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Why does Rosh Hashanah coincide with the new moon when it's barely visible? The shiur connects Parshas Nitzavim's unusual language about standing "nitzavim" with the Talmudic story of the moon's complaint to God. True Jewish leadership requires taking less than one's full entitlement, focusing on mission over honor.
This shiur examines several unusual linguistic features in Parshas Nitzavim and connects them to the deeper meaning of Rosh Hashanah. Rabbi Zweig begins by questioning why the Torah (תורה) unnecessarily enumerates specific groups ("your heads, your tribes, your sages") when it could simply say "all Jews," and why it uses the awkward construction "Atem nitzavim" (you are standing affixed) - a phrase that appears only four times in Tanach. The shiur then explores why King Dovid describes Rosh Hashanah as "bakeseh l'yom chageinu" - the holiday of the hidden moon. This leads to an analysis of the Talmudic story in Chulin 60b about the moon's complaint to God. Originally created equal to the sun, the moon protested that "two kings cannot share one crown" - arguing for the necessity of clear leadership. God's response was to make the moon smaller, which the moon viewed as punishment for offering intelligent criticism.
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Parshas Nitzavim 29:9-14
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Why does the Torah separate Avrohom's eulogy for Sarah from his crying for her? The shiur shows that Sarah required a public eulogy focused on the communal loss of a leader, not Avrohom's private grief. This teaches that we must view Jewish tragedies through a national lens first, seeing attacks on Am Yisrael as collective losses that dwarf personal concerns.
