A Knowing Heart - Parshat Nitzavim

These are the terms of the covenant which the Eternal commanded Moses to conclude with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which God had made with them at Horeb.

Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: You have seen all that the Eternal did before your very eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his courtiers and to his whole country: (2) the wondrous feats that you saw with your own eyes, those prodigious signs and marvels. (3) Yet until this day the Eternal had not given you a heart to know (lev lada'at) or eyes to see or ears to hear.

(4) Hear, O Israel! The Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One. (5) You shall love the Eternal your God with all your lev and with all your soul and with all your might.

Know with your lev that the Eternal your God disciplines you just as a man disciplines his son.

The lev of the wise one makes his speech effective And increases the wisdom on his lips.

(5) At Gibeon the Eternal appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask, what shall I grant you?” (6) Solomon said, “You dealt most graciously with Your servant my father David, because he walked before You in faithfulness and righteousness and in integrity of lev. You have continued this great kindness to him by giving him a son to occupy his throne, as is now the case. (7) And now, my Eternal God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David; but I am a young lad, with no experience in leadership. (8) Your servant finds himself in the midst of the people You have chosen, a people too numerous to be numbered or counted. (9) Grant, then, Your servant an understanding lev, to judge Your people, to distinguish between good and bad; for who can judge this vast people of Yours?” (10) The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this.

(5) The Eternal saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his lev was nothing but evil all the time. (6) And the Eternal regretted that having made people on earth, and God's lev was saddened.

(3) But I will harden Pharaoh’s lev, that I may multiply My signs and marvels in the land of Egypt.

(28) But Pharaoh made his lev heavy this time also, and would not let the people go.

Fashion a pure lev for me, O God; create in me a steadfast spirit.

(26) And I will give you a new lev and put a new spirit into you: I will remove the lev of stone from your body and give you a lev of flesh;

(6) Then the Eternal your God will circumcise your lev and the lev of your offspring to love the Eternal your God with all your lev and soul, in order that you may live.

I was asleep, but my lev was awake. The sound of my beloved knocks! “Let me in, my sister, My darling, my purest dove! For my head is drenched with dew, My locks with the damp of night.”