Nitzavim 5772: The last Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah

Shavua Tov Everyone! Below is my sermon from last night on Parashat Nitzavim, to help get us ready for the High Holidays!

I remember when I was a kid, I had a bad habit.  My mother, who is probably watching this from afar, might not have known this, but take this as a cautionary tale for all parents.  You see I was lazy.  Every day I would come home from school, and have a snack.   That was usually my first step, I’d grab something good from the fridge and plop down on the couch, and watch TV as I did my homework.  Now the laziness was most evident in what I did with the food wrapper when I was done. I knew that if I left it on the table, my mother would admonish me. So, in the quiet house, all alone, I’d stuff the wrapper in between the couch cushions.   

Some might argue that the true measure of a person is how they act when they think no one is watching. Those secret moments where we don’t feel as if there are consequences, but that we are simply having fun even if it isn’t the way we would want to be portrayed to the world.  Clearly alone in my house I believed that to be true, that I was secreting away my food wrappers with no one being the wiser.   
However our Parashah delves into the challenge of hidden things. In this weeks Parasha, Nitzavim we are told:

29: 28. The hidden things belong to Adonai, our God, but the revealed things apply to us and to our children forever: that we must fulfill all the words of this Torah.

כח. הַנִּסְתָּרֹת לַי־הֹוָ־ה אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְהַנִּגְלֹת לָנוּ וּלְבָנֵינוּ עַד עוֹלָם לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת כָּל דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת:

The hidden things.   What could this mean?  The medieval Commentator Rashi suggests that this is to delineate two forms of justice.   Human justice which will be meted out to all people based on their public actions, and Divine Justice for those things that are done in secret.   
However the challenge that I have is even greater.  Based upon this text, the talmud teaches us a blessing for a particular situation: One who sees multitudes of Israel recites:

Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu Me-lech Ha-o-lam, cha-cham ha-ra-zim.

Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, Ruler of the Universe, Knower of secrets.

Our blessing and Torah suggests something that is hard to fathom: God knows our secrets.  G-d knows that I stuffed these food items in my parents couch.   God knows that I was speeding on the Hutch earlier today.  I wonder: What does it mean to believe in a G-d who knows our secrets?
Scholars in the world have tried to determine what it means for us as humanity to believe in God.  There was a provocative NPR series entitled “The Human Edge” that came out a few years ago.  The series discussed anything from opposable thumbs, to walking upright.   One of the articles in the series was entitled “Is Believing In God Evolutionarily Advantageous?” by Alix Spiegel.   Within the article, Spiegel provides the same reason that Rashi gives.  That G-d is there to ensure that the bad people would eventually be punished, in this world or the next, and that we could manage our own society by ensuring that the rules had a basis in something larger than ourselves.
This particular view of G-d is a view. It has it’s basis in Jewish tradition and modern scholarship.   However, G-d is not one-dimensional this is only one view of many. Yoram Hazony, a biblical scholar, argues that G-d knowing our secrets, knowing all of us, allows us to develop into a better version of ourselves.   He claims that, having “... a power in the world that is able to hear you, and that is going to allow you to develop your understanding of what's right, and of the way the world should develop.' All of human history has proceeded from that first spark of hope that appears in the Hebrew scriptures."  (http://www.npr.org/2012/09/04/160388922/an-individualist-approach-to-the-hebrew-bible)  According to Hazony, having G-d there allows us to accept our own humanity and push ourselves to be a better person.   
Having a G-d who knows our secrets isn’t just a G-d who knows our foibles.  It is a G-d who knows our aspirations.   A God that looks out at us and takes us for all that we are and encourages us to become a better person. It is this particular relationship with G-d that I have tried to cultivate over the past few years.   It feels so antithetical to my rationalist mindset, I always think of the movie Dogma, where Alan Rickman playing the Metatron says: Whenever someone is talking to G-d they’re really talking to me, or they’re talking to themselves.”  It is that cognitive dissonance that always strikes me whenever someone suggests that they are talking to G-d, the back of my mind shouts out, well they’re probably talking to themselves. However, really that dissonance is most profound when people say that God is talking to them, versus the other way around.  To speak to G-d can be a natural and easy process, but often requires practice, and opportunity, and a suspension of the hyper-rationalism that can override our thinking at times.    
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, was a chassidic master of the 19th century.   One of his memorable teachings was the act of hitbodedut, which translates to self seclusion.  The activity he encouraged was to be alone with G-d. According to Rebbe Nachman, we are to find a quiet personal place, with no other distractions and to just talk.  To allow the stream of consciousness that is welling up within you to come out.   To address G-d as you would someone sitting right there, listening to your every word. Sometimes a friend, sometimes an adversary.  If you begin with the operating assumption that G-d already knows all your secrets it can be incredibly freeing.   There is no need to worry about what G-d will think of this idea or that, or the need to hold back. Rather it provides space to feel free to say whatever is on our minds.   I began this practice months ago, and while it’s often hard to find that private space with an infant at home, the power of sharing with G-d aloud the prayer of my heart was staggering.  To put into words what had only been thoughts concretized some of my hopes, and gave me strength when planning on how to tackle my foibles.   
G-d is everywhere, we simply need to be receptive to the opportunities to relate to G-d in our lives.  We call G-d Avinu, our parent, scolding us like the young version of me shoving food wrappers in the couch.  We call G-d malkeinu, our sovereign who sits on high judging us for the right and wrong actions. Yet we also call G-d Dodeinu, our beloved friend who we can lovingly talk with, and share our hopes and our weaknesses with. As we enter into the High Holidays, we shouldn’t our relationships to G-d to be one dimensional, but to challenge ourselves to interact with G-d in new and different ways.