Ha’azinu: Give Ear to the Future
Parashat Ha’azinu, Deuteronomy 32:1–52
Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Feinberg, Congregation Etz Chaim, Buffalo Grove, IL
During the Ten Days of Awe, Jewish people the world over brace for an annual ritual that requires exhaustive religious activity. A surprising number of Jewish families will attend seven religious services, three on the New Year, three on Yom Kippur, and the service on Shabbat Shuvah in between. They pray hundreds of prayers, sit through lengthy services, and finally fast and afflict their souls—all in a determined effort to “work out their salvation in fear and trembling.”
The most religious understand that the phrase “May you be written in the Book of Life” deals kindly with whether your death is decreed in the coming year. By Yom Kippur, “May you be sealed” conveys the hope that you will not die. Observant Christians often apply this same idea to living an eternal life in heaven, while observant Jews wish those living an additional year on earth. But remember that Jews understand that the covenant guarantees Jewish existence for a thousand generations. The Anointed One will come before then!
Shabbat Shuvah has passed for this year. All Israel has listened to the final note of the shofar at the Neilah, the Closing of the Gates at the last Yom Kippur service. Life continues.
For the first time since the days of Joshua, a majority of all Israel is returning to the Land! Is this a turning apart from repentance? Four generations ago, the Jewish people numbered 24,000 in the Land—about 0.3% of all Israel. The following generation experienced the Holocaust. A third of all Jewish people perished. Did this genocide spur Jewish repentance or a global taboo over future genocides against all humankind? Both? Neither??
Perhaps unnoticed by the eyes of the world, the Chief Rabbis of both the Ashkenazim and Sephardim did pray together in 1945 to publicly renew the covenant: as instructed by Torah itself, they read Deut 31:9–13 to all Jerusalem to teach the community and her children the fear of the Lord. And before the following Sabbatical year (1952), the state of Israel came to life! Torah has been read after every Sabbatical year in Jerusalem ever since, but who would know? Is Jerusalem with all Israel in a process of repenting her covenant infidelity as a people?
What if the next generation does not warrant Messiah? Suppose the time for repentance ends. What if no generation warrants Messiah? Will Messiah come anyway?
Deuteronomy 32 details God’s covenant relationship with all Israel. Ha’azinu (Give ear!) is a poem in the form of a covenant lawsuit. The song details the ways Israel would provoke a just and loving God to severely discipline them. What started as building a golden calf in the wilderness would blossom into a full-blown idolatry in the Land. The covenant lawsuit stands as a witness against Israel for choosing to build a golden calf, later to build more golden calves and high places to foreign deities, and still later, for practicing the idolatrous rituals of passing children through the fire to foreign deities.
Ha’azinu, God’s lawsuit, tells us today why we, our children, and majority Israel are born in exile, pouring out our libations to foreign idols, and failing to show covenant love for God alone:
Deuteronomy 32: Ha’azinu (“Give Ear”)
Verses 1–2 Exhortation to Israel with Heaven as Witness
3–4 The Praiseworthiness of God’s Character
5–6 The Lawsuit Complaint
7–14 Recollection: Israel’s Election and God’s Care for His People
15–18 The Indictment: All Israel’s Ingratitude and Apostasy
19–25 The Sentence: Covenant Curses, Measure for Measure
26–31 The Problem: Both Israel and Enemies Lack Insight
32–35 Double Problem: Israel’s Enemies Treat Israel with Cruelty
36 The Poet: Israel Made to Suffer More Than Double Punishment
37–38 The Taunt: God Taunts Israel for Pouring Out Libations to Foreign Deities
39 The Plea: God Alone Can Deliver Us
40–42 God’s Word: Oath to Deliver Israel
43 Call for All Creation—Including Israel among the Nations—to Worship God
44–47 Didactic Poem: Internalized as a Song for all Generations to Transmit
This reading year of 2022, Ha’azinu is chanted after Yom Kippur (which is not usually the case). The accompanying haftarah, Shirat David, the Song of David (2 Samuel 22:1–51), is chanted only on days after Yom Kippur. In this way, the nation enters the new season forgiven and sanctified. What comes next is Sukkot (Booths, the Feast of the Nations). All nations that will have gone up against Judah and Jerusalem are to bring gifts on this Feast for a thousand years (Zech 14:16–21; Isa 66:20–23; Rev 20:4–6).
Reading Shirat David recalls God’s oath to David, and David’s understanding of that oath. What is powerful about Shirat David is its invincible poetic structure as a victory song:
He is a tower of salvation to His king,
He shows loyal love to His anointed—
to David and to his seed, forever. (2 Sam 22:51)
Abarbanel tells us that David composed this song in his early years and kept it close by “reciting it on every occasion of personal salvation” (Stone Chumash, 1205). These times included life threatening situations when Saul hunted down David—God’s anointed—for a decade before the start of his public ministry as Israel’s seated king.
David had a clear understanding that God had given him an everlasting dynasty and that his seed would inherit the nations. Any nation choosing to make itself an enemy of David’s kingdom in effect curses itself to become Abraham’s and David’s inheritance. David concludes his song with words that Rabbi Saul of Tarsus cites over a thousand years later in Romans 15:9:
Therefore I praise You among the nations, Adonai,
and will sing praises to Your name. (2 Sam 22:50)
Paul knew about God’s oaths to Abraham and David, too. Why else would Paul characterize Israel as “enemies of the Gospel” and at the same time “beloved on account of the Patriarchs”? Why else would Paul cite the last line of Ha’azinu (Deut 32:43) right after citing David’s Song?
“For this reason I will give You praise among the Gentiles,
and I will sing to Your name.”And again it says,
“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people.” (Rom 15:9–10)
Paul clearly understood that the people of Israel would be singing God’s praises along with all nations, and with all creation, too!
What caused Israel to sing God’s praises in the past day of deliverance will surely cause Israel to again sing God’s praises in the day when “all Israel is saved” (Rom 11:26–28). Will all Israel be saved during Shabbat Shuvah or in the days following the final Day of Judgment?
Prayer for the salvation of all Israel is most powerful on this Sabbath day, when we read both Ha’azinu with its call for repentance and David’s triumphant song of victory after trusting God and spurning the idols of the nations. Why not call this Haftarat Yeshuah (Haftarah of Salvation)?
Should Messiah come this year, after Yom Kippur, when we read Ha’azinu and Shirat David, one can expect the whole nation to look on the one whom we all have pierced. Abraham and David will look on, Moses and the surviving nation will look on, and so will we. When the war to end all wars ends, Messiah will be coronated king over all the world. Ha’azinu is filled full in its meaning: Israel and the nations will be singing God’s praises, all creation will join in, and even the trees of the field will clap their hands.
All Scripture references are from the Tree of Life Version (TLV).