Stop Blaming What You Can’t Control: A Lesson From Parashat Nitzavim

One of the most striking verses in Parashat Nitzavim is: “The hidden things belong to Hashem, our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to fulfill all the words of this Torah” (Deuteronomy 29:28).

What are the “hidden things,” and what are the “revealed things”? What does this verse teach us about responsibility, teshuvah, free will, and our relationship with Hashem?

Let us look at several explanations.

What Are the “Hidden Things”?

1. Rashi: What Is Hidden in Another Person’s Heart

Rashi explains the verse in the context of the preceding passages, in which the Torah addresses responsibility and mutual accountability, to the point that the entire community may bear responsibility for an individual’s sins.

Rashi writes: “And if you say, ‘What can we do? You punish the many for the private thoughts of one person... But no one knows what is hidden within another person, what is concealed in a friend’s heart.’ I do not punish you for the hidden things, which belong to Hashem, our God, and He will exact payment from that individual. But the revealed things belong to us and to our children: to remove evil from among us. And if we do not judge them, the many will be punished.”

The community is obligated to establish systems of education, law, and justice, and to remove evil from its midst, certainly when that evil is out in the open. If it does not, the community may pay the price. The hidden things, by contrast, belong to Hashem, our God. The community cannot know what is happening in the hidden chambers of an individual’s heart and therefore does not bear responsibility for it.

Rashi further emphasizes that even regarding visible sins, mutual responsibility applies primarily in the Land of Israel, the land that transforms us from individuals into one people and therefore makes us responsible for one another.

2. Ramban: Sins Hidden Even From Ourselves

Ramban explains the verse differently. It refers to two kinds of sins: the hidden things, sins committed unintentionally and hidden even from the person who commits them, and the revealed things, sins committed knowingly and deliberately.

We are called to account for actions done intentionally, but unintentional sins, those human failings hidden even from our own awareness, belong to “Hashem, our God.”

“For the hidden things are sins hidden from those who commit them, as in ‘Who can discern errors? Clear me of hidden faults’ (Psalms 19). It means: the hidden things belong to Hashem alone; we bear no guilt for sinning in them. But the revealed things, which are deliberate sins, belong to us and to our children forever, to fulfill all the words of this Torah.”

With these words, Ramban speaks in defense of those who sin unintentionally. According to his interpretation, a Jew who transgresses unintentionally will not be punished and is not considered someone who has broken the covenant.

This message underlies our prayers during the High Holidays, on Rosh Hashanah and especially on Yom Kippur. A central verse in the prayer is: “And the entire community of the Children of Israel, along with the stranger who lives among them, shall be forgiven, for all the people acted unintentionally” (Numbers 15:26).

3. When Hidden Actions Grow From Revealed Attitudes

There are hidden things in which a person is entirely unaware that they are doing something forbidden. But there are also hidden things that grow out of revealed things.

If I make a remark that hurts a friend, even without realizing it, it may stem from a generally flawed attitude toward that person. The same is true of commandments between a person and Hashem. Someone who desecrates Shabbat through actions they do not know are forbidden because they dismiss the importance of Shabbat is not truly included among the “hidden things.”

We are approaching Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, every person is judged as an individual, and the community is judged as a whole. One thing we must examine, both as individuals and as a community, is whether our revealed actions are good enough to prevent harmful hidden things from developing.

The word Elul is embedded in the verse: “The hidden things belong to Hashem, our God, and the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever.” It may seem like an obscure statement, but it contains an important principle: the distinction between what is hidden and what is revealed.

Teshuvah Begins With Personal Responsibility

4. Focus on What You Have the Power to Change

The commandment of repentance calls on a person to change and repair their ways. Yet an inner defensive voice often arises: “My actions are not my fault.” It was my luck. It was my flawed spiritual root. Someone gave me the evil eye. I grew up in a difficult environment. I experienced deprivation in childhood.

In this way, a person removes responsibility from their own shoulders and attributes their sins to hidden forces beyond their control.

This is the message of the hint: Leave the hidden things alone. They belong to Hashem.

We are not commanded to deal with them at all. Our obligation is to focus on the “revealed things”: visible actions, clear causes, and areas that are within our control and that we have the power to repair. Even if hidden things exist, they are not our concern.

One of the foundations of teshuvah is a deep recognition of personal responsibility for our actions, a recognition that grows out of faith in the free will we have been given.

This is also the meaning of confession. A person bravely stands before themselves and acknowledges that there is no one else to blame. Not fate, not circumstances, and not external forces. They take responsibility themselves.

At that moment, a person realizes that their will is free and that they have tremendous power to shape their life and their path. From this awareness, the way opens before them to return sincerely to Hashem and renew their life through freedom, responsibility, and repair.

The foundation of teshuvah, then, is taking full responsibility: If I am at fault, I am also responsible for making it right. We must not place the consequences of our choices on hidden forces.

True teshuvah grows from faith in free will. If I had the ability to cause harm, I also have the ability to repair it.

Indeed, the verse itself hints at this: “The revealed things belong to us and to our children... to do.” The purpose of engaging with what is revealed is action, movement, change, and doing.

Confession is therefore transformed from blame into repair: “I am at fault, I have betrayed, and therefore I can also repair and change.”

What Belongs to Us and What Belongs to Hashem?

5. Thoughts, Intentions, and Actions

The distinction between hidden and revealed things parallels the distinction between intentions and thoughts on the one hand, and actions and speech on the other.

Every person carries an inner world of thoughts and inclinations, some of them negative, but a person is not held accountable for the attraction to evil itself. It is human nature to have an animal soul that pulls in that direction.

Responsibility rests on what rises to the surface: actions, speech, and conscious thoughts that a person can prevent. “The hidden things belong to Hashem, our God,” while we bear full responsibility for the revealed things.

6. Only Hashem Knows What Is in a Person’s Heart

The hidden things are everything that takes place in the depths of the heart: thoughts, beliefs, doubts, and intentions. Even regarding transgressions committed in secret, no individual, society, or religious court has the authority to investigate or judge thoughts and hidden matters. Attempting to do so is dangerous and can lead to tyranny.

This is an area in which only Hashem judges, because only He knows the truth within the heart.

The revealed things are visible actions, practical conduct in society, and commandments whose observance can be seen. Here, the Torah places full responsibility on us, “on us and on our children.”

People have no authority to pry into the thoughts and hearts of others, only into visible actions. In this way, the Torah protects a person’s freedom of thought and inner belief. Jewish communal life is not based on policing ideas or coercing thought, but on education, personal example, and mutual commitment to visible actions.

7. The Things We May Never Understand

We often find ourselves facing questions and challenges about Hashem’s governance of the world, which can sometimes seem unreasonable or illogical from our limited perspective.

The verse offers an answer to questions like these. Everyone has their own role in the world.

“The hidden things,” meaning the ways in which Hashem governs the world, belong to “Hashem, our God.” They are beyond our understanding, and we are unable to fully comprehend them.

But the “revealed things,” the Torah and its commandments, are our responsibility. We are required to deepen our study and observance of them: “They belong to us and to our children forever, to fulfill all the words of this Torah.”

There are things we may never understand, and there are things we have the power and responsibility to change. The hidden things belong to Hashem. Our task is to focus on what He has placed in our hands.