The Root of Evil - Parshat Nitzavim

(9) You stand this day, all of you, before the Eternal your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, (10) your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer— (11) to pass into the covenant of the Eternal your God, which the Eternal your God is forging with you this day, with its sanctions; (12) to the end that God may establish you this day as God's people and be your God, as God promised you and as God swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (13) I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, (14) but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Eternal our God and with those who are not with us here this day.

(15) You know well that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we passed through the midst of various other nations; (16) and you have seen the detestable things and the fetishes of wood and stone, silver and gold, that they keep. (17) Perchance there is among you some man or woman, or some family or tribe, whose heart is even now turning away from the Eternal our God to go and worship the gods of those nations—Perchance there is among you a root sprouting gall and wormwood. (18) When such a one hears the words of these sanctions, he may fancy himself immune/blesses himself within his heart, thinking, “I shall be safe, though/because I follow my own willful heart”—to the utter ruin of moist and dry alike. (19) The Eternal will never forgive him; rather will the Eternal's anger and passion rage against that man, till every sanction recorded in this book comes down upon him, and the Eternal blots out his name from under heaven. (20) The Eternal will separate them out from all the tribes of Israel for misfortune, in accordance with all the sanctions of the covenant recorded in this Torah scroll.

I will follow my own willful heart... - This comes after the mention of the very serious sin of idolatry. Then it says, "whose heart is even now turning away..." and then describes this in the language of evil and bitterness, as it says, "perhaps there is among you a root sprouting gall and wormwood."

This is a man at whose core lies a deterioration of the fundamentals and features which are the very essence of our Torah. When he hears all of this - all the particulars of the covenant, and the specifics of the commandments, covering various topics - some of which have their reasons explained, and some that the intellect cannot grasp, for the source of God's wisdom is blocked from him - then he prays to himself, saying, “Look, the truth is, there are many commandments that we are baffled by. My heart struggles to understand them, and I find myself in constant battle and conflict. Sometimes I am able to bring myself to observe them, and sometimes I cannot. For they are things that reason does not seem to require, and I am unable to grasp their purpose. Therefore, I will only follow those which make sense to my heart and to my intellect, and what my conscience tells me is truly reasonable. And thus, I will have peace, free from internal conflict. For when I do only those things that seem reasonable and true, my soul will be content, and I will delight in them."

(12) The Eternal said: because they forsook the Torah that I had set before them, and did not heed My voice and did not follow it, (13) but instead followed their own own willful heart, and followed the foreign gods as their fathers taught them. (14) Therefore, says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to feed that people wormwood and make them drink gall-water.

(1) I am the man who has known affliction under the rod of God's wrath; (2) God drove on me and on, in unrelieved darkness; (3) On none but me God brings down God's hand, again and again, without cease. (4) God has worn away my flesh and skin and has shattered my bones. (5) All around me God has built misery and hardship; (6) God has made me dwell in darkness, like those long dead. (7) God has walled me in and I cannot break out; God has weighed me down with chains. (8) And when I cry and plead, God shuts out my prayer; (9) God has walled in my ways with hewn blocks, has made my paths a maze. (10) God is a lurking bear to me, a lion in hiding; (11) God has forced me off my way and mangled me, has left me numb. (12) God has bent God's bow and made me the target of God's arrows: (13) God has shot into my vitals the shafts of God's quiver. (14) I have become a laughingstock to all people, the butt of their gibes all day long. (15) God has filled me with bitterness, sated me with wormwood.
(16) He has broken my teeth on gravel,
Has ground me into the dust. (17) My life was bereft of peace, I forgot what happiness was. (18) I thought my strength and hope
Had perished before the Eternal. (19) To recall my distress and my misery was wormwood and gall.