You Have No Idea How Far One Mitzvah Can Go - Rabbi Shlomo Horwitz

You would not believe what I learned about parshas nitzavim. The Torah says hanistaros la'Hashem Elokeinu vaniglos lanu ul'vanenu ad olam. The hidden things belong to Hashem our God while the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever. What is meant by these nistarot, the hidden things? The Ramban explains that they include sins that are hidden even from the person who committed them. And he says you find this with David Hamelech who writes in Tehillim shigios miyavin nistaros nakeni. Hashem, cleanse me from hidden sins. But this is tough to understand. I mean, if I committed the sin then don't I know what I did? How can it possibly be hidden from me? I might prefer to forget it. I may refuse to admit it, but I know what I did. Rabbi Yitzchak Volozhin was one of the outstanding disciples of Reb Yosef Yozel Horowitz, the Alter of Novardok. He married the Alter's granddaughter who herself was the sister of Reb Chaim Shmulevitz, making them brothers-in-law. Sadly, in Tammuz of 1941, while delivering a shiur near Vilna, he was taken away together with his students and murdered by the Nazis. May this dvar Torah be a zchus for his neshama. Reb Volozhin asks this question, what are nistaros? How can I not know what I did? And he explains that the action might be known to us, but what remains hidden are its consequences. We know what we did, but we have no idea what we set into motion. The Gemara in Hagigah daf hey gives two examples. Kohelet says that Hashem will bring every deed into judgment. Al kol ne'elam, including everything that is hidden. What are examples of things that are hidden? Rav says it includes somebody who kills a bug in front of another person and disgusts the other person. He's disgusted with that. Shmuel says it includes somebody who spits in front of another person and disgusts that other person. But what's hidden about that? The guy knows what he did. He did it openly. Revalchin says the act is not hidden, the effects are hidden. Perhaps the other person becomes nauseated or develops a deep resentment toward the person who behaved so crudely. And that causes perhaps some hate in their heart. And if the person behaving that way is a Torah scholar, the witness may say, "If that's what Torah produces, I'm not sending my kid to a yeshiva." One careless, seemingly insignificant act can create consequences that go much farther than we ever could imagine and could last longer than we would ever imagine. And of course, the same is true in the other direction. If you smile at somebody who's struggling, you offer a kind word, you invite somebody for Shabbos, you show patience to a child, to you, it may be a tiny, forgotten moment, but you have no idea what you may have set in motion. That's also ne'elam. That's also nistaros. And this gives us a new way to understand maybe why we read Parshas Nitzavim right before Rosh Hashanah. Because in Rosh Hashanah, we stand before Hashem in judgment. But Hashem does not see our actions as isolated moments. He looks at the entire chain of events, cause and effect. We may remember the sharp comment we once made, but only Hashem knows how long the other person carried it. We may remember losing our temper with a child, but only Hashem knows what that child learned from that experience and how it affected them. These are the nistaros, the parts of our own lives that remain hidden even from us. It's very frightening, but it's also encouraging because the same is true of our good deeds. Because maybe your kindness gave somebody strength to keep going. Maybe your Shabbos invitation changed the direction of an entire family. You may never know, but Hashem knows. And that is the meaning of hanistaros lashem elokeinu. As we approach Rosh Hashanah, our responsibility is not to calculate every consequence. We cannot. Our responsibility is contained in the rest of the pasuk, vah-niglos lanu ul'vanenu. We have to take responsibility for what is visible to us, the choices we make, the examples we set, how we treat the people around us. What we do is visible, but where it leads, that remains hidden with Hashem. Wishing all of you a great Shabbos and a kesiva v'chasima tova.