The bulk of Parashat Ha’azinu is Moshe’s swan-song, the final Song that he sang and taught to all Israel in his final day in this world:
“Listen, O Heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O Earth, the words of my mouth…”.
Moshe composed this Song as his witness for Israel (Deuteronomy 31:19) - his testimony that
-history isn’t random happenstance;
-that Israel’s entry into their Land in another few weeks was part of G-d’s eternal plan for His world;
-that Jewish national sovereign independence in the Land of Israel is woven into the very fabric of G-d’s Creation;
-that our continued sovereignty in Israel depends not on the prowess of our military, on economics, on politics, but on our connection with G-d, His Torah, and His Mitzvot.
The seventy lines of this Song are spread over two columns in every hand-written Torah-scroll, maybe - I dare suggest - alluding to the seventy nations in the world. Because G-d has charged us, the Jewish nation, to testify to His existence to all seventy nations.
Our national history is supposed to inspire all humanity.
The column which contains the first 35 lines of Moshe’s Song invariably begins with the word וְאָעִידָה “and I will call as witnesses”, in the verse “and I will call as witnesses heaven and earth to testify” - Deuteronomy 31:28).
Almost every printed Chumash contains a Masoretic note attached to the word וְאָעִידָה (and I will testify):
בראש עמוד בי"ה שמ"ו סימן
The words בְּרֹאשׁ עֲמוּד mean “at the top of the column”, indicating that the word וְאָעִידָה (“and I will testify”) is the first word in the column.
Standard hand-written Torah-scrolls consist of 245 columns, each column consisting of 42 lines, and almost all columns begin with the letter ו (vav). This is the way that the Masoret directs that Torah-scrolls be written. But six columns begin with specified letters:
The first column begins with the ב of בְּרֵאשִׁית (“in the beginning”);
The 59th column begins with theי of יְהוּדָה(“Yehudah - it is you that your brothers will acknowledge”);
The 78th column, containing the Song at the Red Sea, begins with the ה of הַבָּאִים (Pharaoh’s army “who were coming” - Exodus 14:28);
The 132nd column begins with theש of שְׁנֵי (“both the he-goats” - Leviticus 16:8);
The 184th column begins with the מ of מַה טֹּבוּ (“How goodly are your tents, O Ya’akov” in Balaam’s blessing - Numbers 24:5);
And the 242nd column, containing Moses’ song of Ha’azinu, begins with the ו of וְאָעִידָה.
These six letters spell out the phrase בְּיָהּ שְׁמוֹ (“with Y-AH, His Name”), taken from the verse, “Sing to G-d, sing songs of praise to His Name, laud Him Who rides the heavens with Y-AH, His Name” (Psalms 68:5).
All six of these columns in the Torah contain poetic testimony to G-d’s mastery over heaven and earth: Creation, Yehudah’s kingship, the Splitting of the Sea, Balaam’s submission to G-d’s will, heaven and earth’s testimony.
G-d’s intervention in human history, His guidance of events for the sake of Israel, is a constant of history from beginning to end. Whether the regional famine which brought Ya’akov and his sons down to Egypt in order to being the long-decreed exile, or the decades-long sequence of events which eventually led to the Assyrian conquest of Israel, or the Maccabbees’ victory over the Seleucid Empire, or Israel’s impossible, miraculous victories over immeasurably vaster Arab armies in 1948, 1967, and 1973 - G-d’s control over history is one of the few constants of history.
G-d granted us custodianship over the Land of Israel - not ownership, for us to do with is as we please, but custodianship, to govern it in accordance with His will and His decrees. Which is why when we violate His will, we lose our custodianship over His Land.
Moshe foresaw the days when “they provoked His jealousy with foreign gods, they infuriated Him with abominations. They sacrificed to ungodly demons, gods whom they had not known, recent newcomers whom your fathers had never revered” (Deuteronomy 31:16-17).
And G-d’s punishment response is measure-for measure:
“They provoke My jealousy with a non-god, infuriate Me with their nothingness - and I will provoke their jealousy with a non-nation, I will infuriate them with a vile nation” (v. 21).
Rashi explains “a non-nation” to mean, “a nation that has no name”.
Can there ever be a better description of the enemies we face in Israel today? A non-nation, a nation that has no name?
Consider:
Almost the entire world now recognises a “nation” called “Palestine”. A “nation” which never existed in history. A “nation” which has no history. A “nation” which has never had a national leader. A “nation” which has never had a government. A “nation” which doesn’t even have its own language: A “nation” whose language is Arabic, the language of Arabian Muslim settler colonists who first invaded Israel in the year 632.
A “nation” whose language, Arabic, doesn’t even have the equivalent of the “P”-sound, and is therefore unable to write or pronounce its own ostensible name!
A “nation” whose name, “Palestine”, was invented by the pagan Roman idolaters in the year 3895 (135 C.E.) when they finally crushed the Bar Kochba Revolt.
A name which means nothing in Arabic, or indeed in any language, because it is a Europeanised form of the Hebrew פְּלִשְׁתִּי, P’lishti, which became “Philistine” in European languages - a Hebrew appellation from the root פֹּלֶשׁ, pollesh, meaning “foreign invader”.
This is the “non-nation”, these foreign invaders, which G-d sends against us to infuriate us, as His measure-for-measure punishment for our infuriating Him by placing out trust in non-gods.
Ever since the yearly cycle of Torah readings was standardised towards the end of the Second Temple era, and the fixed calendar as calculated by Hillel II (Hillel ben Yehudah, Nasi or head of the Sanhedrin) was adopted in 4119 (359 C.E.), we have invariably read Parashat Ha’azinu on the Shabbat either immediately before or immediately after Yom Kippur.
Our Sages deliberately timed Parashat Ha’azinu for the season of our repentance. Since it gives the entire sweep of Jewish history in its magnificent, beautifully-resounding poetry, it is eminently appropriate that this Song would contain within its lines the perfect repentance for the End of Days.
How to eliminate wars, terrorism, and anti-Semitism in our days?
- By returning to G-d, by actualising the message of the Ten Days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.
And when we do, the entire world will witness the justice and righteousness of our claim to our historic Homeland:
“Give praise, O peoples, to His nation, because He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will bring vengeance of His enemies, His nation will atone for His Land” (Deuteronomy 32:43), the final line of Moshe’s Song.
Like so much poetry, this is highly ambiguous. I have translated the phrase הַרְנִינוּ גוֹיִם עַמּוֹ as “Give praise, O peoples, to His nation”; it could mean “Rejoice, O peoples, with His nation”.
And I have translated the phrase וְכִפֶּר אַדְמָתוֹ עַמּוֹ as “His nation will atone for His Land”; it could also mean “He will atone for His Land, for His nation” (which is the usual translation).
In any event, the underlying meaning remains unchanged: Moshe looks forward to the future time to come, when we will fully return to G-d and His Torah, the non-nation will fade out of existence, and all seventy nations, meaning all humanity, will not only recognise our eternal connexion with our Land - they will actively celebrate our independence in Israel!
Does this seem impossible?
- At present, it certainly seems impossible. Just as impossible as Jewish national sovereign independence in any shape or form whatsoever would have seemed a century ago.
But we live in an age when events move swiftly, when the world has changed more in the last century-and-a-quarter than it had changed in the 2,000 years before.
We live in an age when the Prophecies which saturate the Tanach unfold daily before our very eyes.
Jewish history isn’t random happenstance; Israel’s reconstituted national sovereign independence in the Land of Israel within living memory is woven into the very fabric of G-d’s Creation; our continued sovereignty in Israel depends not on the prowess of our military, on economics, on politics, but on our connection with G-d, His Torah, and His Mitzvot.
This is the time to seize the moment. To begin a new year with its blessings, to infuse this season of festivals with return to G-d.