Please join us in shul for Shabbat Shuva, Parashat Ha'azinu
This week we read parashat ha’azinu—the second to last parasha in the Torah. It contains Moses’ final words that he gives to Israel, and he delivers them in poetic form. In fact, if you are in shul this Shabbat, you will notice that the very graphic presentation of this poem has shifted in the Torah itself. What is generally a single column of text (around eight or so inches wide) transforms, for the duration of this poem, into two columns, each about an inch and a half wide with a third blank column running down the middle.
This poem represents the final of many thousands of words. Speaking in prose up until now, Moses has recounted the Israelites’ entire journey through the wilderness. Through prose, he captured revelation at Sinai and the central laws of our people. Yet, he chooses to close in poetry. There are some things that only art can express. Moses, known for his challenges in speaking, says, for example:
“May my discourse come down as the rain/My speech distill as the dew/Like showers on young growth/Like droplets on the grass.”
In recounting the relationship between God and the Israelites, Moses says:
“For the ETERNAL’s portion is this people;/Jacob, God’s own allotment./[God] found them in a desert region,/In an empty howling waste—/Then engirded them, watched over them,/Guarded them as the pupil of one’s eye.”
Such poetic expression allows Moses to infuse his understanding of Israel’s relationship with God with emotion, with care, and with strong illustrations of devotion. Sentiments, when rendered poetically, can mean so much more than prose.
This week marks the aseret yemei teshuva, the Ten Days of Repentance, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These intermediate days, and the holy days at each end, are marked by a significantly greater volume of prayer. Because of the volume of prayers that we say on these days, we often forget to notice that our prayers are, at their heart, poetry. Our prayers are full of poetic images and lines designed to evoke great feeling. We say in the unetane tokef, for example:
“As a shepherd examines the flock, making each sheep pass under the staff, so You will review and number and count, judging each living being.” Poetic lines like these are scattered throughout the high holy day liturgy. When we consider them closely, they make us think, feel, and understand our relationship to God differently. That is, after all, one of the aims of prayer.
This Shabbat and this coming Yom Kippur, I encourage you to see our prayerbook as a book of poetry, and to plumb its depths. Its words can greatly increase the meaning that our holy days bring us.
Read more about this week's parasha here.
A gut shabbos, and a gut yohr!
-Rabbi Eitan Bloostein
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