Become Your Own Ladder: Moshe’s Powerful Message in Parashat Nitzavim

In Parashat Nitzavim, Moshe Rabbeinu opens his address with the words:

“You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, every man of Israel; your children, your wives, and the stranger who is within your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water.”

Moshe is 120 years old. He knows that this day, the seventh of Adar, is both his birthday and the day of his passing. When people approach the end of their lives, they often leave instructions for their children about their possessions, their wishes, or what should be done after they are gone.

Moshe Rabbeinu does speak about blessings and curses and gives the nation spiritual and practical guidance. But above all, on the final day of his life, he seeks to strengthen the Jewish people’s belief in themselves and in their ability to grow, succeed, and become better.

Significantly, Moshe addresses the entire nation: “every man of Israel,” from the heads of the tribes to the woodcutters. He believes in all of them.

A Leader Who Teaches His People to Stand on Their Own

The Torah continues: “For this commandment that I command you today is not hidden from you, nor is it far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it?’ Rather, the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.”

In these words, Moshe seems almost to anticipate the people’s fears as his leadership comes to an end. He was the leader who brought them out of Egypt, split the sea, and ascended Mount Sinai. Who would now bridge the gap between the spiritual and the physical for them? Who would serve as the ladder connecting heaven and earth?

Forty years after the Exodus, only hours before his passing and on the eve of the Jewish people’s entrance into the Land of Israel, Moshe does what a true leader should do: he prepares his people to stand on their own.

A genuine leader does not seek to magnify his own importance, but he seeks to strengthen his people and his students. In a certain sense, such a leader does not create dependence. He tries to transmit enduring values and enable the next generation to continue forward independently.

This idea appears in the writings of many thinkers. Near the end of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein writes that a person who has understood his propositions must eventually move beyond them, like someone who “throws away the ladder after he has climbed up it.”

A similar metaphor appears in Buddhist teachings, where a raft is abandoned once the river has been crossed. Friedrich Nietzsche expressed a comparable idea in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, telling his disciples: “Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves.”

Moshe Rabbeinu, whose burial place remains unknown to this day, sought to give his people the tools to continue growing without him. Unlike many political leaders throughout history who built magnificent monuments and tombs to preserve their presence even after death, Moshe rejected the cult of personality.

His legacy was not a monument to himself, but faith, guidance, education, and character.

The Tanya and the Belief That Change Is Possible

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad and known as the Alter Rebbe, received countless questions from his students and from people seeking personal guidance.

Because he could not respond individually to everyone, he decided to write a book that would serve two purposes. On the one hand, it would answer many practical and spiritual questions, while on the other, it would stand as a systematic work exploring the inner life of the soul and the foundations of faith.

In his introduction, he explains that the book contains teachings drawn from sacred books and teachers and that they address the many questions people regularly brought to him. Since he no longer had the time to answer each individual in detail, and since human memory is imperfect, he decided to record the answers for future use.

That work became known as the Tanya, named after its opening word, and also as Sefer Shel Beinonim, the “Book of the Intermediates.”

The Alter Rebbe does not use the word beinoni in the negative modern sense of mediocrity. Rather, the beinoni represents an ideal and attainable spiritual level for ordinary people.

Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz explains that the beinoni is a person who does not sin in action, speech, or conscious thought. His behavior is fully directed toward Torah and mitzvot. Yet the opposing forces within his inner world have not disappeared, and he continues to experience struggle.

According to Rabbi Steinsaltz, this is one of the Tanya’s major innovations. Many works of ethics view such an intermediate state as temporary, something a person should eventually leave behind. The Tanya presents the beinoni differently: as someone who may spend a lifetime engaged in an inner struggle toward holiness. In this sense, the Tanya is a book for everyone.

On its title page, the Alter Rebbe chose to place the very verse from Moshe’s final address: “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.”

Rabbi Steinsaltz explains that this verse is the motto of the entire book. It expresses two essential ideas: first, that what is required of a person is possible; and second, that spiritual closeness is genuinely within reach.

The central message is profoundly optimistic. A person can act, change, and grow. More than that, he can reshape his inner world, his speech, his feelings, and the structure of his soul.

“Work and Believe”

At the beginning of the twentieth century, artist and educator Professor Boris Schatz founded the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem, named after the biblical artisan Bezalel ben Uri.

During World War I, Schatz was exiled from Jerusalem by the Ottoman authorities. During that difficult period, when hope was scarce, he wrote the utopian novel The Rebuilt Jerusalem. Written long before the establishment of the State of Israel, when Jerusalem was far from flourishing and certainly not under Jewish sovereignty, the book presents an inspiring and almost prophetic vision of a future Jerusalem restored and developed.

At the beginning of the novel, Schatz imagines a conversation between the discouraged protagonist and Bezalel ben Uri.

The protagonist says: “My teacher and master, I am tired, weak, and alone. I have no brother’s hand to support me. No one believes in my work. Even I myself am beginning to doubt my strength. Doubt is consuming my heart.”

Bezalel answers: “Be strong and courageous... Faith! That is the secret of success.”

He then describes a future in which the Jewish people will return from exile and rebuild their land. When the protagonist asks whether he will live to see it, Bezalel responds firmly: “It is not your responsibility to complete the work, but neither are you free to withdraw from it. Work and believe.”

“Work and believe” is a powerful message of hope. Like modern slogans such as “Just Do It” or “Yes We Can,” it presents a difficult but achievable task.

This is also what Moshe Rabbeinu is trying to awaken within the Jewish people. For forty years, they had been accustomed to being led, supported, and protected in miraculous ways. Now Moshe wants to break through that passivity and instill within them the belief that they themselves are capable of accomplishing great things.

A person can become, in the language of Yaakov’s dream, “a ladder standing on the earth, with its top reaching heaven.”

Become Your Own Ladder

This idea recalls a famous teaching attributed to Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli. He said that after 120 years, he was not afraid that Heaven would ask him, “Why were you not Moshe Rabbeinu?” What he feared was being asked, “Why were you not Zusha?”

Why did you not become the person you had the potential to become? Why did you not fulfill your own mission? That is also the message Moshe seeks to implant in the hearts of the Jewish people. Spiritual greatness is not reserved for people who can reach the heavens or cross the sea. It does not depend on someone else doing the work for us. 

“It is not in heaven... nor is it across the sea.” Rabbi Yitzchak Arama explains the idea beautifully: prepare yourself so that the matter becomes very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart. You yourself can become the ladder that brings it down from heaven.

Moshe’s final gift to the Jewish people was therefore not dependence on a leader, but faith in their own capacity to grow. The Torah is close, the task is possible, and the ladder is not somewhere outside us. We are expected to become that ladder ourselves.

Dr. Roi Cohen holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Hebrew University. He is also an attorney and mediator, producer, director, and content creator.