Ha'azinu, Moshe's Farewell Poem

 

                   “The story of the Hebrew Bible as a whole…..is of a progressive withdrawal of divine intervention and the transfer of responsibility to human beings.” – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

In this week’s Parasha, Ha’azinu, Devarim (Deuteronomy) 32, Am Yisrael are about to enter the Promised Land. The desert era is nearing its end, and Moshe is at death’s door. From now on, they are on their own. Moshe knows them well. He has experienced their impatience, faithlessness, and dependence on him and, of course, on G-d. For forty years of wandering in the desert, they have been provided with food and water. For forty years their complaints were heard and addressed while they repeatedly demanded to return to Egypt when they lost trust in G-d.

Moshe, like any great leader, the magnificent teacher that he has been to them, is, naturally, worried about what lies ahead, a new land with unique and very different circumstances than what they have been used to.

These concerns prompt him to compose his final speech in the form of poetry which he delivers poignantly, reminding Am Yisrael of their unending Covenant with G-d. In a passionate fashion he enlists the heaven and earth as his eternal witnesses, hoping to provide Am Yisrael with the essential means to complete that hard, yet very important journey upon which they are about to embark.

There are two vital concepts which Moshe’s poem stresses. The first is the importance of memory. The second is what Rabbi Sacks refers to in the quote above as “G-d’s call to responsibility.” Retrospection is a crucial phase which should precede and eventually lead to accountability.

Moshe reminds Am Yisrael of the eminence of G-d and what He has done for His People. “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations; ask thy father, and he will declare unto thee, thine elders, and they will tell you” (32:7). He urges them to recall G-d’s dedication to them, “As an eagle that stirreh up her nest, hovereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her pinions” (32:11). “Is He not thy father that hath gotten thee? Hath He not made thee, and established thee?” (32:6)

And this is where accountability enters the equation. Rabbi Sacks echoes Moshe’s words, “G-d is our father,” says Sacks, “He made us and established us. But parents,” he adds, “cannot live their children lives.” At some stage, the umbilical cord that connects them to their parents needs to be cut off and they need to learn to live on their own. As Rabbi Sacks further suggests, when that time comes, parents “can only show them, by instruction and love, how to live.”

What, then, is a better way, than the Torah, to instruct Am Yisrael how to live a rewarding life?

Before he steers Am Yisrael to the Torah as the source of instruction and guidance, Moshe admonishes and warns them against expressing any future ingratitude to G-d in return for all the good He has done for them. “But Yeshurun [poetic name for Yisrael] waxed fat, and kicked—thou didst wax fat, thou didst grow thick, thou didst become gross—and he forsook G-d who made him and contemned the Rock of his salvation” (32:15).

After a long sequence of the words and terms of the Covenant, reproof, encouragement and blessing, Moshe concludes his words and directs Am Yisrael towards the Torah, its laws and moral code, all of which were given to them, not for G-d’s sake but for their sake. The Torah is the way to enjoy a good and long life, he reminds them. Following its guidelines will help them in shaping their own destiny and ensure that they remain free, the fundamental desire of every human being.

“But with freedom comes responsibility,” concludes Rabbi Sacks.

And that is the ultimate message of Moshe’s final song.

May we all savour the gift of Life and enjoy a meaningful, productive, and fulfilling life in the coming year and always.

 

Pesach

As Jews around the world prepare for the Pesach Holy Day, perhaps it is time to rethink the message and lessons of this very significant and meaningful celebration in our history.

The Hebrew word Pesach means “Pass over.” It is derived from the Book of Shemot (Exodus), 12:7 where the Torah recounts the story of the ten plagues brought upon the Egyptians following Pharaoh’s refusal to “let my people go.”

When G-d was about to inflict the Egyptians with the tenth plague, smiting their first born sons, He told Moses to instruct the Congregation of Yisrael to mark their doorposts with lamb’s blood so that G-d could “pass over” their homes and spare them.

Subsequent to G-d’s wonderous work,  the Congregation of Yisrael was finally freed from slavery, at least the physical kind. Freedom and liberation, however,  as we all know, is not confined merely to unshackling the corporeal chains of bondage. It also involves ridding oneself of the obsequious and submissive mindset so emblematic to those who have been oppressed for a long period of time.

In order to better understand this point, allow me to go back to that verse in Shemot where Moses pleads with Pharaoh to “let my people go.”

That Hebrew verse, to be precise, does not use the term “let” or “free.” Rather, it says “send my people.” (Another unfortunate result of the disastrous mistranslation of our Tanach!) For me, the verb “send” implies a deliberate act with a specific destination, a much more powerful and calculated design by G-d. It was the first step towards becoming a free people, physically, spiritually, culturally and nationally. Not an easy mission for a nation that had been suppressed, abused, isolated and on the verge of eradication, considering Pharoah’s own version of a “final solution” to the Hebrews.

Any slave, be it an individual, a group or a People would have welcomed with open arms such a ploy, it would seem. For who enjoys the status of slavery?

I can almost feel the excitement of Benei Yisrael as they rush to bake their Matzah, pack their belongings, and prepare themselves for their destiny. I can see them gathering their flocks, children and preparing for the great occasion, their deliverance.

Unfortunately, the excitement seemed to have worn off rather fast. Once they realized the hardships ahead of them, they began to miss the slavery routine in Egypt.

Suddenly, the “house of Bondage” did not seem that bad. Moreover, it had swiftly turned into a house of luxury and plentiful, the idyllic place. “If only we had died by G-d’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and fish and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Shemot 16: 2-4)

The Yisraelites may have been freed from physical bondage. They were still, however, inflicted with an emotional and spiritual one, one that had been imposed upon them and their forefathers for a few hundred years.

G-d had, naturally, expected it. He knew that one cannot become free merely by removing physical shackles.  It is, therefore, I believe, that He instructed Moses to wander in the desert for forty years, when a brief overview of the map of the region shows that the route to the Promised Land could have been cut shorter.  Forty years is the approximate life span of a generation.

The slavery generation had to die off, it had to remain in the desert before Am Yisrael could live a free and fulfilling life in its ancestral Homeland. The younger generation had to be coached and prepared to run and oversee its own life without the daily pressure of persecutors.

Fast forward to our times. Has much changed?

It is only seventy years ago, with the establishment of the state of Yisrael, when the Jewish people were liberated from the House of Bondage called Galut (Diaspora). The Galut and its reality indoctrinated Jews to a submissive mentality, the kind that forced us to seek the approval and love of others. Jews were mental slaves.

Unfortunately, some of our people have not yet shed that mindset. They continue to seek endorsement of the nations. They are desperately needy of Love and acceptance and consider the support of strangers the “pots of meat and fish and ate all the food.” Have we forgotten the suffering we endured because of that very long chapter in our history?

My concerns and my questions are, if it took Moses forty years to rid the Yisraelites of a few hundred years old slavish Galut mentality, how long will it take the Jewish state and nation to rid some of its members of a two millennia old one?

How long will it take all of us to Pass Over the threshold from the slave disposition to that of a Free Nation, the kind G-d had intended us to be?

May we all have a meaningful Pesach, full of the celebration of Life and Freedom.