Parashat Vayelech / Shabbat Shuvah – Returning with Strength and Hope

Parashat Vayelech places us before Moses on the threshold of his farewell: a leader who knows he will not cross over, yet hands the people the map and the guide to interpret it—containing the essentials for building a future as a people. He acknowledges his limits and leaves behind as a legacy words, memory, and a song that we will read in a week. He does not enter the Promised Land, but he ensures that the journey does not stall. And he tells them: “Be strong and courageous! Do not fear or be dismayed before them” (Deuteronomy 31). Words that guided the people then, and that continue to resonate with us today. 

This Shabbat is special: Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of Return, falling between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. A time that invites us to return to our deepest selves: to shake the dust off our souls, to look at ourselves honestly, and to reconnect with who we most profoundly long to be. It is a Shabbat in which, as always, we pause from the week, but during these Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the ten days of repentance, we pause even within the process of Teshuvah itself, to ask whether our inner work is truly sincere.

This is why the Haftarah for this Shabbat, from the prophet Hosea, begins with “Shuva Israel!” – Repent, Israel!, a call and an invitation to awaken us if there is still something in our actions that needs correction.

Yet, while the calendar speaks of a new year, we continue to carry open wounds from October 7th. How can we truly perform Teshuvah when time seems stuck between a bleeding past and a future we have yet to build?

The Torah gives us a key: הַקְהֵ֣ל אֶת־הָעָ֗ם – “Assemble the people—men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities—so that they may hear and learn to revere God and observe faithfully every word of this Teaching” (Deuteronomy 31:12).

Before dying, Moses emphasizes the importance of community, of hakhel. Torah is not meant to be lived in isolation: it is realized in reciprocity, in responsibility for others, in a shared voice.

Our sages of blessed memory, Chazal, explain that the hakhel following the sabbatical year, Shnat Shmita, reflects collective Teshuvah: during the Yamim Noraim, God accepts individual repentance, but for the rest of the year, repentance is accepted only if it is communal (Rosh Hashanah 18a). They connect this to the peace that emerges from the Shnat Shmita, when the land rests and no one can claim, “Mine is mine”: the poor eat of what grows, and all share the same vulnerability. Equality opens the door to peace.

This message speaks to us powerfully today. Returning—Teshuvah—is not moving backward; it is returning to what makes us human. It is raising our voices against the rising antisemitism that threatens our existence and dignity. It is demanding the urgent return of all hostages and standing with their families. It is calling for an end to a war that devastates lives and futures on all sides.

Teshuvah cannot remain only personal: we must ask ourselves what we will do as a community, as a society. If we choose to come together rather than isolate ourselves, if we listen to diverse voices, if we make space for those left off our human map, then we can build shalom.

Perhaps the return begins by broadening what we understand as the “Promised Land”: not just a territory, but a human horizon—the possibility to live with dignity, to transmit memory without being imprisoned by it, to rebuild together the sukkah hanofelet, the fragile hut of peace that seems to have collapsed before our eyes.

In the Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after meals and festivals, we add: “Harachaman hu ya’kim lanu et Sukat David hanofelet” – “Merciful God, restore the sukkah of David that has fallen.”

Let us rebuild a sukkah of peace. For all.

This Shabbat Shuvah, between what is new and what repeats, between wound and desire, let us remember the mandate: Jazak ve’ematz – Be strong and courageous. May our strength lie in choosing life, solidarity, and justice. May our return be a pursuit of hope and shared humanity.

Shabbat Shalom Umevorach. Leshanah Tovah Tikatevu Vetechatemu.

Have a peaceful and blessed Shabbat. May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

Rabbi Gustavo Geier