Haazinu
– D'var Torah (October 2016)
There
is something remarkable and fascinating about how the final sections of the
Torah connect to the liturgical cycle. For the past seven or more weeks we have
been reading from D'varim as we approached the Yamim Nora'im. Much of what we
read in Torah was tochachah: a stern warning about the risks of disobeying God
or failing to act justly or properly. In particular, the Torah did not hesitate
to share in vivid detail the curses that awaited us for disobedience. If you
were not motivated to introspection by nature, or if you were not in synch with
the rhythm of the seasons and the liturgical calendar, then the Torah readings
alone should have alerted you to the approach of Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur.
Examine your ways, people, prepare for being judged by the highest judge (one
who doesn't have to be voted on by a recalcitrant Senate.)
And
at the same time, over the course of the same seven weeks, we have also heard
each week a haftarah that offered one sort of consolation or another. Yes we
may have sinned, individually or as a people or nation, but God is also capable
of, even committed to, forgiveness as well as strict judgement. If we have
shortcomings, if we have failed to do his will, he will judge us poorly, but he
is also engaged with us as Israel. She is capable of mercy. S/he offers the
possibility of extending his/her mercy even as s/he judges us, if we only
recognize our failings and commit ourselves to returning to his/her ways.
When
you think about it, it is an odd combination this message of: if you go astray
you will be severely punished, but you will be forgiven if you acknowledge what
you have done and vow to do better next time. I leave it to the psychologists
among us to interpret the inner meaning of this double message which is found
throughout the Mahzor and the scriptural readings of the previous seven weeks.
But
one might also think that having endured seven weeks of such messages, and a
month of self-examination before Rosh Hashanah, and ten days of repentance, and
a full day of fasting and afflicting our souls, we might be allowed to move on
now that Yom Kippur is behind us. Only the Torah and Haftara don't agree.
This
week, reading from the Torah, we heard the remarkable poetic oration of
Ha-azinu. I will only attempt a brief paraphrase. Moshe Rabbenu, has reached
the age of 120, after 40 years of leading the people of Israel in the
wilderness, and is now faced with imminent death. Standing on the far side of the Jordan River,
Moshe calls on heaven and earth to witness his penultimate address to the
people. He tells them that God is a Rock – just and faithful. God has taken the
people from an "empty howling
waste," (v. 10) and cared for and nurtured his children. Yet the children,
that is to say Israel, or us, are "unworthy of Him." Despite God's
beneficence, the people have failed to follow or recognize God. "You
neglected the Rock that begot you, Forgot the God who brought you forth."
(v. 18) As a result, Moshe tells us, God will punish Israel accordingly. Just
when we hoped that after Yom Kippur we wouldn't have to hear, yet again, about
our failings, Moshe won't allow us to think we have finished our work.
And
sad to say, I fear Moshe is correct. For all of our sincere t'shuvah, our lives
and our world are still transparently flawed. Innocent black men are still at
daily risk of being shot by police, and so too, the police we ask to protect us
are also at continual risk. Immigrants to this country, and refugees in other
countries incur as much resentment as hospitality from their hosts. In the past
week we have also been subjected to offensive language, and reminded that
inappropriate behavior and violence against women is considered permissible
"locker room talk" by a significant segment of our society, not to
speak of people who justify such violence. And I could go on.
This
is a harsh and demanding God, and Moshe is a stern leader who realizes that the
people are still deeply flawed. Yes, at the end of Ha-azinu Moshe does declare
that eventually God will end our punishment, and vindicate Israel "when he
sees that their might is gone." (v. 36) But then after Moshe completes his
speech to the people, as a kind of coda to the parasha, he again meets with
God, who has come to tell him that he, Moshe, has one more mountain to climb ,
a mountain where he will himself die. Even Moshe is not immune from God's
judgement. This is a harsh and demanding God.
And
that, my friends, is the context for this week's haftarah. The haftarah has come to show us how David
approached death? His message and his tone are rather different. He also thinks
of God as a Rock, but for David, God is "the rock wherein I take
shelter." (v. 3) In fact, David does not really seem to be addressing his
followers or Israel at all. Instead, David seems to be reflecting back on his
own life, and his own experience. He is not focused on the faithlessness of his
followers, but instead on his own experience of peril. "In my anguish I
called on the Lord." (v. 7) David recalls his many battles, the many
enemies he was somehow was able to overcome. Reflecting on his successes, David
is struck by how much God has been his personal savior. "In his Abode he
heard my voice, my cry entered his ears." (v. 7) Where Moshe calls on the
heavens to listen to what he has to say, and be a witness, David tells us that
he was able to reach the ears of God. David's experience is not only that God
listens, but that God responds. "He reached down from on high …He rescued
me from my enemy so strong." (v. 17-18)
David's
experience of God is very different from Moshe's. For David, the Lord is his
lamp that "lights up the darkness." (v. 29) God is "my mighty
stronghold, Who kept my path secure… who trained my hands for battle." (v.
33, 35) At the end of his life, David, our greatest King, the ancestor of the
Mashiach, wants to acknowledge that whatever he has accomplished comes from
God. "You have granted me the shield of Your protection and Your
Providence has made me great." (v. 36) David does not warn us of the harsh
and demanding God. David is filled with gratitude for God's protection.
Think
for a moment about David and Moshe. They each experienced God's favor. Either one of them might have said of God,
"He set him atop the highlands, to feast on the yield of the earth; He fed
him honey from a crag…" (v. 13)
(although that was Moshe speaking) or "I pursued my enemies and wiped them
out, I did not turn back till I destroyed them." (v. 38) (David speaking.)
Yet
David has something else to say. Not only has the Lord "brought me out to
freedom (the wide open place)" and "rescued me," but God has
done that because "He was pleased with me. The Lord rewarded me according
to my merit." (v. 20-21) For David, God's favor is understandable because
God rewards those who obey Him, God blesses those who do as She wishes. In
fact, David claims "I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not been
guilty before My God: I am mindful of all his rules and have not departed from
his Laws." It is interesting that David does not acknowledge any guilt for
wrongdoing in his Psalm, but easily speaks of the times when he was frightened
or at personal risk. We know that David was not as blameless as he claims, but
David is focused on the time when he felt endangered and in peril.
Again,
think of the same words coming from the mouth of Moshe. If there was a nearly
blameless leader, certainly it was Moshe. Moshe could also say that God brought
him out to freedom or "rescued me from my enemy so strong." (v. 17) Moses
might have said, "To humble folk You give victory, and You look with scorn
on the haughty" (v. 28) or "You have rescued me from the strife of
peoples, kept me as the head of a nation." (v. 44) And surely, based on
what we know, Moshe would have been allowed to say, "I have kept the ways
of the Lord and have not been guilty before My God: I am mindful of all his
rules and have not departed from his Laws." Yet all of those words come
from David, and not Moshe.
Let
us put this in perspective. Of all the Jews who have ever lived, none or more
acclaimed than Moshe and David. In fact, I daresay that there are no people in
the history of Jewish life who knew more of God than Moshe and David.
As
leaders of the Jewish people, Moshe and David had many similar experiences –
winning great victories and dealing with rebellion. But the voice and the message of these two
hymns is very different. Moshe speaks with indignation and barely contained
anger, while David has an attitude of gratitude. Moshe never wished to be the leader
of Israel. God did not save Moshe from danger as much as s/he forced Moshe into
danger. Moshe's experience is that because of God, he, Moshe, was beleaguered
for the final 40 years of his life. Moshe is driven to warn the nation of the
risk, of its failings, while David is
reflecting on the remarkable blessings he has received, and on his own desire
(if not perfect success) to follow God's ways. Moshe, even at the end of his
life, sees the meaning of his own life as tied to the fate of the nation he is
leading, while David understands at the end of his life that he was never fully
in control of what happened to the nation, and he certainly cannot control what
will happen after his death.
Both
of these great leaders want us to know that whatever happens, it is in the
hands of God. Both men emphasize the importance of recognizing God, The Rock,
and doing the things that our God expects of us. But the difference in tone is
at least as striking as what the two psalms share. The challenge of the
haftarah includes reconciling the generous and beneficent view of God that
David brings with the demanding and stern view of God that Moshe presents.
Somehow we are supposed to hear both voices, and despite the differences,
remember that God is One. What separates the voice of Moshe and the voice of
David is not two different Gods, but two different personalities, two different
life experiences, two different understandings of how to be in the world. The
value and importance of bringing this haftarah to this section of Torah is to
show us, and challenge us, that there are many ways to speak of what God offers
us and what God expects. There are many ways to view our history and our future
– as a story of recurrent failure to accomplish all of what is expected of us
and corresponding suffering, or as a story of remarkable blessings bestowed on
us for our imperfect works.
What
strikes me most when confronted with these two texts at this time, only a few
weeks before an election, and amidst the continual conflict within Israel and
the Middle East, is how much they are telling us to allow both voices to be
heard. As beautiful and well spoken as each of these poems is, they are each
only one point of view, one way of being in the world. Without the voice of
Moshe there would be no Jewish people at all. But without the voice of David we
probably would not have survived, and our hopes for the future would certainly
be less. As different as these voices are, as much as they seem to be singing
in different keys, what we are being challenged to do is to incorporate both
the sense of gratitude and the urgent and angry demand together. As the Shema
(and the Zohar) say again and again, it is all One.
