Haazinu - A new understanding of a poetic masterpiece by Elie Morrison (son of Rabbi Howard Morrison)
06/10/2025 06:15:50 AM
Haazinu is mostly a poem, aside from its last aliyah. A poem…or a song… brings us to a heightened state – it can convey emotion more profoundly than just prose.
Speaking on the Shabbat just after Yom Kippur – imagine a Yom Kippur service without any tune, song or poetry. Even Neilah, the epilogue of Yom Kippur, with its slow, contemplative nusach, purposely brings us into a deeper moment.
In the epilogue of the Torah, as we’ve entered the final days of Moshe’s life and some of his last words to Bnei Yisrael, the poetry of this parsha brings us into a profound and reflective state.
I want to explore some of the ways the poetry used throughout this parsha allows us to connect on a deeper level.
Let’s start at the beginning, verse one. Moses calls on the heavens and the earth. The typical explanation many medieval commentators give – is the heaven and earth represent two everlasting witnesses.
I want to offer a different take. Heaven represents the highest points, what we physically look up to and emotionally aspire to. And earth represents low points… we walk on the earth … we trudge through its dirty surface. And in between, there’s us.
From the get-go, that interpretation can foreshadow what comes next. We’re taken to some of the highest points in Bnei Yisrael’s relationship with Hashem and the lowest points too.
A few verses later, we are reminded of the first inception of the relationship between our peoplehood and God, in the moments after the Exodus.
And perhaps in a connection to heaven – It uses a metaphor of a creature that flies through sky to illustrate it. In chapter 32, verse 11, “Like an eagle who rouses his nestlings, gliding down to his, so did He spread his wings and take him.”
And then the emotional recollection begins, as the parsha continues – we’re plunged into a low moment and a description of God’s reaction. In verses 15 through 19 we’re told about periods Bnei Yisrael turned away from God and sunk into idol worship.
In the parsha’s description of God’s reaction to this low period – we’re told in verse 22 “a fire has flared in my wrath and burned to the bottom of Sheol has consumed the earth and its yield, eaten down to the base of the hills” – burning the earth and Sheol which might be imagined as below the earth.
And the use of fire here, which requires earthly material to ignite… not simply burning any hills, Rashi explains that its the hills of Jerusalem, God’s fire metaphorically devouring our holiest site on Earth.
In the description of what God will do to our enemies, it says in verse 32, “the vine for them is from S’dom, the vineyards of Gomorroah, the grapes for them are poison”. While the vine is understood to imply wine, we have another earthly metaphor, using the vine which grows from the ground, in a description of the fate of our enemies.
We move toward the end of the poem of Haazinu, in the reconciliation of God’s relationship with Israel, God would … in verses 40 to 41… “raise my hand to heaven and say, as I live forever” and “wreak vengeance on my foes and deal with those who reject me.”
The vengeance part gets kind of gruesome in the verse that follows. But God is raising his hand to heaven, as if in an oath, to protect the nation of Israel, a high point for us with a heavenly metaphor invoked.
I would suggest in any journey throughout our lives, using the journey of Bnei Yisrael from the Exodus to Moshe’s final days as an example, it’s worth taking the time to reflect — in a way that’s profound enough for us to stop and look deeply at it. In this parsha, its poetic language helps us do that.
We reflect on the high points and low points, on the moments with unclean, earthly misdoings, and on the moments with wonderful heavenly outcomes, and should find out for ourselves, what did we learn from it?