Dvar Torah on Parshat Haazinu

Ha'azinu is one of the most poetic of parshas. Moshe, on the last day of his life, turns to verse to express his message of hope and fear for the Jewish future; his desire that the Jewish people live up to their covenant with God, and his pessimism about whether they actually will. He begins with a phrase which he has, more or less (see Devarim; 30,19),  used before: האזינו השמים ואדברה ותשמע הארץ אמרי פי - "Listen, oh heavens, and I will speak; hear, oh earth, the words of my mouth." Addressing the heaven and earth, bringing them as witnesses, as it were, to his words of admonition to the nation, is, on one level, simply a poetic device, a way of enhancing the impact and import of his message: what he has to say is so important, so crucial, that the very heavens and earth should listen. The Rabbis, however, see a number of specific messages implied by his calling upon heaven and earth to witness his speech in support of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. One of these messages goes as follows: heaven and earth are not simply passive witnesses to this directive from Moshe. They also serve as an active and integral part of the message. They are a model which the Jewish people should, but invariably fail to, follow. As the Midrash in the Sifrei says: "Why did Moshe bring the heavens and earth as witnesses before Israel?  He said to them: 'Look at the heaven and earth, for even though they were not created to be rewarded or punished, they do not deviate from their natural character. You, who will be rewarded if you deserve to be and punished if you sin, should you not all the more so not deviate from your natural character?'"

The idea here is a powerful one. The natural world - heaven and earth - is not subject to the notions of sin, punishment, or reward. It behaves naturally, doing what it was created to do, not deviating from being what it is "supposed" to be. It is what it is, and does what it does, out of instict, natural law, rather than calculation. We, on the other hand, are constantly at odds with ourselves and our surroundings, constantly struggling to live up to our better natures, rise above our weaknesses, and often failing to do so. Unlike the creatures of the natural world, man experiences consciousness, remorse, self-doubt, temptation, and discomfort with himself.  He finds it hard to behave "naturally", and sees his life as a series of battles with both his inner nature and the world around him. 

Jonathan Franzen, in his book "Freedom", touches upon some of these tensions. There is a short passage I'd like to share with you which expresses it nicely. It occurs when one of the protagonists has suffered terrible loss and is now very unsure of his way forward - morally, professionally, and personally. Wracked with doubt and remorse, staring out a window, "He watched a catbird hopping around in an azalea that was readying itself to bloom; he envied the bird for knowing nothing of what he knew; he would have swapped souls with it in a heartbeat. And then to take wing, to know the air's buoyancy even for an hour; the trade was a no-brainer, and the catbird, with its lively indifference to him, its sureness of physical selfhood, seemed well aware of how preferable it was to be the bird." The bird, untroubled by the things which man "knows", is sure of itself and its place in the world; it does what it does naturally, without thought, plan or self-doubt. Indifferent to man and his world of struggle, It naturally, thoughtlessly, and effortlessly "take[s] wing".

The Mishna in tractate Kiddushin expresses a similar thought about man and his place - or lack of it - in nature. Focusing on the difficulty we have in making our way financially, our need to struggle to make a living in a harsh, unyielding world, the Mishna tells us: "Rabbi  Shimon ben Elazar said: 'Have you ever seen an animal or bird who has a trade? And yet they suport themselves without any trouble. And is it not so that they were created to serve me [man], and I was created to serve my Maker - is it not right that I should support myself without any trouble? But I was evil, and lost my ability to support myself.'" (Kiddushin, chapter 4, mishna  14). The Mishna sees animals, who are lower than man, as living more easily and naturally in the world than we do: they don't need to learn a trade, they sustain themselves by being themselves, with no trouble. One would have thought that man, a higher being, would enjoy at least the same ease in trying to make his way in the world, but this is not the case. Starting with Adam and Eve's sin, and the subsequent expulsion from Eden, our actions, our mistakes and sins, our complicated natures, prevent us from living with the freedom and naturalness enjoyed by the lower animals.

Moshe's is making a daring claim when he calls upon heaven and earth to witness his rebuke to the people of Israel, and uses them as models of a life of natural, instinctual behavior, a life we could have if only we followed the laws of the Torah. He, and the Mishna in Kiddushin,  posit that a life lived according to the laws of the covenant is more natural, closer to the experience of the animals and the very heaven and earth, than a life lived in opposition to Torah law. Moshe is claiming that we, who have the added incentive of reward and punishment for our deeds, should certainly be able to live according to our true natures, and not deviate from the charecter and behavior which is natural to us, just as the physical world, without any threat of retribution, so easily does. This assumption is the polar opposite of an ideology, which does have some expression in Jewish thought, which sees nature, instinct, and the natural, physical world as things which are in opposition to a true religious impulse, and understands the religious life as an attempt to fight our natures and somehow rise above them. Moshe is actually claiming here that naturalness, ease, acting according to our inherent human character and inner impulse, is the very goal of the religious life, the very place the Torah wants us to get to by living according to its precepts and inspiration.

The implication here is profound. A religiosity which takes us away from a sense of ease and naturalness with the world around us, which is at odds with the inner voice of our true characters, is as wrong-headed and misdirected as a life of sin,  which leads to the same feeling of alienation from the rest of God's creation. As we face a New Year, when we examine and try to improve ourselves and our relationship with God and His world, we should remember that an enhanced religious life must be one that is fully in synch with our real natures, fully at one with the natural world, and not, for the sake of some misguided and misunderstood religious values, at odds with them.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova,

Rabbi Shimon Felix