Torah Posting: האזינו
The Torah contains a few sacred songs. They’re clearly in a different style from the main text, and they tend to get an introduction in regular prose before the flowery verses start. The text is laid out on the page to give it more compositional structure rather than flowing as regular paragraphs. The two major ones are the Song at the Sea, which is part of parashat בשלח, and the majority of parashat האזינו, which is the conclusion of Mosheh’s final address to the people and the penultimate section of the Torah.
Mosheh’s final song is addressed to the heavens and the land themselves. It is a song of praise to God, holding up God as the truest and most just and most deserving of faith, which throws into contrast the faithlessness of people’s imperfect behaviors. The song implores people to remember who created them and do better. I want to implore the singer to remember in whose image these imperfect people were created.
When Mosheh shifts to singing about God’s people as a whole, it becomes clear that the operative layer of this tumultuous relationship is the collective. It talks about the people Yisra’el and God like parent and child — eagles, in fact — and how God nursed the people from infancy into maturity. It describes the people’s rebelliousness and straining almost as a natural part of growing up. And this makes God mad, and God becomes rebellious against them, too. Maybe God and the people really are images of each other.
The song shifts into a prophetic tone, actually from God’s perspective, describing how all this will play out. The people will be nearly ruined, and then God and the people will remember each other and redeem one another. It ends with an ominous promise that this will be done by violent, vengeful means.
The song is beautiful. I left that part for you to read straight from the source. But it has that scary geopolitical tone that will become the hallmark of the later books of the prophets. And indeed, the rest of human history — and Jewish history, in this land and everywhere else the children of Yisra’el would wander — would turn out a lot like how all this sounds.
So is this prophecy? Is the prophecy self-fulfilling? Or is this how the world looks to an aged leader who will not live to see what future generations do in the face of such warnings?
The song complete, Mosheh gives one final teaching: Take all these words to heart. Teach them to your children. Observe them faithfully. It will be the key to thriving in the land you are about to enter.
Then God speaks to Mosheh, telling him to ascend a mountain overlooking the land, where he will die and be gathered to his kin as his brother, Aharon, was. God reminds him that this will happen because of his breaking faith with God and striking the water-giving rock out of frustration. “You may view the land from a distance,” God says, “but you shall not enter it.
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