5771 פרשת האזינו

 At the end of last week’s Parsha, the Torah tells us the Mitzvah to give over to our descendents the shira of Parshas Hazinu which is a reminder of our responsibility to God and what the repercussions of not keeping the Torah will be.

 The Siforno explains that, after the Shira discusses the tremendous destruction that will occur to Bnei Yisroel if they do not keep the Torah, where their defeat will be unnatural as every one enemy soldier will be able to conquer 1,000 Jewish soldiers.  

 The Shira then seems to go off on a tangent explaining how the nations of the world would be punished for their sins against Bnei Yisroel and their sins in general. The Siforno further explains that one of the reasons that the nations of the world will be punished is that they should have understood from the fact that their defeat of Bnei Yisroel was so totally lopsided and did not fit into the natural rules of war that Bnei Yisroel were being punished for their sins. This should have gotten them to realize that there is punishment for sins which should have caused them to repent. The reason that they did not have this realization is that that they were living in such tranquil times that all they were focusing on was acquiring more and more physical pleasures.

 If we look at this Siforno a little more closely we can ask the following question. Why would the Torah be telling Bnei Yisroel in the Shira meant to remind them of their responsibilities to God that the nations of the world would be punished for their sins since they did not focus on the unnatural method of their military victory to repent?

 The answer could be that it is in fact more of a message for Bnei Yisroel. This is something that will definitely occur to the nations of the world but it can help us also. Many times things occur to Bnei Yisroel that if they are looked at we would realize that they are not part of what we would consider the normal course of things. If we focus on these occurrences it should get us thinking that we need to repent and not just live life as we always were. This is why the nations of the world’s non realizations are told to Bnei Yisroel as this is something that applies to us also.   

 This is especially true in the times we are living in today especially in Eretz Yisroel. We constantly see decisions being made and occurrences happening that can not be viewed as natural. Over the past year we have seen the difficult financial situations in the U.S. and of late the decisions made in the political realm in Israel. We must realize that we have to focus on these occurrences as messages from God that we must take to heart and use them to inspire us to change our ways and repent.

פרשת האזינו 5770

 This week’s Parsha discusses the shira that Moshe gave over to Bnei Yisroel before he died. This shira was to remind Bnei Yisroel on a constant basis that if they follow the Torah they will be rewarded and if they Chas Veshalom do not follow the Torah there will be punishments. The Parsha begins with the following Pasuk:

 The heavens should listen and I will speak and the earth shall listen to the words of my mouth.

 The Pasuk uses two different words to mean listen. The first one is Haazinu which is used when referring to the heavens and the second is tishma which is used when referring to the land. The Pasuk also uses two different words to mean speaking. The first one is Vaadabeira which is used when referring to the heavens and Imrei Pi which is used when referring to the land. Chazal tell us that the difference between the word daber and amar when referring to different types of speech is that daber is something spoken in a harsh manner while amar is speech spoken in a soft tone.

 The Ohr Hachayim asks why it is that when referring to the heavens the Torah uses the word Haazinu to mean speech and also the word for harsh speech, while by discussing the land the Torah uses the word for hearing of tishma and the work for speech said in a soft tone.

 One answer he gives is that when the Pasuk is talking about the heaven and the earth it is actually referring to the two aspects that make up a person. The first one is the spiritual component referred to as heaven and the second part is the body which is referred to as land. With this understanding he answers his questions as follows. When talking to the spiritual part of a person which is hidden from view the Torah uses the word Haazinu while the body which is visible the Torah uses the word tishma. He further explains that when we talk to the spiritual part of us the Torah was speaking in a harsh tone since the soul will accept the harsh talk because it recognizes its responsibilities to God, while the body on the other hand, is so far from that level of understanding that it needs to be spoken to gently.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim more closely, we can learn a fascinating idea on how we should fight the Yetzer hara. Let us try to understand how to talk to each part of ourselves.

 A person in life is constantly faced with situations and desires that can potentially draw him away from doing the correct thing. In order to combat these desires and the strength of the Yetzer hara we need to fight the battle on two different levels. The first one is to constantly remind ourselves forcefully that there are consequences to our actions. Someone that does not follow the Torah and does not do Teshuva will in the end be punished. We should also remind ourselves in a strong manner that after all God has done for us how can we not serve him properly. However, even though that definitely helps when we are put in a situation when we have to fight our desires we sometimes have to also speak to our more earthly selves and convince ourselves that the action we are about to take might not be the best one. This should be done in a way that we convince ourselves that we will be better off not giving in to our desires. For example, if a person has the desire to over sleep minyan, he might try to tell himself that if he gets up early he will be able to get to work earlier and leave early in the evening to do something fun. Every person must know himself and what things can assist him in defeating the Yetzer hara.

 If we can commit to fighting the Yetzer hara with both of these methods together, we should merit that God will accept our repentance and decree for us a good year.

 5768 פרשת האזינו

In this week’s Parsha the Torah continues its description of the last day of the life of Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe was giving over to Bnei Yisroel the “song” of Hazinu for them to remember always that when they do the wrong thing there are repercussions. The Pasuk when describing how Bnei Yisroel will in the future leave the path of God says as follows:

 Yeshurun will get fat and will rebel.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai asks, why did the Torah in this place describe Bnei Yisroel using the word Yeshurun?

 The Rabbeinu Bechai explains that the word Yeshurun is a descriptive used to describe things on a very high level of honor. It is used within Parshas Hazinu to describe the level of Bnei Yisroel at the time of the giving of the Torah.

 The Rabbeinu Bechai continues and explains that it is used in this context as a rebuke to Bnei Yisroel saying that you who experienced the giving of the Torah and were on such a high spiritual level and in the future you will totally forget all the good God did for you and end up sinning.

 The following question can be asked on this Rabbeinu Bechai. This Shira of Hazinu was given to Bnei Yisroel for all times not just the generation that went through the Midbar, so why would the Torah use the word for Bnei Yisroel of Yeshurun which connotes the good that occurred to Bnei Yisroel when they were in the Midbar for the generations even after them and to use it as a rebuke of Bnei Yisroel generations later when they sinned.

 The answer could be that every person has the ability through learning Torah and having the Torah transmitted to him by his parents to see and appreciate the tremendous good that God did to his ancestors. That appreciation of the relationship that God has with Bnei Yisroel and all the good he did for us then and continues to do for us should cause a person to worship God properly.

 It is for this reason that the Torah was able to use the word Yeshurun as a description of Bnei Yisroel even for the future generations as a stinging rebuke when they do not follow the path of the Torah.

 Now that we just finished Yom Kippur when we received the greatest good that God gives us which is forgiveness for our sins and we are entering Sukkos which recalls the great kindness God did for Bnei Yisroel in the Midbar, this should spur us to recognize all the good God gives us on a daily basis and cause us to work to grow in our Service of him.

פרשת האזינו  5767 

In this week’s Parsha the Torah gives over the ”Shira” to Bnei Yisroel which discusses what happened in the past and what hill happen in the future when Bnei Yisroel don’t follow the Torah. The Sipurno in his introduction explains that God created the world that all man kind should tell over the rightousness of God but since the nations of the world could not succeed God gave the entire responsibility with all its benefits to Bnei Yisroel, of course starting with Avraham Avinu. The Pesukim first discuss the past starting from Adam Harishon to the generation of the Mabul to the Dor Haflaga. The Pasuk then says the following:

The portion of God is his nation, Yakov is is inheritance.

The Sipurno explains this Pasuk as follows:

God only has a portion in Bnei Yisroel since all the other nations of the world believe in other deities and if it were not for the fact that Bnei Yisroel in the future would be descended from these other nations they would have all been destroyed due to the sin of the “Dor Haflagah”.

Then the Sipurno continues and said the following to explain the words “Yacov is the inheritance of God”:

That Yacov and his sons were servants to God but among the nations of the world even if you find a righteous person who serves God it won’t be transmitted to his children.

The question that arises is that it seems from the first Sipurno the reason that God would have destroyed the Dor Haflagah was that there were no people who would worship God (implying that if there were even a few it would be enough), however from the second Sipurno it implies that even if there were some people from the other nations of the world in every generation that served God it wouldn’t be enough since they didn’t transfer that belief to the descendents?

Furthermore, why do we assume that the Tzadik of the nations of the world will not give over his beliefs to the next generations?

 If we look at the language of the first Sipurno we can find answers to our questions.

 The Sipurno says why was it that God did not consider himself to have a portion in the other nations since they are  the sons of strange gods.

What the Sipurno seems to be saying is that if a society is by definition an idol worshipping society then just because one person is not an idol worshipper doesn’t necessarily mean that he separated himself from that society. How does a person remove themselves from that society? It is only if they give over their beliefs to the next generation. This is due to the fact that only if something is so important to a person will he insure that is passed on further. Even to this righteous person who serves God and not idols, it is only because it makes more sense to him, not that there is anything necessarily wrong with what the rest of the generation is doing. The belief in God will never be passed on. Only Bnei Yisroel whose service of God is more than just an idea, rather it is the meaning and the purpose of life, will give it over to their children. This is why the portion of God is only with Bnei Yisroel.

We can learn from this a very important lesson. Being someone who serves God by rote just isn’t enough. We have to really understand that this is an integral part of our life. It is this feeling that makes us the portion of God in this world and it is only through having this feeling that we can be assured that our beliefs will be given over to our descendents.

If we focus on this idea, we should merit to have a good year and much nachas watching our children and grandchildren following in our footsteps as true servants of God.

פרשת האזינו 5766  

There is a very interesting Midrash on this week’s Parsha. The Pasuk says the following:

  “remember the days of the world and understand the years of each generation”.

 The Midrash gives us an insight into what the Pasuk is trying to tell us. The Midrash says as follows:

The ”Shira” that Moshe Rabeinu gave over to Bnei Yisroel as a reminder of our responsibilities to God and that there is reward and punishment for the actions you will do, is telling us to remember the generations of the Mabul and Sedom and Amorah and their punishment since there are Reshaim exactly like them in each generation who will get individually punished.

There are a couple of questions that can be asked about this Midrash:

1.  If the purpose of this Pasuk is to tell Bnei Yisroel that if they do sins they will get punished, then why bring a proof to them from something so many generations before. They could see it much clearer from the generation of their parents in the midbar who mostly all died in the midbar due to their sins. In fact at the beginning of Parshas Devarim, we see that Moshe Rabbeinu did in fact rebuke and remind Bnei Yisroel about these sins and their respective punishments?
2. Furthermore, why bring a proof from generations that were for all intense and purposes in the top 10 and probably the top 5 in evil.  It would seem better to bring proofs from a generation whose sins are more similar to the sins that regular people would do?

 I think the answer can be found in the explanation of the Ramban on the last 5 words of the following Pasuk.

“And it will be when a person hears the words of this curse, he will think in his heart saying I will be fine since I followed the thoughts of my heart. This will cause him to increase accidental sins onto the sins he did on purpose.”

The Ramban explains the words “will increase accidental sins onto the sins he did on purpose” to combine the person who doesn’t desire many bad things with the person who desires bad things constantly. He explains that the person who doesn’t desire many bad things as soon as he has even a small desire for something bad and he gives into it and satiates the desire the opposite will occur and the desire will grow greater. The only way to stop desire is to starve it.

 This could be what the Midrash is trying to tell us when it explains that God is telling Bnei Yisroel to remember the generations of the Mabul and Sedom and Amorah and that there are people like them in every generation. The reason is to show us that any and every person has the ability to drop to the lowest levels of evil. This is due to the fact that once a person starts giving in to his desires there is no depth that he can’t reach.

This is an incredibly important concept to think about especially coming into Yom Kippur. People can sometimes feel that I didn’t do any great sins, I only did small sins. I only told small lies; I only spoke a little bit during davening, etc. This is a very slippery slope to be on. If we don’t catch ourselves early on and continue to let ourselves go there is no limit to how low we can fall.

However, on the other hand, the Orchas Tzadikim writes in his introduction the following:

 A person should strive to do good since if a person does something good he will naturally desire to do more good.

We should use these last few days of the 10 days of repentance and Yom Kippur to make the right choice and to start us on the path of good and we should only go from one level to the next and we should truly merit a good year.