This reflection has been through many revisions. Perhaps that is appropriate for this time of year. I began with the familiar Rosh Hashanah idea of taking stock. As a CFO, that language comes naturally to me: look honestly at the accounts, understand the assets and liabilities, reconcile what does not reconcile, and use what we learn to make better decisions about the future.

But as I kept writing, another question emerged. We are living through a period in which so much seems beyond our control. Israel is still at war. Families continue to carry the extraordinary burden of reserve duty. Antisemitism has returned with frightening intensity. Governments debate boycotts and sanctions against Israel, while Zionism itself is increasingly portrayed as morally illegitimate. Beyond Israel, we face the ordinary uncertainties of family, health, work, technology and ageing.

Faced with all this, where do we still have agency? By agency, I mean something quite simple: our ability to make choices and act on them, even when we cannot control the circumstances around us.

That distinction between control and agency has become increasingly important to me. We may not be able to determine the outcome, but we can still decide how we respond, where we put our energy and where we might make a difference.

That question seems to run through Nitzavim–Vayelech. The parsha begins, “Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem”—you are standing today, all of you. The Torah names leaders and elders, men and women, children and strangers, even the woodchopper and water-drawer. Later comes “U’vacharta bachayim”—choose life. And then comes Vayelech: Moses goes.

We stand. We choose. And then we move.

The kulchem—all of you—feels particularly important in Israel today. We are religious and secular, Haredi and national-religious, right and left, immigrants and native-born Israelis. We disagree passionately about what this country should become. The challenge is not to eliminate those differences but somehow to continue carrying responsibility together.

My son-in-law Aviad and the men of his tank company have served more than 400 days of reserve duty since October 7. He describes the company as a mosaic of Israeli society—religious and secular, centre and periphery, Hapoel and Beitar. They disagree about plenty, but when required, they stand together.

There is something very Nitzavim about that. It also makes the continuing inability of parts of our leadership, including Haredi leadership, to find a fair and sustainable way of sharing the burden of national service particularly troubling. Perhaps taking stock as a society requires asking not whether we........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)