bit when you work out, which makes them stronger. Then there's a point where a person really could be hurting themselves. That's foolish because it can cripple them forever.
Or like a person who works with their hands and they feel their fingers getting tender. There's that point where if they stop now, the skin will become thicker, more calloused, stronger, more able. But if they go too far, their skin will become blistered and they'll be down for the count for a few weeks.
It's not supposed to hurt. When we go too far, we only set ourselves back. To bring this lesson home, we are presented with one of the most amazing phrases in the entire Torah:
"The mitzvot, the direction, the roadsigns, that I'm instructing you with", that I'm pointing out to you today—they're not bigger than you, more wondrous—they're not something spiritually beyond you, and "they're not far away from you."
"It's not something up in heaven, that you need to ask: 'Who will go up to the heavens and bring it down to us, so that through them we will be able to hear it and do it?' It's not something across the ocean that you'll say, 'Who will cross this distance for us in order to grasp it for us, so that through them we will be able to hear it and do it?'" (30:11-14)
In other words, the instructions of HaShem when taught correctly will never and should never feel foreign to you or make you want to pull away or put a barrier around your heart.
Then the Torah continues:
"This instruction is so close to you…"
"…it's on the tip of your tongue and in your heart to do."
A relationship with HaShem, like any relationship built on genuine love, is meant to be natural. It's meant to be positive. This Torah portion emphasizes three times over that it's meant to be built on love.
Let's look at an example from modern relationships. One of the biggest reasons that so many people are afraid to get married today is because somehow we've become painfully aware — in our independent, self-fulfilling society — of how much being in a marriage, having a spouse and having children will limit our ability to pursue "Me." We're so aware of the sacrifices. Because we're so focused on the service of a relationship, we can't even allow our hearts to open up, to take down that barrier and to allow love to happen.
But what a tragedy it is. Because when a relationship starts with love, when it's built on love, then everything else becomes a song and a part of that love. There is no greater fulfillment I experience than when I'm able to bring joy to my wife, to my children, to my parents, to my siblings, to my friends...
This understanding transforms everything. When a relationship truly begins with love—when love is its foundation rather than fear or obligation—then every act of service becomes a natural expression of that love. When we understand that HaShem's relationship with us is rooted in love, our response flows naturally from the heart.
The root of the Hebrew word "love", "Ahava" in Hebrew, is *hav*, which means "to give." Love is giving. It's not a sacrifice when the dividends are so incredibly wonderful. If it's built on love, then it's not a burden anymore. It's a natural expression. It's a search for ways to manifest and give meaning and create a tangibility to that love.
Sometimes, when the foundations of our relationship with God have been built on a belief that someone else has got to go up to heaven and bring it down to me, that somehow I have to fall under the shadow of someone else's definitions of God, then if the teacher is bad we can end up in a toxic and spiritually damaged space. Because if that teacher has created a sense of an intimidating God for me, an unloving and unforgiving and un-understanding God for me, then I need to cut down some trees before anything beautiful can grow again. I need to clear the landing. I do need to draw fresh water. I need to step back and to renew. I need it to be for me. I need it to be dynamic. I need it to be natural.
Sometimes we have to change the landscape in order to make it ours. It's not, God forbid, about breaking away from our Torah or those directions and instructions from HaShem or the wisdom of our Sages. Rather, it's about finding our own relationship with it. It's about bringing it back to life in a positive, beautiful, loving way, as it was always meant to be.
In order to do that, it has to start from where we are. It has to start by you looking inside yourself and saying, "What's in my heart at this moment? What's at the tip of my tongue?" It's that intuitive. It's that natural.
This week's Torah portion is here to tell us that a relationship with HaShem is a relationship that's built upon love.
This week's Torah portion is here to tell us that any time we have felt lost in life, it's only because we've been keeping the door locked. It's only because we've allowed a barrier to grow around our own heart, and we've simply told HaShem: "Get lost. I don't want you here."
This week's Torah portion is here to tell us that God is not interested in seeing us bent or broken. Rather, HaShem wants to see us stand tall. If we need to cut down unhealthy trees and draw fresh water in order to find HaShem, in order to create a landscape, in order to create a field where that relationship can grow, then we should do what we need to do.
This week's Torah portion is here to tell us that all HaShem wants is to help us open up our hearts.
"HaShem will circumcise your heart"—HaShem will take the husk away from your heart, He will remove the barrier that tells you, "Don't open that door. Don't let God in."
He will help us take down the walls.
To open the door to our house, to our room, to our office.
To our heart.
To love HaShem, to connect to HaShem through love, for our own lives, for our own blessing. For us to do it outside of the shadows of anyone who would make us feel, in any way, suffocated or intimidated or afraid. But for it to flow as love should, from my heart and from my lips to HaShem.
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Food for Thought
Examining Your Spiritual Barriers
**What's behind your door?**
When you imagine the Divine waiting outside the door of your heart, what emotions arise? Warmth and welcome, or fear and resistance? What has shaped these feelings?
**Where did your concept of God come from?**
Reflect honestly: Is your understanding of the Divine built upon your own authentic experience, or only inherited from teachers, family, or religious institutions? Which of these influences have been nurturing, and which have been harmful?
**What trees need cutting down?**
What unhealthy beliefs, inherited fears, or unhealthy spiritual concepts might you need to "cut down" to create space for a more authentic relationship with the HaShem? What doesn't serve your spiritual growth anymore?
Discovering Your Authentic Relationship
**What's on the tip of your tongue?**
The Torah teaches that divine wisdom is "on your lips and in your heart." What spiritual truths feel most natural to you when you let go of negative concepts that others have told you that you should believe?
**How do you naturally want to connect?**
If you could create your own framework for your relationship with the Divine—free from negatively imposed "shoulds", rules, and others' expectations—what would it look like? How would you want to pray, worship, or simply be in HaShem's presence?
**What fresh water needs drawing?**
What deep spiritual longings or insights have you buried or ignored? What aspects of your soul feel thirsty and need to be drawn up from within?
Moving from Oppression to Love
**Where has religion hurt rather than healed?**
Be specific: What religious teachings or experiences made you feel bent down rather than lifted up? How might you reclaim the beauty that was originally intended?
**What would love-based spirituality look like in your life?**
If your relationship with the Divine was built on love rather than oppression or intimidation, how would your daily spiritual practice change? What would you do more of? Less of?
**How can you stand upright?**
The word "Nitzavim" means standing upright with dignity before God. In what areas of your spiritual life do you need to stop bending yourself into uncomfortable shapes and instead stand tall as yourself?
Integration and Growth
**What's your next small step?**
Rather than overwhelming yourself, what's one small way you could open the door of your heart just a crack this week? How might you invite the Divine into one specific area of your life?
**Who supports your authentic spiritual journey?**
Who in your life encourages you to stand upright spiritually rather than conform to their expectations? How can you nurture those relationships while creating healthy boundaries with those who don't?
**How will you know if you're on the right path?**
According to this teaching, authentic spirituality should feel life-giving, not life-draining. What signs will tell you that you're moving toward a love-based rather than oppression-based relationship with HaShem?
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