Nitzavim

Nitzavim, Nitsavim, Nitzabim, Netzavim, Nisavim, or Nesabim (נִצָּבִים‎—Hebrew for "ones standing," the second word, and the first distinctive word, in the parashah) is the 51st weekly Torah portion (פָּרָשָׁה‎, parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the eighth in the Book of Deuteronomy. It comprises Deuteronomy 29:9–30:20 (Deuteronomy 29:10 onwards in some versions of the Hebrew Bible). In the parashah, Moses told the Israelites that all the people stood before God to enter into the covenant, violation of which would bring on curses, but if they returned to God and heeded God's commandments, then God would take them back in love and bring them together again from the ends of the world. Moses taught that this Instruction was not beyond reach, and Moses put before the Israelites life and death, blessing and curse, and exhorted them to choose life by loving God and heeding the commandments.

The parashah is made up of 2,123 Hebrew letters, 553 Hebrew words, 40 verses, and 72 lines in a Torah Scroll.^[1] Jews generally read it in September or, rarely, late August or early October, on the Sabbath immediately before Rosh Hashanah.^[2] The lunisolar Hebrew calendar contains 50 weeks in common years, and 54 or 55 weeks in leap years. In some years (for example, 2025), Parashat Nitzavim is read separately. In other years (for example, 2023, 2024, 2026, and 2027), Parashat Nitzavim is combined with the next parashah, Vayelech, to help achieve the number of weekly readings needed. The two Torah portions are combined except when two Sabbaths fall between Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot and neither Sabbath coincides with a Holy Day.^[3] In the standard Reform prayerbook for the High Holy Days (מחזור‎, machzor), parts of the parashah, Deuteronomy 29:9–14 and 30:11–20, are the Torah readings for the morning Yom Kippur service, in lieu of the traditional reading of Leviticus 16.^[4]