Our two great poems: Haazinu 5785

Checking through our little pile of pending divrei Torah, we found that the Destiny Foundation had provided us this year not with one devar Torah for Shabbat Shuva (parshat Haazinu) but with two. This is the second one. Enjoy!

There are two major poetical songs that appear in the Torah. One is the great song of deliverance, which was the reaction of Moshe and the Jewish people to their being saved from the bondage of Egypt and the waters of Yam Suf. The other is that of this week's parsha, Haazinu. Moshe composed this too, at the end of the forty-year sojourn of the Jewish people in the desert of Sinai, at Moshe’s point of departure from life in this world.

The background of these songs is manifestly different, as is their tone. The song of Yam Suf is a song of exultation and triumph, expressing relief of deliverance from a brutal foe. But it is basically a poem of the past, of what has already just occurred, and an acknowledgment of God's previous goodness towards Israel. This week, in Haazinu the song is of a much darker hue. Visionary, prophetic and somber, it sees the great challenges of the future that lie before this people that Moshe so loved and loyally served. It is a song that will accompany the Jewish people throughout their long and tortured road of exile, persecution, survival and eventual triumph.

To our generation, standing as we do centuries after Moshe spoke these words, this is a clear and incisive description of what has happened to us and of our mission in the world. Haazinu reflects current events and not merely a recording of our past. Both of Moshe’s poems are essential to the development of Jewish life—but they each transmit a different message. The ability to live, so to speak, in the past and in the future at one and the same time is a particularly Jewish trait. The Jewish people have a long memory and collectively, even if not individually, we remember everything that has befallen us. Tragically, for many Jews of our time this memory has failed. For them, our story has been lost.

Only a minority of the Jewish world recites Moshe’s song at the Yam Suf in daily prayer services, and there are large numbers of Jews for whom deliverance from Egypt and the splitting of the sea at Yam Suf are no longer even distant memories. Forgetting the song of Yam Suf is tantamount to gradually excluding oneself from Jewish society. Forgetting the song of Haazinu is even more damaging to the individual Jew and to the nation. Those who live only in the present and do not glimpse the greatness of the future truly cut themselves off from participation in it.

The poem of Haazinu promises us repentance and redemption, serenity and a better world. Without this song, and without the belief that the vision it contains is accurate and true, the Jewish people could never have survived the long night of our exile and troubles. This song was “to be placed in their mouths” as the witness for all our history and a valid proof of the just entitlements of our future. Our task is to rededicate ourselves to fulfill the goals of this great song of Haazinu in the year before us, which we hope and pray will be good and blessed.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

Ha'azinu set to music

Besides Rabbi Berel Wein's divrei Torah, we can also share with you Max Stern's Ha'azinu. This piece lasts around half an hour and Max -- a leading Israeli classical composer and a long-standing member of Beit Knesset Hanassi -- is playing the double bass in it. 

The link is on YouTube is here.

Heaven and Earth, the eternal witnesses: Haazinu 5785

This week’s parsha outlines the special nature of Jewish history and all its events. Ramban, in the 13th century, comments that anyone who can, so many centuries earlier, accurately foretell the subsequent fate of a people must be an exceptional prophet. Moshe certainly fits that description since he passes this test: the parsha of Haazinu provides the proof. Now, more than 750 years after Ramban, we can add nothing to his words.

The rabbis of the Talmud ascribed the crown of wisdom to the one who has a vision of the future. Even though Moshe is the greatest of all prophets, his title amongst the Jewish people is “Moshe the teacher”. This indicates that he was able to translate both his wisdom and his knowledge into an ability to view the future.

In this week’s parsha Moshe lays down the basic template for Jewish history throughout the ages: the struggle to remain Jewish and not succumb to the blandishments of current cultures and beliefs, the illogical and almost pathological enmity of the world to Judaism and the Jewish people, the awful price paid by Jews throughout history and the eventual realization by Jews, and the non-Jewish world as well, that God guides us, as he has always done, through the passage of our lives. We may never know the precise particulars of our future but, if we want to know what lies ahead, we have only to read and study Moshe’s words. Given their remarkable prophetic force, it is no wonder that our children would traditionally commit this parsha to memory, for within it is recorded the entire essence of Jewish history.

Moshe calls heaven and earth as witnesses to the covenant and the historical fate of his people. Rashi explains that not only are they honest and objective witnesses but, most importantly, they are eternal, in contrast with human witnesses who, being mortal, will die. Later generations will not be able to hear their testimony and, even though current video technology seeks to correct this deficiency, much of the personal nuance and force which colors all human testimony is lost.

So we rely on heaven and earth to reinforce our belief and commitment to the eternal covenant. The very wonders and mysteries of nature point to the Creator. All human history rises to testify to the uniqueness of the Jewish story and the special role that wehave played, and continue to play, in human events. Much of the testimony of these two witnesses is frightening and worrisome—but it is even more frightening to be unaware of our past, and therefore of our course for the future. We should listen carefully to the parsha. It has much to teach us about our world and ourselves.

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein