Parashat Ha'azinu - Fourth Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Hidden face, and a halt before erasure
The aliyah describes God’s response to the distancing of Israel. After the people turned in other directions and forgot its source, a stage of hidden face arrives. The Torah describes a situation in which visible providence shrinks, and the people is forced to face the results of the road it chose.
The punishment is described in very harsh words: famine, disease, harm from animals, fear, war and terror both outside the home and within it. The harm is not limited to one particular group, but encompasses young and old, men and women. The picture is one of a society that has lost the security and stability it had before.
But within the sharp description a restraint also appears. God does not carry the process all the way to a complete erasure of the memory of Israel. One of the reasons mentioned is the concern that the enemies would interpret their victory as if their own power had created the outcome, and would not understand that there is a broader process here.
The aliyah ends with a critique of the people’s lack of understanding, following the reading of Rabbi Yehuda in the Sifrei (Rashi and Ibn Ezra read the verse as referring to the enemies). The song does not describe only sin, but also an inability to see the meaning of the road and the results to which it leads.
Insights from the aliyah
A hidden face is a result of distancing
On the level of the idea, the aliyah describes a situation in which a person moves away from the source that holds them, and then begins to feel the lack. The break does not always come as a direct blow; sometimes it appears as a lack of clarity, a lack of security and the loss of a sense of being accompanied.
Results can be broader than the initial act
The turn to other gods began as a spiritual choice, but the description continues on to famine, fear, war and terror. On the level of the idea, an inner choice can, over time, change a whole structure of life.
Fear enters both from outside and from within
The sword outside and the terror in the chambers create a picture of a situation in which there is no safe place. This teaches that the deepest crisis is not only an external threat, but also the loss of calm inside the home.
Even within anger a limit remains
Despite the severity of the words, the song does not describe complete erasure. On the level of the idea, even within a harsh judgment there is a stop that keeps the story from ending entirely.
How the enemy interprets reality matters too
The song takes into account the possibility that the enemy would think its own power alone created the victory. On the level of the idea, not only what happens matters, but also the meaning people give to what happens.
Lack of understanding is the root of the problem
At the end of the aliyah the people is described as void of counsel and understanding. That is, the problem is not only a wrong action, but also an inability to read reality correctly and to learn from it.
The aliyah continues the theme of forgetting from the previous aliyah
In the third aliyah the problem was forgetting the Rock and the source. Here we see the consequences. On the level of the idea, spiritual forgetting does not stay in memory alone, but may gradually turn into a deep disruption of life.
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