Parashat Ha'azinu, Deuteronomy 32:1-52

This week's parashah has been generously sponsored in loving memory of Meryl Gardner's mother, Harriet H. Cohen. Kolel is grateful to Meryl for her ongoing support and appreciates its weekly sponsors.

Old wounds need to be reopened in order for them to heal; along the way we may even expose psychic bruises of which we were unaware.

Some of us are cursed with a memory for the most trivial things, and I happen to be one of these people. If any member of my family wants the words to an old TV theme song or a commercial jingle, they just ask me. This week, the words to an old insurance ad have been haunting me: "Get a piece of the rock."

Whoever came up with that particular phrase and its accompanying logo featuring the Rock of Gibraltar created an advertising classic. The image of the Rock of Gibraltar conveys strength and permanence. The symbol of a rock denotes unshakeable power. The name Dwayne Johnson means nothing unless you are a member of Mr. Johnson's family, but mention the Rock and countless wrestling fans know immediately whom you mean.

This past summer I spent a few unforgettable days in the Canadian Rockies. As with the Rock of Gibraltar, these mountains were created by violent shifts in the earth. Yet the jagged peaks piercing the heavens convey a sense of beauty, awe, and power, as well as an awareness of majesty; here is something that is and will always be out of reach.

Hebrew has a few words for rock. There is selah which is used to describe the stone that gushed with water after Moses struck it (Numbers 20). Another word is tsur, which appears in the Torah only ten times. All of these occur are in the book of Deuteronomy, and nine of them are in this week's portion, Haazinu.

Not surprisingly, six times the word tsur is used in reference to God. Think of the Hanukkah song Maoz Tsur (Rock of Ages), which recounts God's steadfast support of the people Israel at different times in history. The image of the permanent, powerful, immovable rock is understandable. While the Hanukkah song was composed in the 13th century, the sentiments it conveys date back to the Bible and can be found at the beginning of Haazinu:

The Rock! — Whose deeds are perfect,
Yea, all Whose ways are just;
A faithful God, never false,
Who is true and upright. (Deut. 32:34)

This is also a song, one sung by Moses to the people Israel. In Haazinu, Moses who was closer to God than anyone else, is leaving Israel with his sense of God and of Israel’s relationship with the Divine. God is a rock, steadfast, just and true. God gave us life: Is not He the Father who created you,/Fashioned you and made you endure! ( Deut 32:6)

But there are other words and descriptions that carry a warning within them. God cared for us but we spurned God, and so God's face was hidden (Deut 32:20). God will vindicate the people (32:36), and the words promising this contain a strong reminder of God's might:

See, then, that I, I am the One;
There is no god beside Me.
I deal death and give life;
I wounded and I will heal:
None can deliver from My hand. (Deut. 32:39)

These are powerful, frightening words that resonate deeply at this time of year. We all know that God is the author of life and death. These words are in our daily prayers and this concept is at the fore during the High Holy Days. We pray regularly to the God who heals. But what of the God who wounds? If God's deeds are perfect and God's ways are just, what are we to make of this?

There is a power in holiness and in the Holy One that is dangerous. Moses had to hide in the crevice when God passed before him, or he would not have survived. We had to stand back from the mountain when we received the commandments. There is a spiritual danger as well that must be kept within boundaries. (That is the underlying basis of the traditional reading for Yom Kippur which we will look at next week.) A just God may issue a severe decree that is altogether right and just, something we are very aware of during these Days of Awe. We stand before God the Judge, ready to receive our sentence, knowing it will be just, yet praying for mercy.

The Talmudic sages tackled this issue and teach us that we are not the only ones fervently engaged in prayer. A faithful God is doing so as well:

What does God pray? — Rabbi Zutra ben Tobi said in the name of Rav: ‘May it be My will that My mercy may suppress My anger, and that My mercy may prevail over My other attributes, so that I may deal with My children in the attribute of mercy and, on for their sake, stop short of the limit of strict justice’. (Berachot 7a)

The good thing about rocks is that they are unmoving, unchanging. The bad thing about rocks is that they are unmoving, unchanging. Well, not quite. Rocks change slowly, in a way that is imperceptible to us. Perhaps another feature, then, is that a rock conveys ageless patience. This, too, is a characteristic of God we recall at this time of year, words proclaimed when Moses hid in the cleft of the rock: Adonai! Adonai! a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness… (Ex. 34:6)

This is our deepest desire: to extract these ores of kindness and mercy from our Rock. How do we achieve this? Forgive the irreverence, but perhaps the answer lies in the words written by Johnny Mercer that Fred Astaire sang to Leslie Caron in Daddy Long Legs:

When an irresistible force
Such as you.
Meets an old immovable object like me.
You can bet as sure as you live.
Something's gotta give…

To us, God is the Rock, the mountain, that old immovable object. We are currently in the valley known as Shabbat Shuvah, the Sabbath of Repentance, nestled between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Our climb is our yearly trek of return, and as always, it appears formidable. But we must find that irresistible force within us. Reaching that rocky, craggy top will take all our energy and will not be accomplished without spiritual cuts and scrapes. Old wounds need to be reopened in order for them to heal; along the way we may even expose psychic bruises of which we were unaware. But the journey is indescribable, the view, breathtaking, and the opportunity to merely reach out towards our Rock is a profound experience.

Step by careful step, on our rocky road of return, let us be sustained by this familiar hope: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before You, Adonai, my Rock and my Redeemer! (Psalm19:15)

Shabbat shalom,
M