Is there a poem you go back to for inspiration when life gets tough?
Like many great speeches, The Book of Words includes poetry. But this one is surprising. It’s not exactly a feel good poem, but it’s obviously there with a clear purpose, up there among the three epic poems of Torah. The Ha’azinu poem, named for its opening word that means “listen up” - and not just with our physical abilities — calls upon nature to be witness and listener, as well as every single one of us. What is this poem’s purpose and who chose to make these words the almost final trope in the swan song of Moses?
Historically, scholars date the oldest elements to the 12th century BCE, alongside Canaanite epic poetry such as the Song of the Sea. Other elements are quite late, from the 5th century BCE. What nobody argues about is its haunting message and hypnotic wording:
הַאֲזִ֥ינוּ הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וַאֲדַבֵּ֑רָה וְתִשְׁמַ֥ע הָאָ֖רֶץ אִמְרֵי־פִֽי׃
“Give ear, O heavens, and I shall speak; Earth, hear the words of my mouth” Dv 32:1
In the previous chapter Moses frames this poem as a witnessing device -meant to endure and to remind the people, or perhaps remind God, of the entire arc - why the covenant, how it will fail, and how it will once again be renewed. The poem, like our history, gets quite bleak and as with many poems, sometimes quite obscure. So who is this poem really for? What is its secret?
It takes a poet to appreciate it, and none better than C. N. Bialk, one of the national poetic greats of Israel who wrote:“Most sublime of the poems of the Torah, perhaps even in the entire Bible is ‘The Poem of Ha’azinu’ that has no peer in terms of its beauty and power. If among the biblical prophecies and rebukes of the Bible none would have been left none other than ‘The Poem of Ha’azinu’ that would have been sufficient for us to understand the essence and unique qualities of prophetic poetry, its eternal power and holy splendor. Ha’azinu is none other than the prophecy of prophecies and the vision of visions to whose voice “the heaven and earth lend their ears.”
Dr. Wendy Zierler quotes Bialik in her profound analysis of this poem, clarifying what is indeed the poem’s powerful message and why it endures:
“Somehow, despite the corrupt backsliding of the people, this song will counter their moral turpitude, jog them back into some kind of awareness, and result in atonement. Imagine a poem that is potent enough to move an entire nation from corruption to expiation.. ..the notion of realizing new possibilities is crucial to the enduring power of Ha’azinu.
Despite the seeming repetitiveness of the song; despite its presentation of what might be considered a deterministic story of Israelite affluence, waywardness and subsequent punishment, the historical sweep of the poem together with its poetic features testify to to the possibility of change, development, and a turning away from a fatalistic script. The very fact that one can say something more than once in similar but sufficiently different ways, using words that intensify, specify, and move meaning forward rather than keeping it static and univalent, attests to the durability and permanence of the covenant, on the one hand, and the capacity of the people to grow and change, on the other.”
Poetry is here to help us listen, like the earth and heavens, to the cycles of life, to our ebb and flow, to hopeful futures. In the Sifre Midrash on this poem we are taught:
״גדולה שירה שיש בה עכשיו ויש בה לשעבר ויש בה לעתיד לבוא ויש בה לעולם הבא.״
“Grand is this poem that includes the present, the past, the future - and the world to come”
Some say that the entire Torah is this poem, and when Moses talk of poetry he means the entire book. We are invited to use our ears, our hearts, and not just our bodies with whatever challenges that may offer - to really hear the inner call which is this poem/teaching/book.
After this chapter/poem, will come the final blessing, and the final breath, that keeps on living:Just two more chapters of past, present and future to go.
Ready for Joshua?? On 10/25 we bury Moses, close the Torah, cross the Jordan River into Canaan along with Joshua, entering ‘Prophets’ - the second section of the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Joshua is 24 chapters long and I invite you for a one-month journey of politics and myth, power and conquest, then and now. What’s at stake when land becomes a homeland?
On 10/24 1pm ET I will be joined by Dr. Rachel Havrelock, author of The Joshua Generation and Rabbi David Kline, to get ready for the Journey with Joshua.
Join us to get ready on this free 60 min. Zoom conversation:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85448738911?pwd=dmRIRndNNDhjaXZsVjh5K3dSYUdLQT09
Meeting ID: 854 4873 8911
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections: Join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible, with daily reflections, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. January 2022-July 2025
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