Parashat Ha’azinu: Living Out the Poetry of Torah
(Delivered by Rabbi Sacks on October 7, 2022)
I studied in a program in Jerusalem. We traveled in the Galilee and came to the mystical city of Tz’fat in Israel’s Northern District. There our guide and teacher asked our group of young seekers, “What is the most important book in your life?” Many of us spent hours studying various books and reference materials, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
How then could one book be the most important out of so many?
Suspecting we knew the answer that would please our teacher, we replied, practically in unison, “Tanakh! The Bible!” As it turns out, our teacher was sort of looking for anything but such a pat answer. Our teacher’s intention in making this basic inquiry, we later learned, was to inspire us to think more deeply and globally about how we live, what we value, and how we spend our time. Sometimes you can tell a lot about our lives and our values by what we choose to read.
Tomorrow morning we read in the Torah of Moses delivering his final words to our Israelite ancestors. Perhaps Moses had a similar intent as my teacher in Ts’fat. Upon completing the recitation of Ha-azinu, a complex poem reflecting the Israelites’ history and destiny, the following injunction is offered:
Moses…recited all the words of this poem in the ears of the people. And when Moses finished reciting all these words to all of Israel, he said to them: “Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you this day. Enjoin them upon your children that they may observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching. For this is not a trifling thing for you: it is your very life, through it you shall long endure on the land that you are to possess upon crossing the Jordan.1
One striking feature of this passage is the repeated use of the word all (kol), which you may have caught from my inflection. Certainly, the poetry of Ha-azinu tells an encompassing story, but it hardly represents the totality of the Israelite experience. The repetition of all, then, points the reader beyond the confines of the poem’s context–Moses and the people at Mount Sinai2–and points the reader beyond our own immediate experience of the text. The Rabbis of the Talmud recognized this when they audaciously commented that the phrase kol divrei hashirah hazot, “All the words of this poem,” refers not just to the poem Moses just recited but, rather, to the whole Torah.3
Wow! This is amazing! The Talmud claims here that the Torah is not history, science, or journalism, but is poetry! And just as a poem requires the reader to deconstruct, analyze, hypothesize, and appreciate, so, too, the poem that we call the Torah also calls out to us to engage with all faculties appropriate to understanding and interpreting poetry.
Moses declares here: Simu l’vav-chem, “Put into your hearts; be mindful; pay attention, to this poetry, to the poetry of Torah and to the poetry of life, because the tools we need for a long and meaningful life are contained in these teachings. Like any precious material, however, it cannot be merely needs to be “mined.”
On this passage, the French medieval commentator Rashi quotes the rabbinic dictum, “The words of Torah are as ‘mountains hanging by a hair.’”4 This enticing visual metaphor suggests that the study of Torah requires delicate concentration and full focus. It invites us to probe, make sense of, and apply the wisdom we find there.
When we study and discuss Torah, we are like the witness to the mountains, not daring to pull our eyes away from this spectacular site for fear of missing something. The beauty of Torah discussion is that we are called upon to bring our whole being, all of our life experience, and all of our intellect to unravel its mysteries and apply its teachings to the present day.
But the forceful use of the word all in Moses’s teaching suggests that while the study of Torah is of value in and of itself, the application of Torah to our daily lives is the essential point. The early Chassidic master Rabbi Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir taught, “The essence of what we accomplish in our Torah study and prayer depends on our actions in the world.”5 Moses’s final words indicate that the study of Torah was never meant to be an activity we merely do as an aside. It is the activity of life—be it mundane or intricate—that permeates everything we do. Whether we’re doing the dishes closing a business deal, playing mah-jongg, or enjoying lunch with friends, the Rabbis warn us: don’t take your eyes off the mountain. Live Torah fully. Be mindful of a path that is present and passionate.
Certainly, we are enjoined to set aside time to study so that we can gain the knowledge of our text and traditions. But, if that study doesn’t lead to living an informed life, then the teaching becomes a trifle, or a d’var reik, literally an empty thing. As Moses states here: Ki lo d’var reik hu mikem; ki hu chayeichem, “For this is not a trifling thing for you:
it is your very life.” All the world’s a stage for Torah. It is found in conversations, editorials, art, and music.
A rabbinic colleague of mine was once questioned by the IRS for including the theatrical trade paper Variety in his tax deductions. The rabbi responded, “Do you know how many good sermons I have gotten out of that paper!?” I am not sure how much the tax official appreciated that, but the point is that Torah is everywhere, or at least, to paraphrase a well-known Hasidic teaching, “wherever we let Torah in!”6
This, then, is the lesson gleaned from my teacher in Tz’fat. Is the answer to the “most important book” question “Tanakh,” “the Holy Bible?” Well, perhaps, but not necessarily.
The most important book, my teacher suggested, was not our book of laws, but our book of days. Today, he might say our “calendar app.” What we choose to do with our time and with whom we choose to spend it informs the very character of our souls and the length of our days. To use a High Holy Day metaphor, our calendars can tell us a lot about our own Sefer HaChayyim, our Book of Life. Moses’s final words do not dictate that we spend every moment studying Torah, but that in every moment we allow the Torah and its values to resonate and permeate.
May we be blessed to live this New Year 5783 with the intention to make it all Torah all the time; to fill our days with Torah and teach it to each other, and to our children and grandchildren, through our actions. May we show ourselves to G!d and the world as anshei Torah, people of Torah, because the Sefer HaChayyim that we are writing with our deeds and our words, is a beautiful poem that reveals us to be thoughtful, mindful, caring, kind, passionate people. Amen.
Shabbat shalom
1 Deuteronomy 32:44-47.
2 To be clear, Mt. Sinai is the context of the poem, as becomes clear from, among other things, v. 9. It is the case, as a congregant correctly pointed out, that Mt. Sinai is not the spot where Moses declaimed this poem. That was by Mt. N’vo.
3 BT, N’darim 38a.
4 BT, Chagigah 10a.
5 Or HaMeir on Parashat Eikev.
6 Paraphrasing the Hassidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787-1859), known as the Kotzker rebbe. Kotzk is a city north of Lublin. The Kotzker rebbe famously taught, “Where is G!d found? Wherever we let G!d in!”