Haazinu: the empty spaces

Haazinu: the empty spaces

Ha'azinu is the parsha for the Shabbath Tshuva', the sabbath of return and repentance.  The Shabbath between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur when we consider our behavior over the last year and the plans for improvement for the commnig year. On this sabbath we read the poem that Moshe said that the people will never forget. 

It is a ballad of national origin, national struggle to the point of near destruction, and ultimate salvation.  It preaches faith.  Verse 21 is climactic They incensed Me with no-gods, Vexed Me with their futilities; I’ll incense them with a no-folk, Vex them with a nation of fools.  The translator chose to render the singular  "ayl" as a pleural.  That is probably an attempt at historicity. The translator posits that the people of the time could not be without a god, thus the no-god is a worthless god, a myth - as opposed to the true Gd. This is consistent with the emphasis, throughout the Torah, on straying and worshiping such false deities.  But in our age, we recognize the no-god  at all position. It often presented as the position of science.

The no-god position has shades of meaning. The Haazinu verses suggest that the listener "ask your ancestors."  There is a suggestion that  the experienced have a corrective perspective . But the (young) transgressor may  believe that  time (sometimes designated a  false deity -Chronos) has changed the way the world works. I have heard this from adolescents.   We live in new and better times, with fewer restrictions and greater freedoms , spelled out by Instagram and TikTok.  These new norms will lead us to the paradise ( of future consumption). 

A prodigal son (not my own son) once told me that the scientific understanding  of the world assures that everything is predetermined. Thus, his behavior could  be directed entirely to his momentary pleasures and whims.  This no-god is also a surrender to  a belief in a thoroughly determined, and thus  predictable, universe.  It merely removes the concerned entity from the guided universe. 

Every year, at this pre Yom Kippur time of  Haazinu,  the lens of significance is applied to my world. I  look at the legacy brought by my grandchildren, with all of the ambiguities of their development in a "changing" world.  I live in the current pandemic, and the intimation  that there are more to come (based both upon the parhsa and science [the current covid plague is the third of its kind in the past 20 years {SARS, MERS, not mention Ebola}])

Haazinu is written with significant spaces between the phrases.  The form emphasizes the significance of the the saying.  It also emphasizes the (Godel)  incompleteness. For the believer, science partially fills  some of the space.

Rosh Hashana: Reality Distortion Fields

I do not understand the world.  That is a message from the  religious tradition. The world operates on a higher level than I can perceive.  Thus, my ideas of truth and  justice and self and community are personal distortions that can be (partially) corrected by scholarship.  This morning our minyan recited  selichoth, prayers of penitence. Some of the analyze these grand concepts in poetry   

. (9) יָבִיא בַּמִּשְׁפָּט עַל־כָּל־נֶעְלָם: His might brings to judgment everything hidden.

 (11) אֱמֶת אַתָּה־הוּא רִאשׁוֹן וְאֵין רֵאשִׁית לְרֵאשִׁיתֶךָ.It is true that You are first and there is no genesis to Your beginning. 

These prayer-poems offer a perspective that rarely reaches  consciousness. 

Science also convinces me that I do not understand the world.  Without special equipment, I have no awareness of the information coursing though wires, or even in the air  - on radio, wifi, bluetooth, etc.  There is a hidden world that I cannot  perceive without a (magical) transducer.   Around me there is a magnetic world, a world of physical forces that are sensible only when they release their extraordinary energies.  I do not really know what is happening around me, but because of its power and predictability - I believe in its existence and properties.  These  hidden forces are the domain of science and engineering.  

Rosh Hashanah is defined by the appearance of the New Moon in Tishrei, the seventh month. It is the observation of the  New Moon that generates Rosh Hashana. We celebrate  the new moon for every month except Tishrei, when the New Moon marks the new year.  The natural world defers to the spiritual. 

   We now have two days of Rosh Hashana  because of the (ancient, precalendar) uncertainty about the exact time the new moon would appear and the testimony of those who witnessed it would be accepted. The two days of Rosh Hashanah attest to the uncertainty  about the physical world and represents a way to respond to that uncertainty.  Now, even after the Copernican/Kepplerian model of the celestial bodies allows a very accurate calendar, that tells us with a high level of scientific certainty when the new moon will appear ( if it is not too cloudy), we maintain the ancient fix, the two days of ambiguity.  The ambiguity is important

Uncertainty  is one of the things we celebrate on Rosh Hashana.  We consider the nature of our immediate future, what will happen in the next year and how will it turn out?  Few people considered the coronavirus epidemic ( there were some: Bill Gates  ( whose father recently died) in a general way ; and there are coronovirus virus researchers who knew about SARS and MERS).  The plague of toxic smoke ( consequences  to unfold over the next decades) was a ( somewhat predictable) surprise.  My daughter, who had leukemia at age 3, gave birth to twins ( a boy and and a girl).  My grandson turns one. Everything is a (predictable) surprise - like the birth of Isaac [and its consequences]

Is the world dangerous? Is it miraculous? I just don't understand. How can I not believe?

Nitzavim - Vayelech: 

We are at the end of the Torah. We will start again next year, but now is the time to reflect and question what it is all about. The two parshioth that we read this week are invitations to upcoming  conclusion  (and restart) that will coincide with our holidays of reflection. 

The first parsha is called Nitzavim, standing.The nation is described as standing. אַתֶּ֨ם נִצָּבִ֤ים הַיּוֹם֙ כֻּלְּכֶ֔ם  You stand this day, all of you,It means more than having an upright posture, it means maintaining  a  position despite resistance, standing one's ground.  This Nitzavim attitude  is related to the recurrent description of the people as  stiff-necked.  The tenaciousness of the people, their conviction in their theories, is emphasized.  In time, of course, this  relentless (over)confidence  supports their allegiance to (what they come to believe is) the Law transmitted by Moses. But here, at the  presentation of the Torah, it is an obstacle to acceptance. 

A theme of Nitzavim is acceptance of the covenant. That acceptance is to include those that are NOT standing here today, וְאֵ֨ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֵינֶ֛נּוּ פֹּ֖ה עִמָּ֥נוּ הַיּֽוֹם׃ and with those who are not with us here this day. It includes those who can hardly stand (like our  grandson) and those that cannot stand at all ( like our recently born grandchildren)  and even those that are not yet born ( and, perhaps  those that are dead).  This covenant is commitment that carries on past the the lifetime of the signators, it has the longevity of the germplasm.  Only the Nitzavim,  נִצָּבִ֤ים, the committed, the stubborn, the self assured upright  could enter into such an agreement. 

The lack of definition of the agreement is also mentioned. The are  secret הַ֨נִּסְתָּרֹ֔ת and revealed וְהַנִּגְלֹ֞ת  elements , and the secret parts are not for humans.  The essence of the pact is  somehow close by כִּֽי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד  the thing is very close to you, not surprising, לֹֽא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ , it is  in your mouths and hearts בְּפִ֥יךָ וּבִֽלְבָבְךָ֖ לַעֲשֹׂתֽוֹ.  Are not these the qualities of venerable theories that we held onto so firmly, and must now be replaced?  Replace we must! 

In the second parsha, Moshe emphasizes his mortality.  He can still go, thus the title of the parsha, וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ Vayelech -  but not for long.  Moshe confronts his mortality and the worry that the message will die with him.  He invites the people to learn a song that they will not forge ( next chapter).  We, who stand here today, have not forgotten it.  But its meaning...

Ki Thavo: the Deal 

The parsha is about acknowledging  Divine benevolence  and recognizing that straying from the law has dire consequences.  The parsha begins with the Pilgrim's declaration אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה, 'A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt, ...וַיָּרֵעוּ אֹתָנוּ הַמִּצְרִים And the Egyptians dealt ill with us,... וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ  And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders. 

It ends with: אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם, אֵת כָּל-אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה  Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt .  וְלֹא-נָתַן  but the LORD hath not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. Between the demands for acknowledgement at the beginning and end of the parsha,  there is a brief list of blessings  for obedience and  a litany of punishments and curses for transgression  of the covenant - the rewards and punishments. 

This is the arrival referred  to by the title of the parsha: כִּי-תָבוֹא: when you arrive . The arrival  is the heart to know and the eyes to see. The slave and wanderer cannot fully comprehend the scope of the plan and spectacle of the reward. It is only now, after the cycle of humiliations and redemption has been repeated (many times)  that you can comprehend  your world. 

How did you get into this agreement?  Now, 3,500 years later, we have seen iterations of the pattern.  My parents lived through the great chastisement  of the twentieth century when all  of the tortures listed in  Deuteronomy chapter 28  were delivered on a scale, and with cruelty,  that the ancients could not imagine. Then, the state of Israel is born and grows fat; the children of the survivors never know the meaning of want. One full turn. What happens next? 

Generally, we recall the Exodus from Egypt as the starting point of this dysfunctional relationship of beatings and reconciliations. The parsha reports that the story begins just before the descent into Egypt. אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה, 'A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt. It was a wandering Aramean  that descended to Egypt. It was a person with an ethnicity that we do not share, and his descendants were transformed into a people that we can (albeit remotely) identify as our ancestors: the Hebrews.  

The official translation of the Torah is that of Onkelos, in the era of the Roman Empire.  He "translates " the passage: אֲרַמָּאָה בָּעָא לְאוֹבָדָא יָת אַבָּא An Aramean attempted to annihilate my father. This interpretation  translates אֹבֵד as "destroy," rather than "lost." Rashi adds details Laban wished to exterminate the whole nation” . This interpretation preserves Jacob as Hebrew, rather than Aramean.  It also hints at the possibility that Jacob  was, perhaps, slipping  into an Aramean approach to life, a perspective exemplified by the conniving Laban.  Ultimately, it was the Laban-like, callous, transactional  behavior of  selling  Joseph into slavery, that led to the bondage of Israel in Egypt. Measure for measure, Lex talionis

Nothing rational blocks the recurrent  carnage. Poverty did not prevent pogroms, wealth baited the holocaust.  The level of spiritual perfection required to stop the slaughter seems beyond reach. 

There is a pattern to history; make the best of it.  Oy!