Business as Usual? Shabbat Shuva 5787

 This piece by Rabbi Kenigsberg was first published in Hanassi Highlights, Thursday 17 September 2026. Thanks to ChatGPT you can also read it in Hebrew, here.

Shabbat Shuva occupies a unique place in the Jewish calendar: a brief pause between the two great days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, giving us an opportunity to reflect on where we have been before taking the next steps of the journey. And perhaps there is a message for this moment hidden in a seemingly strange detail of the Torah reading we heard just a few days ago.

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, we read the story of the Akeidah. We understand why. Avraham’s willingness to sacrifice his beloved son represents an almost unimaginable act of faith and devotion. We follow Avraham and Yitzchak up the mountain; we hear the angel call, “Avraham, Avraham,” and command him not to harm his son; and we see the ram caught in the thicket, offered in Yitzchak’s place.

Surely that is where the reading should end. Instead, we continue with what seems like an entirely mundane list of births in Avraham’s extended family: “Utz his firstborn, Buz his brother…” until eventually we are told that Betuel fathered Rivkah. Why include these seemingly irrelevant verses in the public reading of this auspicious day?

Rav Soloveitchik offered a powerful explanation. The Akeidah had just taken place. It was an earth-shattering event, an encounter of extraordinary spiritual intensity. We might imagine that after something like that, the world could never simply return to normal.

And yet it did. Utz was born. Then Buz. Then Kemuel. Another child, another day. Life carried on. For everyone else, it was business as usual. That, Rav Soloveitchik suggested, is precisely why we read these verses on Rosh Hashanah. The greatest danger of the Yamim Noraim is not that we will fail to be moved. The tefillot, the shofar and the atmosphere almost inevitably affect us. The danger is that, after being moved, we remain exactly where we were before.

On Shabbat Shuva, that challenge becomes urgent. The prophet Hoshea calls to us: “Take words with you and return to Hashem”. Do not come empty-handed. Perhaps that is also the challenge of Haazinu. Moshe Rabbeinu calls upon us not merely to hear his words, but “Take to heart all these words” (Devarim 32:46). Hearing is not enough. Inspiration must become transformation.

As Yom Kippur approaches, each of us can ask one simple question: What am I taking with me? One commitment, one relationship to repair, one area of tefillah or Torah to strengthen, one concrete step that will ensure that when these extraordinary days have passed, life will not simply return to business as usual.

The Yamim Noraim should move us. But even more importantly, they should move us forward.

Shabbat Shalom, Gmar Chatima Tova!

Shabbat Shuva: Not Just Empty Words

We are reaching the end of Sefer Devarim. This week we read parashat Vayelech and next week Ha’azinu, the last of the weekly Shabbat readings of this book. Looking through Sefer Devarim as a whole, our member Rabbi Steven Ettinger takes a fresh view of the word that gives this Sefer its name.

There is real symmetry to Mishneh Torah, this collection of Moshe’s last words to our people between the beginning and end of this Sefer. The first verse begins with words and the root דבר:

אֵ֣לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בְּעֵ֖בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֑ן בַּמִּדְבָּ֡ר בָּֽעֲרָבָה֩ מ֨וֹל ס֜וּף בֵּֽין־פָּארָ֧ן וּבֵֽין־תֹּ֛פֶל וְלָבָ֥ן וַחֲצֵרֹ֖ת וְדִ֥י זָהָֽב׃

These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan, through the wilderness, in the Aravah near Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hatzerot, and Di Zahav.

The Torah marks the conclusion of Ha’aziunu with three unusual and redundant pesukim (Deut. 32:45-47):

וַיְכַ֣ל מֹשֶׁ֗ה לְדַבֵּ֛ר אֶת־כׇּל־הַדְּבָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

And when Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel,

 

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֲלֵהֶם֙ שִׂ֣ימוּ לְבַבְכֶ֔ם לְכׇ֨ל־הַדְּבָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מֵעִ֥יד בָּכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם אֲשֶׁ֤ר תְּצַוֻּם֙ אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶ֔ם לִשְׁמֹ֣ר לַעֲשׂ֔וֹת אֶת־כׇּל־דִּבְרֵ֖י הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּֽאת׃

He said to them: Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you this day. Enjoin them upon your children, that they may observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching.

כִּ֠י לֹא־דָבָ֨ר רֵ֥ק הוּא֙ מִכֶּ֔ם כִּי־ה֖וּא חַיֵּיכֶ֑ם וּבַדָּבָ֣ר הַזֶּ֗ה תַּאֲרִ֤יכוּ יָמִים֙ עַל־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אַתֶּ֜ם עֹבְרִ֧ים אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּ֛ן שָׁ֖מָּה לְרִשְׁתָּֽהּ׃ 

 

For this is not a trifling thing for you: it is your very life; through it you shall long endure on the land that you are to possess upon crossing the Jordan.

 In these three verses Moshe uses the root דבר six times. It is unclear from context if each one refers to the same thing, different things, perhaps to the entire Torah, solely Sefer Devarim, maybe to certain specific admonitions he related that particular day – or to all, or none, of the above. Moreover, there seems to be no major commentary on these verses that provides clarity.

 This week is Shabbat Shuva. Perhaps it should more appropriately have been called Shabbat Teshuva – as it is the Shabbat of the Ten Days of Repentance.  However, it receives its name from the special Haftarah that we read – “Shuva Yisrael” from Hosea 14.

 Most people are familiar with the opening verse:

שׁ֚וּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל עַ֖ד ה אֱלֹק-ֶ֑יךָ כִּ֥י כָשַׁ֖לְתָּ בַּעֲוֺנֶֽךָ׃

Return, O Israel, to the ETERNAL your God, For you have fallen because of your sin.

However, it is the second verse that perhaps provides a key to understanding the enigmatic words in the verses we quoted and, in turn will reflect back and provide us with a deeper understanding of the teshuva process. The verse reads: 

קְח֤וּ עִמָּכֶם֙ דְּבָרִ֔ים וְשׁ֖וּבוּ אֶל־ה 

Take words with you, and return to God.

What are those words? There is that word “devarim” again.  Is this somehow all connected? Is there an interpretation or unifying theme that can help us understand this within the context of Moshe’s phraseology which may then help us reach a higher teshuva?

Moshe said that the words, the “devarim”, are not a “davar rek,” not empty. Rashi interprets this as follows:
 

There is not one empty (ריק i.e., superfluous) word in the Torah that, if you properly expound it, has not a grant of reward attached to it for doing so. You can know this, for so did our Rabbis say: It states (Genesis 36:22) “And Lotan’s sister was Timna”; (Genesis 36:32)

In other words, there are Jews who contain, have heard, have studied, have learned all, or close to all of the Torah. They are Jews who are “Kol haDevarim” Jews. They bring their bountiful “Devarim” and return to Hashem. It is easy for them; they approach confidently - have little to be concerned about.

 But unfortunately, there are many or our co-religionists who have not only not paid attention to the entire Torah – they have heard, perhaps, only a fraction of it. Maybe only a phrase or two, the equivalent of the words: “And Lotan’s sister was Timna”.  For one, it was reciting one “Shema Yisrael”.  For another, it was answering a single Amen to a mourner’s kaddish when they attended a funeral. For yet another, maybe it was sitting at one’s grandparents’ seder and eating matzah.

If any Jew combines that one word, that one experience, with a step or a thought toward teshuva, then, as we read in the very next pasuk: 

אֶרְפָּא֙ מְשׁ֣וּבָתָ֔ם אֹהֲבֵ֖ם  נְדָבָ֑ה                                                                                                             

I will heal their affliction. I will take them back with love.

Devarim is unique, a Jewish king must write this book and keep it with him at all times. All of the Jews – men women and even infant children – gathered as a nation every seven years to hear it read aloud.   Even today some have the minhag to read the complete sefer on the eve of Hoshana Rabbah. Perhaps it is not solely because of its contents. Instead, maybe it is because its very name reminds us that every single Jew is a davar and not a davar rek. If every Jew can hold on to his or her davar and  bring it to Hashem – it would change the world!