By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.
This week’s parasha begins with “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak! And let the earth hear the words of my mouth!”
Ha’azinu and is one of the seven “songs” in Tanakh and is one of the shortest parshas in the Torah, with just 52 verses long, but is filled with a treasure of information and striking imagery.
This short parasha serves as a blueprint of Jewish history, our past, present, and future of the Jewish people. Perhaps one reason Moshe sang a “song” may be because it is easier to remember and take a song to heart rather than just hearing a speech. Songs stir our emotion and is hard to forget. Moshe wanted his final words to be something we will remember forever and internalize. Indeed, scientists from the University of Newcastle in Australia did a study on this and helped patients with brain injuries by playing popular music from throughout the patient’s life to help the patients remember personal memories.
The parasha immediately draws our attention to two key words, two essential capabilities, two key gifts: hearing and listening. To see that though, depends on two other facilities, vision and sight. Let’s understand this in the service of our striving to live a more fully engaged life, with more openness and receptivity to the world around us. It is interesting, and certainly no coincidence, that the word ha’azinu, which means listen, shares its derivation with ozen, which means ear. But it also shares its root with moznayim, or scale, the symbol of the astrological month that comes around this holiday season.
We heard the Shofar, we say the Shema “Hear O Israel…,” we hear a d’var Torah, but do we listen? You see, hearing is a passive sensory experience, simply perceiving noise, vibrations, jangle, echo. Listening is an active choice of paying attention, assigning meaning to what we hear, necessary to promote and advance our learning. Ha’azinu differs from sh’ma, the verb familiar from the Shema we say daily. Where sh’ma means to hear, ha’azinu points to a more empowered listening, an experience that requires intentional effort and purposeful persistence.
Seeing, Rashi tells us, similarly, can be understood to involve passive sight, seeing what is in front of us, while vision is the gift of seeing possibility, with deep understanding, clarity, and empathy.
It seems that language — verbal and non-verbal — matters. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are days filled with stirring words. We ask for forgiveness, and in the words and in the body language of others, we read authentic forgiveness — or superficial forgiveness. This week’s parasha reminds us of the value of language, of hearing and envisioning what is said, and not said.
Moshe offers us a very moving, powerfully inspirational cry from his heart, and quite dramatic moment in history in his song – his last gift to us, to help us grasp the core values he wants us to understand, to live by and to continue to pass along to future generations, to ensure we understand what the core principles are of what it means to be a Jew. Moshe urges us to listen to his wise counsel for the last time before we move forward into the Promised Land, without him.
The “song” of Ha’azinu teaches us about how the Jewish people have abandoned the Torah. Do we really want to sing about this? Yes. Ha’azinu is divided into three sections, the first dealing with the kindness of Hashem. The second section deals with our sinning, forgetting our relationship with Hashem, and the consequences of doing so. The third section is about our return to Hashem. You see, when we listen to the depth of this song, we learn what the Ramban reveals to us — the song is really about our never-ending relationship with Hashem. Despite all our suffering throughout history, despite what may seem like his rejection of us due to our rejection of Him, nevertheless He loves us deeply and our relationship with Him endures. He does what it takes to continually remind us of our relationship with Him. Ha’azinu is a song of a relationship that continues forever. And we hear this powerful shirah four times, teaching us further that commitment without chazarah (review) is empty. Studying the shirah repetitively, four times, shows us the importance of continually reviewing our own attributes and our dedication to Torah learning.
Are we listening, deepening our relationship, can we bring our vision to see what could be when we take Moshe’s heartfelt cry to us and live by his words, or are we dulled and stultified, with a deaf ear and a closed mind, simply hearing the din of the Torah reader, merely seeing activity on the bima in our synagogue? When we hear, we engage our mind. When we listen, we engage our heart. To feel truly inspired, we need both. This is the essence of “emotional intelligence.”
This month of Elul, an acronym for “I am to my Beloved and my Beloved is to me,” is our special time to come closer to Hashem. That is what teshuva is about, bringing us closer to Him. The Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva reminds us that we can use this month of Elul as an intense training ground to do genuine teshuva and live the acronym of this special month. Yes, we say Tehillim daily during this month until Shemini Atzeres, “The only thing I asked of Hashem is to sit in the House of Hashem all the days of my life.” That sounds lovely, quite an aspiration, but we have other matters in life that might distract us from that single goal. If that’s the case, follow the thoughts of Rav Avigdor Miller, a leading baalei mussar in America, who was noted for his clarity and simplicity of how to grow closer to Hashem. Smile at others, think about how Hashem created them in His image, say “I love you Hashem” once a day. Start with something small. It will grow.
We have the ability to imbue our lives with holiness, and to do so requires that we use the gifts of vision and listening, not just seeing and hearing.
The Tanya, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, points out that the inspiration of Moses is within every Jew. Closeness to heaven is thus within the reach of every Jew. Indeed, our time is rich in the potential for increasing our holiness, and our closeness to Hashem. When we open ourselves to the possibility of a closer relationship with Him, and with each other, our lives benefit by becoming what our prophets have been singing about throughout all time.
As we build, decorate and dwell in our Sukkot, as we wave the arba minim, the Four Species, the Lulav and Etrog, what will we envision, what will we listen to around us that can elevate our experience? Will we grow through, or will we merely go through, the motions? Sure, words can be more precious than gold, but only if we listen to those words and only if our vision allows us to truly see gold in words.
Ha’azinu tells us there is always a song that we can sing if we will listen and use the depth of vision to see that. Long after the Shofar has stilled, we can continue to listen and live, not merely hear its alarm to awaken and remain visionary.
Shabbat Shalom and G’mar Chatima Tova…
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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly D’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family are members. They are also active members of Congregation Adat Yeshurun. He may be contacted via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com