AMEN

One Word. Two Mountains. A Lifetime of Choosing.

Parshat Ki Tavo

This Torah thought is dedicated to the memory of our fallen soldiers:

Ephraim ben Liat v’Shmuel; Yosef Malachi ben Dina v’David; Eliyahu Moshe Shlomo ben Sarah v’Shimon; Yosef Chaim ben Rachel v’Eliyahu; Netanel ben Revital v’Elad; Yakir Yamin ben Chaya v’Yehoshua; Ron ben Sara v’Kenny; Harel ben Yonat v’Shlomo

May their memories be a blessing, and may the Torah learned in their memory be an aliyah for their holy neshamot.

A Land That Requires My Voice

Ki Tavo brings us to ארץ זבת חלב ודבש—a land flowing with milk and honey. This beautifully descriptive phrase, coming from deep within Moshe's heart, appears again and again. This is the land promised to our ancestors, the land toward which the entire Torah has been moving.

As Moshe prepares the people to enter this land of abundance, he asks them to speak.

When a farmer brings his first fruits, he must say the following:

וְעָנִיתָ וְאָמַרְתָּ לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֶי

ךָ: אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי...

“You shall respond and say before Hashem your God: ‘An Aramean sought to destroy my father…’”

He must tell his story.

And only then:

וְעַתָּה הִנֵּה הֵבֵאתִי אֶת רֵאשִׁית פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה

“And now, behold, I have brought the first fruit of the land.”

Know where you came from.

Later, after distributing the tithes, the Torah again requires speech:

וְאָמַרְתָּ לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ... עָשִׂיתִי כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתָנִי

“You shall say before Hashem your God…I have done everything You commanded me.”

Know what you have done.

And then the person asks:

הַשְׁקִיפָה מִמְּעוֹן קָדְשְׁךָ... וּבָרֵךְ אֶת עַמְּךָ אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֵת הָאֲדָמָה

“Look down from Your holy dwelling…and bless Your people Israel and the land.”

Know what you are asking for.

After Israel crosses the Jordan, the nation will stand on two mountains, Har Gerizim and Har Eval. The Levi'im will proclaim the terms of the covenant, and again and again the entire nation will answer.

אָמֵן.

Moshe is giving Israel language:

Where did I come from?

What have I done?

What do I need?

What am I willing to stand behind?

Why does entry into the land of milk and honey require Israel, again and again, to find its voice?

What Does Amen Mean?

The Gemara in Shevuot gives one small word remarkable weight:

אָמֵן — בּוֹ שְׁבוּעָה, בּוֹ קַבָּלַת דְּבָרִים, בּוֹ הַאֲמָנַת דְּבָרִים.

Amen contains an oath, acceptance, affirmation, and faith.

When the Gemara looks for the source of קבלת דברים—accepting the words, it brings the Amen of Ki Tavo:

וְאָמַר כָּל הָעָם אָמֵן.

"Amen" means "I have heard these words. I receive them. I place myself inside them."

That makes Amen a word of profound integration.

Living divided from ourselves brings enormous pain. We say what will please, shape our words around how we need to be perceived, and perform the version of ourselves that will receive approval. Our mouths say one thing while another truth lives quietly trapped inside.

Amen shares a root with the Hebrew word נאמן—ne'eman, "faithful."

Be ne'eman to yourself.

Let the words that leave your mouth be faithful to you. There is nothing more healing than the moment when inner truth, spoken words, and lived actions begin to belong to the same person.

Amen.

Where does a human being learn that kind of faithfulness? How do we become ne'emanim—people whose words can be trusted, even by ourselves?

Before Amen, There Was an Omen

Forty years earlier, Moshe used an extraordinary image to describe his relationship with Israel.

Overwhelmed by the responsibility of carrying the nation, he cries out to God:

הֶאָנֹכִי הָרִיתִי אֵת כָּל הָעָם הַזֶּה אִם אָנֹכִי יְלִדְתִּיהוּ כִּי תֹאמַר אֵלַי שָׂאֵהוּ בְחֵיקֶךָ כַּאֲשֶׁר יִשָּׂא הָאֹמֵן אֶת הַיֹּנֵק

“Did I conceive this entire people? Did I give birth to them, that You say to me, "Carry them in your bosom as the omen carries the nursing child"?

Israel is the יונק—yonek, the nursing child.

Moshe is the אֹמֵן—omen, the faithful caregiver who nurses the child.

Before we can become faithful, we experience faithfulness.

Someone holds us, feeds us, hears us.

Someone's words and actions prove reliable.

A child experiences this consistency until something that once existed outside begins to take root inside:

Emunah.

Faithfulness becomes internalized.

The omen carries the yonek so that one day the yonek will be able to stand and speak for himself.

And then the omen's role must change.

Moshe will not enter Eretz Yisrael. After forty years of carrying this nation, he spends the final book of the Torah preparing Israel to live without him.

Moshe can teach Israel the words, but he cannot speak them for Israel.

He describes the ceremony at Har Gerizim and Har Eval, but he will never stand there with them. Yehoshua, the leader of an adult nation, will now be their guide.

The אֹמֵן—omen leaves before the nation says:

אָמֵן — Amen.

The linguistic connection between these words is real; the developmental connection is my interpretation. But the image is difficult to miss.

The caregiver who carried the nursing child has brought the child as far as he can and should.

Now Israel must cross the Jordan.

Who will we become when the voice that carried us for forty years falls silent and we must finally answer for ourselves?

Two Mountains

Israel crosses the Jordan and travels into the heartland of the country. There, with Yehoshua, the people stand on two mountains:

Har Gerizim.

Har Eval.

At first, the division can feel disturbing. One mountain is associated with blessing; the other with curse. Why should anyone have to stand on the “wrong” mountain?

But everyone participates.

Everyone answers.

The Torah has created a physical landscape of communication and brit.

There are two mountains because a mature relationship contains complexity. There is sweetness and responsibility, abundance and consequences.

There are moments when ארץ זבת חלב ודבש—the land flowing with milk and honey—seems to glow before us. And there are moments when the second mountain looks very dark and real.

The Torah places both mountains squarely inside the Land, exactly where our side of the dialogue, our words, and our agreement will become essential.

And then the people shout.

Amen.

The child once carried by the omen now stands inside the Land and answers for himself.

What kind of word can hold two mountains at once without splitting the relationship — or ourselves — in two?

Amen Is Integration

This is the extraordinary power of Amen.

Amen holds the whole relationship.

I affirm.

I accept.

I commit.

I will be faithful to the words I have spoken.

The Kabbalistic tradition adds another dimension.

The numerical value of אמן — Amen is 91. The Divine Name י־ה־ו־ה has the numerical value 26, and אדנ־י has the numerical value 65. Together they equal 91.

Amen therefore becomes a word of ייחוד—yichud, unification: bringing together dimensions of Divine reality.

The two Names represent two dimensions of our relationship with God. י־ה־ו־ה points to the God who was, is, and will be—the One who holds the entire arc of time, our past, present, and future. אדנ־י points to God's direct presence and involvement in the material world, the God we address within the circumstances of daily life.

Amen joins these dimensions. It allows me to stand inside my history and my future while speaking to God here, now, in the world I actually inhabit. I know where I come from and where I am going, and I know that I am in daily communication with my Creator.

Amen gathers what can become fragmented:

God's word and my response.

My past, present, and future.

My inner truth and my spoken word.

Heaven and earth.

"Amen" is the language of integration.

God has spoken. Moshe has taught. Now I answer.

Amen.

Could this be the inner capacity required to truly experience a land flowing with milk and honey?

Learning to See Milk and Honey

Ki Tavo repeatedly calls this place ארץ זבת חלב ודבש — a land flowing with milk and honey.

The Torah insists upon its goodness.

At Bikkurim, after the farmer has remembered his history, recognized the gift, and brought his first fruit, the Torah says:

וְשָׂמַחְתָּ בְכָל הַטּוֹב אֲשֶׁר נָתַן לְךָ ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ

“You shall rejoice in all the good that Hashem your God has given you.”

Later, in the tochacha, comes one of the most painful lines in the parsha:

תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר לֹא עָבַדְתָּ אֶת ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ בְּשִׂמְחָה וּבְטוּב לֵבָב מֵרֹב כֹּל

“Because you did not serve Hashem your God with joy and goodness of heart, from an abundance of everything.”

מרב כל — from abundance.

The abundance was there.

Yet abundance and the experience of blessing are not the same thing. Ki Tavo asks whether we can become integrated enough to recognize the good we have been given.

Perhaps that is where simcha begins.

If recognizing blessing requires an ongoing relationship with the life we have been given, could one Amen shouted from two mountains ever be enough?

Today

I think about this every time I speak to my grandson Tov-Roee.

I tell him:

“Savta loves you TODAY.”

I want him to know that I choose him today, that I update my love every day.

Now he knows exactly what comes next. I tell him Savta loves him, and he shouts back:

“TODAY!”

There is something I am trying to build inside him:

Today my words are reliable.

Today you are loved.

Today you are chosen.

Tomorrow, I will tell you again.

This may be how an omen creates emunah in a child.

Through repeated experiences of faithfulness, something begins to settle inside him:

Love can be trusted.

Our morning prayers describe God in a similarly present tense:

הַמְחַדֵּשׁ בְּטוּבוֹ בְּכָל יוֹם תָּמִיד מַעֲשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית

“Who, in His goodness, continually renews the work of Creation every day.”

בכל יום תמיד — every day, continually.

If creation itself is renewed today, what would it mean for me to renew my Amen today?

My Daily Amen

I am humbled by the privilege of living in Eretz Yisrael, and within that gratitude I increasingly feel the responsibility of Amen.

My ordinary days unfold inside the land Moshe called ארץ זבת חלב ודבש, a land flowing with milk and honey. Living here asks me to see the good, to express gratitude, to take responsibility, to be ne'emana, faithful to myself, to my words, to this Land, and to God, and to remain in daily communication with my Creator.

There are Gerizim days when Amen comes easily.

There are Eval days when it takes considerably more work.

Both mountains remain part of the landscape.

And that is precisely why Amen matters.

I believe that the national utterance of Amen was never meant to be frozen in time between two ancient mountains. Every profound relationship eventually asks to be chosen again in the present.

Where in my life am I being invited to become more faithful to the words I speak?

What goodness is already present that I am being asked to see?

And when I stand between my own Gerizim and Eval, what would it mean to answer consciously, gratefully, faithfully: Amen?

Maybe the answer needs to be renewed בכל יום תמיד—every day, continually.

Just as my grandson reminds me,

TODAY.

Amen.