Parashat Ha'azinu - First Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
The Rock is steady, and the corruption begins with man
The aliyah opens the Song of Ha’azinu with a call to the heavens and the earth to be witnesses to Moses’ words. Moses asks that his words act like rain and dew on the plants: not merely to be heard for a moment, but to seep in, to nourish and to have an effect. From this opening he moves on to a call to acknowledge the greatness of God.
Moses presents God as a steady Rock, whose work is perfect and whose ways are justice. There is no wrong in him, and he is described as faithful, righteous and upright. Against this description stands the conduct of the people, described as a corruption whose source is in man and not in God. In this way the song creates, right at its start, a sharp contrast between the steadiness and uprightness of God and the human capacity to bend the road.
At the end of the aliyah Moses turns to Israel in rebuke: how can one repay God this way, when he is the Father who acquired the people, made it and established it. The claim is not only that the people sinned, but that there is ingratitude here toward the one who built its very national existence.
Insights from the aliyah
Words of Torah are meant to seep in, not only to be heard
On the level of the idea, the image of rain and dew teaches that a deep message is not measured only by the force with which it is said. Sometimes the greatest influence is precisely the one that enters slowly, is absorbed, and changes a person from within.
Before the rebuke comes the setting of the point of truth
Moses does not begin with the sins of the people, but with a description of God’s righteousness and uprightness. On the level of the idea, before examining what went wrong one must first clarify the standard by which reality is measured.
Steadiness versus stubbornness
God is described as a Rock, while the generation is described as crooked and twisted. On the level of the idea, the song sets before us two kinds of strength: an upright steadiness that holds over time, and against it a force that twists and loses direction.
Not every corruption can be blamed on reality
The aliyah stresses that the problem is not in God’s work but in the way a person chooses to respond. On the level of the idea, this is a move from external blame to personal responsibility.
Ingratitude begins with forgetting the source
Moses recalls that it is God who made and established the people. On the level of the idea, when people forget where their life, their strengths and their successes came from, it becomes easier for them to see themselves as owing nothing to anyone.
A deep rebuke rests on a bond
Moses does not rebuke Israel as strangers, but as a people built out of a bond. On the level of the idea, precisely because there is a relationship of father and people, straying from the path hurts more, but is also more meaningful for repair.
Heaven and earth turn the song into a message for generations
The opening is not addressed only to the generation standing before Moses. On the level of the idea, setting heaven and earth as witnesses gives the words a broad and lasting dimension, as if the song were meant to be heard again in every generation.
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