Parashat Ha'azinu - Seventh Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Set your hearts: the song is handed over, and Moses goes up the mountain
The aliyah seals the Song of Ha’azinu and the whole of Parashat Ha’azinu. Moses, together with Hoshea son of Nun, recites the words of the song in the ears of the people. When Moses finishes, he turns to Israel and asks them to set their hearts to all the words they heard, and not to leave them as a one-time experience. The responsibility passes immediately to the next generation as well: they must command their children to keep and to do the words of the Torah.
Moses stresses that the Torah is not a meaningless thing or a side matter in the life of the people. It is bound to their very life and to their continued dwelling in the land they are about to cross into. In this way the song ends not only with a warning or with memory, but with a demand to turn what was heard into a way of life passed from father to son.
Immediately afterwards comes one of the most personal and painful moments in Moses’ life. God commands him to go up Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, to look out from there over the land of Canaan that is given to the children of Israel, and there to be gathered to his people as his brother Aaron was gathered.
The Torah also recalls why Moses will not enter the land: the event at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, where Moses and Aaron did not sanctify God among the children of Israel. Moses will be granted to see the land from afar, but not to cross into it. So the parashah ends with the people standing before the entry into the land, while the leader who led it from Egypt to the threshold of the land is required to stop right before the entry.
Insights from the aliyah
Hearing is not enough, it must be set upon the heart
Moses has already said the whole song, but now he stresses its inner absorption. On the level of the idea, knowledge changes a life only when a person allows it to pass from the ear to the heart.
The next stage of the Torah is the next generation
Right after the demand to pay attention comes the responsibility toward the children. The Torah is not kept only by a person living according to it, but by that person succeeding in passing it on.
The Torah is presented as part of life itself
At the end of the song Moses links the Torah to the life of the people in the land. On the level of the idea, the Torah is not an addition to life but a framework that gives it direction, depth and continuity.
Moses too is subject to limits
Moses is the great leader who brought Israel out of Egypt and led them for forty years, and yet he is not above judgment. This is a strong point: the greater a person is, their responsibility does not disappear.
A mission can be completed even without seeing the whole result
Moses brings the people to the border of the land but does not enter it. On the level of the idea, sometimes a person’s mission is to prepare a road that others will complete. The inability to see the last stage does not cancel everything that was built along the way.
Seeing from afar is a moment of pain and also of acceptance
Moses will see the land to which he led the people, but he will not enter it. Here there is a meeting between an enormous achievement and a painful personal limit. Life can hold both things together.
Leadership passes, but the Torah remains
The appearance of Hoshea son of Nun beside Moses at the start of the aliyah is not accidental within the sequence. Moses finishes his words, the next generation already stands beside him, and the Torah is the bridge that connects the periods.
The end of Ha’azinu joins personal responsibility to national responsibility
On one side Moses is required to give an account of his own deeds. On the other side Israel is required to pass the Torah on to the generations and to enter the land. So the parashah ends with a double message: every person is responsible for their deeds, and every generation is responsible for what it passes on to the generation after it.
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