d’var torah
The Great Prophet’s Final
Warning BY RABBI DAVID N. GOODMAN
A Parshat Haazinu
nyone hoping for a quick turn
from the somber Days of Awe
— with their self-analysis,
self-criticism, self-denial and self-correc-
tion — to the joys of the fall harvest fes-
tival of Sukkot comes up against a harsh
message in this week’s Torah portion.

Did you think you were off the hook
aft er all the confessing, chest-thumping,
the fasting of Yom Kippur? No such luck.

Th e dying Moses has a tough message
for the Israelites, calling them to account
for their seemingly congenital inability
to remain faithful to the God who did so
much for them.

Parshat Haazinu (Deuteronomy 32:1-
52) opens with Moses telling the people
of God’s great faithfulness to God’s chil-
dren, who prove themselves corrupt and
unworthy of that Divine support.

In the poem known as the Song of
Moses, the prophet says that God found
Jeshurun (Israel) “in a desert land, in
an empty place, a howling waste.” Th e
Holy One “enveloped him, tended him,
guarded him like the apple of God’s
eye.” Th e Holy One cared for Israel like
an eagle nurturing its young, spreading
its wings over Israel and guiding it to a
new home. Th e Holy One did this acting
alone, with “no foreign god” to assist.

So the Holy One transported Israel to
the fertile highlands, where they dined
on the land’s rich produce. Th ere, God
fed Israel “honey from the rock, oil from
the fl inty stones, cows’ milk cream, milk
from the fl ocks, prime lambs, rams from
the Bashan highlands and he-goats; with
the very best wheat. And you drank the
vintage of blood-red grapes.”
But instead of showing gratitude, Israel
“grew fat and kicked” like an untamed
animal. Th e people abandoned the
One who created and protected them
and sacrifi ced to “demons, non-deities,
unknown gods they’d never known,
newcomer deities their ancestors never
held in awe.”
So, Moses continues, God punished
Israel with famine, disease and attacking
enemies. God would have gone further,
wiping out Israel, had the Holy One
not feared losing the respect of Israel’s
enemies by making them think God had
forsaken Israel. So the Holy One steps in
to defend and redeem Israel, even while
mocking the people’s failed reliance on
false deities that brought them to the
brink of destruction.

“Look, now, for I — I am (God), there
is no god beside me. I kill and I give
life, I wound and I heal. By my oath, no
one else can deliver,” the Holy One pro-
claims. “My arrows will drink blood, and
my sword will eat fl esh.”
Th is powerful work of biblical poetry
seems a bit misplaced. What do these
images have to do with the Israelites’
present situation as they mobilize to enter
the Promised Land? Instead, it seems to
leapfrog centuries ahead, to a time when
the people are long settled in the land but
now face powerful enemies that threaten
to exterminate them.

In fact, the Song of Moses seems to
point to the late history of the kingdom of
Judah, when the Davidic monarchy was
confronted with the overwhelming power
of the Babylonians. It’s a thousand-year
fl ash forward to the Sixth century BCE.

Whether one reads this as a late insertion
in the story or as Moses’ forward-looking
prophetic vision, it speaks to the dangers
of complacency, backsliding and loss of
core values, to which we human beings
are so vulnerable.

As such, this harsh poetic warning is
a well-timed reminder to stick with the
resolves we have made during the Days
of Awe.

Does the message sound a bit harsh? A
midrashic commentary on Deuteronomy
sees a silver lining behind the dark clouds
of God’s criticism of Israel — namely that
the text calls them God’s children. Th e
Holy One is still looking out for them.

Quoting a parallel passage in Isaiah 1:4
referring to the people of Judah as “cor-
rupt children,” Midrash Sifrei Devarim
says, “and if they were not corrupt, how
much more so” would they be children of
the Holy One?
As we struggle to be better versions of
ourselves, may we remember that even in
our imperfection, God holds us with an
unending love. JE
David N. Goodman is rabbi of Nafshenu,
a Reconstructionist community in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Th e Board of
Rabbis is proud to provide diverse per-
spectives on Torah commentary for the
Jewish Exponent. Th e opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own and
do not refl ect the view of the Board of
Rabbis. Jewish Exponent
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