Ha’azinu
Deuteronomy 32:1-32:52
Hosea 14:2-10, Micha 7:18-20, Joel 2:15-27
During the High Holy Days, we have an opportunity to contemplate our theology. One of the most common reasons people give me for not being interested in (or even detesting) what they think of as “organized religion” is that they are uncomfortable with the image of God in the Torah, the siddur, the Talmud, the public imagination. They can’t envision a God who desires that we kill animals to worship. They are unable to imagine how following what seem to be arbitrary whims of this punishing and blood-connected God will make their lives richer.
It is true that there are plenty of images of the Divine in the Torah that give me, as a modern person, pause, and our portion this week is one of them.
Here we have God who starts by giving, by taking care of the people and giving them the very best of everything: “God engirded [Israel], watched over [Israel], guarded [Israel] as the pupil of God’s eye … God set [Israel] atop the highlands, to feast on the yield of the earth. God fed [Israel] honey from the crag, and oil from the flinty rock, curd of kine and milk of flocks. With the best of lambs, and rams of Bashan, and he-goats, with the very finest wheat — and foaming grape-blood was your drink.”
Sadly, all this bounty led to complacency, and to the people ignoring the hand of the One who had given them such bounty. So they went astray, and worshipped elsewhere, and forsook God — who, as you can imagine, did not like this turn of events: “The Lord saw and was vexed and spurned God’s sons and God’s daughters. God said: I will hide My countenance from them, and see how they fare in the end.”
Of course, they fare badly. Then God will save them, and get rid of all those nations who are hurting Israel — almost like a second Exodus, but this time the story has the note of teaching the people a lesson.
The rabbis recognized the same problems that we do in this text — why does God abandon us? Why not a gentler correction earlier in the process? Or do we not hear? And will it happen again? How do we stop this cycle of closeness, overindulgence, self-importance and ruin, leading to desperation and finally munificence on the part of the Diety? How do we redeem this story and return to the joy of the Exodus, of discovering that there is a freedom we had never imagined?
The end of the parshah says, “This is not an empty thing for you: it is your very life.” Where do we want to be in the cycle? On the up side, of course. And so the rabbis bring us texts of hope as the additional readings for this week.
The Haftarah is chosen carefully, to help balance the severity of the Torah portion: “Who is a God like You, forgiving iniquity and remitting transgression; Who has not maintained wrath forever … [who] will take us back in love, will cover up our iniquities?” (Micah 7:18-19).
And in Joel 2, everyone is enjoined to come and ask forgiveness — even the couple in their wedding bed — to stir God’s compassion. And as they did this relatively simple act,, “then the Lord was roused … and had compassion upon the people.”
So we can come to this holy time with our own requests, our own desires, that all people be taken back in to the bosom of God. For is it not but a simple thing that God asks of us? To do justly to each other, to create a community where everyone is treated well and has enough to eat, to pursue the happy life?
Let us rouse ourselves, as we ask forgiveness this week, and spread our compassion as widely as we can. With that and the will to work to create the world in that perfect image, the one we hold onto when we object to the punishing God, we will in fact know that God is in our midst. May you all be signed and sealed in the Book of Life for a sweet, healthy and peaceful new year.
Rabbi Elisheva Salamo is the spiritual leader of Keddem Congregation in Palo Alto.