Over רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah

Shabbat Shuvah ~ Parashat Ha'azinu
~ We are Designed to Listen ~

Deuteronomy 31;1-32:32 

By Rabbi Adam Ruditsky

     L’Shanah Tova!  Although different, I do hope everyone had a good Rosh Hashanah.  We are now in the days called the yamim noraim, the days of awe, a time when we take extra notice of ourselves and ask the hard questions that demand both chesbon hanefesh, inward reflection, and t’shuvah, outer correction.  It is a time in the Jewish liturgical calendar of self-betterment, spiritual refinement, and ritual involvement.  We hear on Rosh Hashanah in preparation for Yom Kippur the prayer Unetanneh Tokef, "Let us now relate the power of this day's holiness, for it is awesome and frightening,” a prayer that also includes the words, מִי יִחְיֶה וּמִי יָמוּת, “who will live and who will die.”  Here, we must realize that when we are dead we can no longer hear that inner-voice that moves us to act.  Saying that this is simply the arbitrary will of God misses the power of those words, instilling more fear rather than an awareness of life.
     This reminds me of a story about a Rabbi who was walking home late one night after giving a lecture at the village synagogue and was drawn by the light of a flickering candle in a window of the town's shoe repair shop.  When the Rabbi looked in he saw the shoemaker working tirelessly on shoes by the light of that same candle.  The Rabbi thought this was wrong, so he knocked on the door and rebuked the shoemaker saying, “how can you let this work dominate your life when at this time of night you should be home with your family.”  The shoemaker became the teacher and spoke to the Rabbi’s misjudgment saying, “as long as the candle burns, Rabbi, there is still time to mend.”  As long as the candle of our souls continue to burn we do live and have the opportunity to mend ourselves and the world around us.  Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of return. On Shabbat Shuvah we read Parashat Ha’azinu that begins by saying, “Give ear, O Heavens and I will speak, and may the earth hear the words of my mouth.”  The word Ha’azinu (הַאֲזִינוּ), “give ear,” is followed in the same verse by v’tishma (וְתִשְׁמַע) meaning to “hear,” the listener and the hearer are the heavens and the earth and not Moses and the people. What does this mean?  Ibn Ezra writes, “I have suggested that the human soul is a bridge between the spiritual and the corporeal,” the human neshama links the heavens and the earth together, allowing our physical self to listen to and return to our spiritual voices.
     Ha’azinu is understood to be a song of Moses who is calling upon heaven and earth to testify against Israel’s deeds, both for the good and the bad, but it is more than that, it is about the nature of Israel themselves. In the Midrash, from Deuteronomy Rabbah 10:4, Israel is considered to be both like the “stars of the sky,” but also the dust of the earth,” recalling Israel’s place in the physical world while in connection with God.  Ibn Ezra in saying that the neshama (soul) is the “bridge” between the spiritual and physical worlds that relates to the individual.  Moses was that soul according to that same Midrash.  Rabbi Samuel ben Nachman taught that Moses “held office in two provinces,” which he would unite as one.  Moses  “was born of earth but he became great in heaven,” understanding that each province was incomplete without the other, Moses calling “on both of them, the heavens and the earth.”  Looking back and the narrative of Adam and Eve, the first two people of God in Israel’s story, we learn that their role in the physical world was to care for Eden although it was compromised when they chose not to listen to their inner voice, their neshamot (souls), which was the bridge between heaven and earth.
     In that Midrash God responds by saying that the soul will find rest “under the Throne of Glory,” connecting the fullness of the neshama to heaven and earth alike.  In another Midrash, from Genesis Rabbah 1:4, we learn that there are six things that preexisted in heaven before the creation of the earth, those being the Throne of Glory (the place of God), Torah, Israel, the Patriarchs (and of course the Matriarchs), the Beit haMikdash (the Temple), and lastly, t’shuvah (repentance).  If humankind was created in God’s image (cf. Gen. 1:27), then humankind is “hardwired” to exist between heaven and earth just as was Moses.  Looking again at Adam and Eve we find that they broke their relationship between heaven and earth when they neglected their neshamot , but how?  Taking Torah and t’shuvah, which preexisted humanity that is created בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים (B’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God), humankind therefore exists in the physical world with an innate awareness of spiritual behavior and ethics within them.  Although another conversation, Adam and Eve were perhaps more guilty of the denial by “bearing false witness” to God and themselves (cf. Ex. 20:12), spurning the need for repentance that Jewish tradition affirms was created before the physical universe/world (Talmud, Nedarim 39b).  We are fashioned spiritually to lean toward t’shuvah, recalling the words of the Psalms that say, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Psalms 51:16-17).  Adam and Eve contained Torah and t’shuvah in their neshamot, and with both heaven and earth as their witnesses, they acted against each.
     Judaism in not a religion that focuses on sin and repentance, like Christianity, but during this season each year it does and is not bashful about doing so.  There is a story about Abraham who has a disagreement with his father about the power of idols.  In the story Abraham attempts to feed the idols wheat and when they cannot eat he smashes them to pieces. When he is confronted by his father Abraham tells him that the idols had a food fight, his father responded by saying that was impossible because idols do not live.  Abraham listened to his neshama that bridged heaven and earth, looking at the idols for what they were, idols of the physical world had no place in his spiritual one.  That is what it means, t'shuvah from the sin of the physical world to embrace the power of the spiritual one.  Back to Ha’azinu, Moses is led up to Mt. Nebo to look at a land he will not enter in the physical world, although like the Midrash taught “he became great in heaven.”  Shabbat Shuvah is a part of our physical world where we listen, v’tishma (וְתִשְׁמַע),  to “hear,” but it is a part of our spiritual world when we ask heaven to listen as well, ha’azinu (הַאֲזִינוּ), “give ear” to our neshamot (souls) that seeks t’shuvah.  We hear physically, because that is how we are fashioned, but during this time of year we are reminded that we are also designed to listen to our inner spiritual voice, recalling that “as long as the candle burns … there is still time to mend,” each of us charged with the task to figure out what deserves our attention in our return.

Gmar Chatima Tovah, may you be sealed for good in the book of life