Ha'azinu: What's Your Torah?
Here we are in Parashat Ha’azinu, the second to last Torah portion and Moses’s final song.
In it, Moses calls on nature—heaven and earth—as witnesses, and uses imagery of rain, dew, rock, desert, and eagles’ wings. In the very last parsha, V’zot HaBerachah, Joshua will become Moses’s successor. In the ancient world, political leadership typically passed from an older relative to a younger relative - most often father to son. It was probably surprising to our ancestors that Joshua, and not one of Moses’s sons Gershom or Eliezer, would be leading the people.
Let’s take a look at some of this natural imagery, and also think a bit about God choosing Joshua to lead the people next.
The very opening of Ha’azinu is, “Give ear, O heavens” - Ha’azinu hashamayim - “and I will speak” - va’adaberah; “and let the earth” - v’tishma ha’aretz - “hear the words of my mouth” - eemray-fee. (Deuteronomy 32:1)
Moses invites the heavens and the earth, Creation itself, to become kind of a courtroom witness to the covenant between the People of Israel and God. That’s especially interesting because in just two chapters we will be back at the beginning of the Torah and reading about Creation - we’ll get back to that in a few minutes.
Then Moses says, “My teaching will fall as rain, my speech will be like dew; as the gentle rain on tender grass . . . .” (Deuteronomy 32:2)
Why do you think it is important to Moses that his teaching will be like “gentle rain” or be “like dew”?
Rabbah Dr. Mira Neshama Weil teaches that maybe Moses wants his teaching to be life-giving and refreshing, and not overwhelming. In a dry land, even a little dew or rain can revive grass, and seedlings. Too much rain will run off in a torrent and become dangerous. Rabbah Weil says maybe wisdom needs to be absorbed over time.
Moses doesn’t stop with hydrology - he doesn’t only talk about water, he’s also into geology and biology. He describes God as a rock, and later, he contrasts the harshness of some aspects of the desert wilderness with the protectiveness an eagle has for its young. God is “Like an eagle that rouses its nestlings, hovering over its young,” (Deuteronomy 32:11)
Imagine yourself among the Israelites who have been journeying through this desert wilderness for 40 years. Why might these images of God being like a rock or an eagle be powerful for the Israelites around you? Are they powerful for you?
Perhaps in some ways this tangible language of rain, rock, and eagle can help the people listening feel the relationship between God and the Israelites. A rock isn’t abstract. If it’s small, we can put it in our pockets and bring it with us. If it’s really big, we can climb on it - stand on it . . . or sleep on it.
Judaism offers us so many different ways to talk about and think about God. What are some of your thoughts about God right now?
Our ancestors spent a lot of time in that desert wilderness, and they also spent a lot of time telling and retelling stories of Abraham and Sarah traveling through the wilderness from Ur to Canaan, of Jacob running through the wilderness to a well and his uncle’s home, of Rebecca traveling by camel through the wilderness to marry Isaac, . . . we have so many stories that take place in the wilderness. The wilderness in our stories is often a place of testing, scarcity, abundance, danger, reliance, and resilience.
People in the Torah must prepare: dig wells, set up tents. At the same time, no matter how much they prepare, they can’t control the rain. In the wilderness, they have to learn faith and trust in themselves, each other, the environment, and God. Their lived world is a mirror for their spiritual reality. Nature is an essential component of the relationship between God and humanity.
Human responsibility and divine gift meet in the wilderness.
In the wilderness is where Moses sings us this song in Ha’azinu that says that:
God is like a rock - steady and dependable.
People aren’t always steady and dependable, but we should try to be.
We should remember where we came from, and
There are consequences to forgetting - things will fall apart.
God cares about us - even when we mess up.
We are supposed to pass it on.
Whatever you personally believe about God, what might Judaism be offering us - and what might Moses be offering us - by sharing these messages with us in this wilderness?
After the song, the Torah will remind us in V’zot HaBracha - the next Torah portion - that earlier in the Torah God instructed Moses to appoint Joshua as his successor. (Numbers 27:18-23). That means the leadership of the people will not pass to Moses’s sons.
All through Genesis, the role of family-leader was hereditary passing from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. Once the family becomes a nation - a People - the role of the nation-leader is not hereditary. “Hereditary” means passed from parents to their kids. Moses’s sons will always be known as Moses’s children, but they do not automatically get his job. In the Torah, God decided Joshua had the skills and personality necessary to lead the people next and told Moses to appoint him.
This also means Moses’s legacy is not a family dynasty.
His legacy is the Torah.
It is words.
And this Torah, and these words, are also ours.
On Simchat Torah we will read the very last words of the Torah, and then the very first.
The last: Kol Yisrael - all of (the People of) Israel . . . and then the first: Bresheet bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz - (when) God began to create Heaven and Earth. The ancient Hebrew doesn’t find its way smoothly into English and that raises a question.
What if the white space between Yisrael and Bresheet holds a different word?
What if the word it holds isn’t “when”?
What if it is “and”?
What if the connection between the end of the Torah and the beginning makes this:
“All of the People of Israel and God began to create Heaven and Earth.”
Then we remember what comes next:
Vayomer Elohim yehi or, va’yehi-or:
And God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)
For months we’ve been reading that God spoke to Moses and Moses spoke to the people. Word after word after word. In our story, God has been creating with words since the very beginning. First, God creates nature. Eventually God creates a Nation - a People. But time in Judaism, like our stories, doesn’t only move forward. We circle back. We spiral and cycle our way through time. We read the beginning as a continuation of the end.
And there is one more thing:
The very last letter of the Torah is lamed.
The very first is bet.
Together they make the word “lev” - heart.
What if the heart of our story, what if its very essence, is this “and” that we can feel in the white space between the words even though we don’t see it in the black ink? What if we and God have been creating the world together all this time?
The covenant isn’t between God and Moses, it includes all of us.
Words and Torah aren’t only Moses’s legacy, they are also our legacy.
If you asked the Heavens to “Listen in” and the Earth to hear your words, what would you say next? What are the words of Torah - divrei Torah - you bring to the world? If you were to share a D’var Torah, what would you want to say?
Shabbat Shalom.