We are about to enter into Rosh haShanah, and shabbat comes in on its coat-tails. So, while we are getting ready for the Jewish new year, and while there is still time, I want to take a moment to look at this week’s parsha (the Torah portion read on shabbat). It is called haAzinu.
HaAzinu means, “Your ears,” and is the first word of this week’s parsha. If you recall from the end of the previous parsha, Moshe (Moses) was teaching everybody a special song that is a testimony from haShem (god) to the children of Yisrael. Well, this parsha is that song, and it starts with the heaven’s being asked to give ear, and also for the land to listen to us as we sing this song of haShem’s. Immediately we see that this is a poetic piece as it continues by saying that the teaching will flow like rain and the saying like dew. It continues talking about the perfection of god while his children are imperfect and unappreciative, and a request for each generation to reflect on the past and to talk to the elders.
The song continues telling how haShem separated each nation to a place in the world, and how she found a wilderness for his people, Yaakov (Jacob), which he enlightened and she protected them and acted to them like an eagle with its children and gave them things like honey from a rock and Y’shurun got fat and scorned his god by getting involved with other gods and ignoring his god. God responded by hiding herself from them, and as they made god jealous with non-gods, so they would become jealous of those who are not a nation. Along with this, god would make life difficult for them, and disperse them with the only thing keeping them alive is that the other nations would think they, and not god, had destroyed them.
We get a poetic list of things that will be for the people until they wonder why the gods they give offerings to are not doing anything; until they realize there is no other god, and this god can kill and resurrect, wound and heal. The song continues with talk of judgement and repaying those who hate god and avenging the blood of her servants and atoning for his land and her people.
And this is how the song ends. We learn that Moshe, along with his replacement, Hoshaya (Joshua), son of Nun, spoke this song to the people. After they taught the people the song, Moshe tells the people to pay attention to these words of testimony and to command their children to follow the words of this Torah because it is not an empty thing, it is their life and the thing that will prolong their days on this promised land.
God then tells Moshe to climb a mountain where he can see the land and where he will die after which he will be gathered to his people just like Aharon his brother was.
Quite a parsha and quite a song, don’t you think? And, I am not anywhere close to doing justice to it. I do look forward to the day that my Hebrew is good enough to extract all the hints and allusions out of it, because to me, this parsha is THE PARSHA of this Torah.
What do I mean?
Well, I think what Moshe says in D’varim (Deuteronomy) 32:46-47 sums it up. What he says is, “Pay attention to all the things that I am testifying in you today, that you will command your children in it to guard and do all the things of this Torah.” That verse, 46, is the buildup. Here is the punch. Verse 47 reads, “Because it is not an empty thing from you, because it IS your life and in this thing you will increase your days on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to settle.”
In other words, this is not just some fancy, but irrelevant book. It is not a book for scholars and the intelligentsia or the academics. Rather it is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK because it contains the secrets to life and to living on this sacred land.
Now I don’t like to get into current politics in these mailings, but when I read this, I couldn’t help but think of the Palestinians. Verse 32:21 reads, “They made me jealous with a non-god, angered me, and their foolishness; I will make them jealous with a non-nation nation, a villain, I will anger them.” Tell me this is not happening (by the way, I am not saying the Palestinians are villains so much as they are being portrayed that way), and if it is happening, then are we not also being told why it is happening (that we are making haShem jealous with non-gods)?
Therefore, if we want to change the situation with them, is it not clear that we need to stop focusing on non-gods and put our attention towards haShem?
Let’s get out of the current affairs part of our program and back into the real meat (my apologies to your vegetarians out there) part of our program. As I said above, I see this parsha containing the secrets to how to live. Specifically I see this single parsha as haShem telling us how he plans to interact with us, her creation and his children. First she is going to make himself known as perfect and just and righteous (this word, tzadik, is a keyword and means so much more that righteous; I wish I could go into it. Suffice to say that it includes knowing the absolute justice, and then taking into account the situation and the people involved – compassion if you will), while she created us as imperfect. It is good to know we are not perfect, and the master of the game of life is perfect.
To put it in a sports analogy, I might not like a referee’s ruling when it goes against me, but the ruling doesn’t bother me if I know it is the correct call. However, when the referee makes an incorrect call against me, then I really get upset, especially if I lose the game because of it.
So, now that we have perfection taken care of, we can go on . God tells us that we need to contemplate history, and work with our elders if we really want to be connected to the divine.
How many of us do whatever we can to avoid dealing with our parents or grandparents because they are a pain? Well, guess what? HaShem is saying they are key to appreciating divinity, and that we can learn so much from them. My father died over 25 years ago, and let me tell you, there are so many things I wish I could ask him or talk to him about today.
Jumping a little, as I don’t want this to get to long, we come to the place where god talks about being like an eagle hovering over the nest. Interesting the verb to hover here is y’rachef which is the masculine form of the same verb we find in the second verse of the Torah. There god is hovering over the waters she has just created, however the verb there is m’rachefet, which is feminine. The connection, outside of god having both male and female aspects is that god hovers over its creation. Here, in our parsha, god is hovering over us, his young, spreading his wings and carrying us. This is giving us another hint on how god interacts with us.
God takes us out of our safe place and soars with us, letting us glimpse more than we think we can handle. However if we trust that haShem alone is running the show, we can go to the highest places and she will provide honey and oil from rocks and milk and fat animals and fat grains and wine. In other words, life will be great.
However, the song tells us that one of the imperfections we are built with is that as we get fat, dumb, and happy, we will explore the ways of strangers and bite the hand that feeds us. And as we have learned, god is a god of justice, and will react accordingly.
What this means is that, when things are going well, we need to keep focused on what we are doing, and not get caught up in what others are doing. When things are going bad, rather than pointing at things beyond our control, at what others, are doing, all we need to do, is look at what we are doing and thinking and see where we have inserted a false force in between us and god.
As I said, there is so much here, and I could go on and on. But we have Rosh haShanah coming tomorrow night, and I don’t want all of our preparation time to go into reading this. So, I will end here, with a wish that we can find haShem lurking in all the shadows of this new year, and that we trust in her enough to soar to heights we have never imagined – the highest heights!
If you want to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.