Shabbat-B'Shabbato – Rosh Hashanah – Ha'azinu
No 1543: 1Tishrei5775 (25September2014)
AS SHABBAT APPROACHES
"Haziv Lach" – The Radiance is Yours - by Rabbi Oury Cherki, Machon Meir, Rabbi of Beit Yehuda Congregation, Jerusalem
The Torah portion of Ha'azinu is the only one that has an ancient tradition about how it should be divided into short segments among the people who read it in public. The division is indicated by the phrase "Haziv Lach" – The radiance is Yours – which is an acronym - the first letter of the first word of each of the separate readingsegments (Rosh Hashana 31a). This can be for us a key to understanding the essence of the inner structure of the epic poem Ha'azinu, which provides a framework for understanding the general historic process of the nation of Yisrael and G-d's guidance of them. Let us look at the contents of each segment:
"Ha'azinu" – Listen, heaven (verses 1-6): This puts an emphasis on the simple process of reward and punishment – the Judgmental Process.
"Zachor" – Remember the days of old (verses 7-12): This emphasizes the inherent unique and special trait of Yisrael ("segulah," a treasure), which does not depend on action but rather on the fact that G-d would have chosen us even if we did not have any merits because of our deeds. "For the portion of G-d is His nation" [32:9].
"Yarkiveihu" – He will ride up to the high places of the earth (verses 13-18): This describes "kicking" (32:15), the rejection of the Torah of G-d, which among other things is a result of an exaggerated faith in the power of the segulah of Yisrael. We are convinced that G-d remains with us and will not allow us to be torn apart after He has already chosen us.
Thus, these first segments present to us the three basic elements of Jewish history: justice, inherent unique traits, and rejection.
The last three segments of the poem describe the necessary consequence of what was described in the first three segments, but in a different sequence.
"Vayar" – And G-d saw and He turned away (verses 19-28): This is a direct result of the Judgmental Process. Sinners must be punished. The passage describes a society that is apathetic on the subject of the Divine. "They upset me with a non-god" [32:21] – but not with "other gods." And the Torah then mentions their vain elements – "they angered me with their vanities" [ibid]. The solution is to punish them measure for measure. "I will upset them with a non-nation, I will get them angry with a cruel nation" [ibid]. A non-nation is the name for a national identity that has no reason to exist on its own except for filling in the empty spaces in our national identity. This is a unique type of struggle, which forces us to return to our original identity.
"Lu chochmu" – If only they were wise they would know this (verses 29-40): This is a solution for the rejection of Torah. Additional wisdom is needed in the generation. It corresponds to the insight by Rav Kook – that the spiritual illness of the generation of redemption can only be cured by enhancing our spiritual expertese (Orot HaTeshuvah 4:10), in order to satisfy the intellectual quest of the generation.
"Ki essah" – For I will lift my hand up to heaven (verses 41-44): This is a result of our inherent segulah. It consists of Israel's revenge, carried out by G-d who takes revenge for His people. The revenge takes the form of filling the land with the holy flocks. "And the land will be atoned" [32:43]. This can also mean that the land will be covered by "His nation" ("vechiper" might be related to "Kaporet," the cover of the Ark).
We can conclude that while on a theoretical basis the intrinsic value of the segulah (G-d's choice of Yisrael) takes precedence over the material aspect (where sanctity depends on the actions of the people), the existence of Divine guidance causes the time of the treatment of sins and their consequences to be advanced, so that the factor of inherent worth will appear in full force in the end of days.
The seventh segment of the Torah portion (verses 45-52), which tells us about G-d's commandment to Moshe that the time had come for him to die, emphasizes how important it is for a leader to refuse to play a central role at the point where G-d's sovereignty over the entire universe becomes clear.
Rabbi Cherki is the head of Brit Olam – Noahide World Center, Jerusalem
POINT OF VIEW
In Honor of the Heavenly Court- by Rabbi Yisrael Rozen, Dean of the Zomet Institute
"And let all the evil dissipate as smoke" [Rosh Hashanah prayer].
A new year is spreading its pure white wings over us and over the entire world. Mixtures of new and old hopes beat in the hearts of each and every one of us – both as individuals and in the nation as a whole. Let us hope and pray to our Father in Heaven that our good dreams will come true. Amen!
We will all gather together in the synagogues throughout our land and all over the world, and with an atmosphere where we ask that "the old year and its curses should come to an end" we will wrap ourselves in infinite grief in our fateful identification with seventy-two families whose dear ones were killed during Operation Protective Edge (including five citizens), in addition to the families of the three kidnapped boys who were so cruelly murdered. "My heart goes out to them for their losses, my internal organs go out to them for their losses" [from the "Nachem" prayer of the Ninth of Av]. The only possible consolation – for us and for them – is in the continuation of the prayer, "For You have destroyed it with fire, and You will rebuild it with fire, and 'I will serve as a wall of fire around it, G-d says' [Zecharia 2:9 – referring to the Temple]. Our hearts also go out to those injured in the war and to their families, to all those who served by performing the mitzva of "rescuing Yisrael from an attacker." I will volunteer for the role of a messenger of the public in wishing them all a speedy and full recovery, both in body and in soul. Amen!
Putting the Nations on Trial
The prayers of Rosh Hashanah are full of universalism, as is indeed fitting for the day when the world was created. "And about the countries, for which it will be decided who will be put to the sword and who will have peace, who will have famine and who abundance. And all the creatures will be judged on this day, to mark them for life or death." [From the Amidah prayer for Rosh Hashanah, Ashkenazi version.] Note that the first ones judged are "the countries," and only afterwards is it the turn of the "creatures," denoting individualism. Everybody is familiar with the declaration by the sages that three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah and sealed on Yom Kippur. Each volume is composed of two parts, the Book of Kingdoms and the Books of Individuals. Wise men have said that these two types of judgment correspond to the two days of Rosh Hashanah – the first day is for "the countries" and the second is for "the creatures." The masters of the mystic meanings of the Torah recommend that we focus the prayers of the two days of the holiday on these two separate worlds, the general versus the individual, and they give this as the reason extending the holidayto two days.
The opening paragraph of this article, on the spread of "white wings" at the start of the new year, 5775, expresses a deep yearning in my heart. To my sorrow, "in a natural way," I see in front of us black clouds which spread Moslem wings over human culture. I assume that similar piercing words were written in Jewish bulletins before Rosh Hashanah 5693 (1932), eighty-two years ago, close to the time when the Nazi Party came into power in Germany, in 1933. Then too sane people tried to wake up the world and to ring all the warning bells, but to no avail. But there is one important difference: The Nazi ideology was anti-religious, based on "racist" philosophy and ananimalistic "religion of nature." The monstrous Moslem fundamentalism which has burst upon our world from a number of directions puts its faith in "the religion of Allah." As far as I am concerned, its black wings carry with them apocalyptic dangers and horrors that are no less than those of the Nazi lust for destruction. And even though "it is not valid to make comparisons with respect to nonkosher items" (see Chulin 48b), to me the "black sword" of Islam is reminiscent of the "black eagle" of the Nazis.
Learning from Experience
However, there is another difference between what might have been written in the bulletins of 5693 and this year, 5775: The world already has experience with the wild behavior of the Nazi beasts, which took a horrible toll of 60 million victims (yes, sixty million!). Black Islam, which sucks its blood from "religious" ecstasy related to a god of evil, now threatens to choke humanity by sealing petroleum wells, by chopping off heads, and through the "jaws" of the ticking of an Islamic atomic time bomb.
Cruel Islam has already sunk its claws and surrounds us in a threatening crescent, including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sinai, and Azza, and it has branched out to Africa. It is gazing towards the "apostate" areas of Europe, both east and west, and from there it continues on to the remains of Asia in the east, and to North and South America in the west. And it has not forgotten Australia either...
Master of the Universe, open up the eyes of the "western world" so that they will understand that the rising Christian anti-Semitism in their lands is marching hand in hand with fundamentalist Islam, and it will wash over their lands much faster than they seem to think. Master of the Universe, transform the labor migrants of Islam into a trigger of shock for the satiated world of culture, a trigger that will reveal before it is too late that the goal of the religion of the sword is to wage war against the "apostates" using the methods of the Inquisition and the Crusades. The State of Israel is just the beginning...
The mission of the State of Israel to the entire world is to continuously expose the animalism and the cannibalism that are inherent in the satanic religions. We must establish an elite force that will disseminate throughout the world in every way possible the monstrous "vision" of fundamentalist Islam. In this realm we must utilize the weapons of our enemies – we must organize professional and highly-skilled propaganda. "Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the Divine heavens" [Eicha 3:66].
LET YOUR WELLSPRINGS BURST FORTH
The Mitzva of the Day - by Rabbi Moshe Shilat, Director of "The Torah of Chabad for Yeshiva Students"
"The shofar is the mitzva of the day" [Rosh Hashanah 27]. The entire holiday of Rosh Hashanah revolves around the holy moments when the shofar is blown. And Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the year, encompasses the entire year and all of our service of G-d.
Everybody performs a mitzva when the shofar is blown. As is true of every mitzva, its foundation is found in a decree in the Torah, and it includes many practical details. In addition to the physical performance of the mitzva it is necessary to have the proper intentions. And the deep meaning of the shofar blowing is repentance, as in the well-known words of the Rambam: "Even though the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is a Torahdecree, it includes an important hint. It tells us: Wake up, you who are asleep, rise up you who are in a stupor. Search through your deeds and repent, remember your Creator" [Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4].
When the shofar sounds everybody repents. The Holy One, Blessed be He, accepts our repentance, and He moves over from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy and writes us down for a good life.
The Coronation
However, there is something much deeper in the blowing of the shofar, something that came before repentance and is at a higher level. Repentance is related to unworthy actions, but on Rosh Hashanah the world returns to its beginnings, to the beginning of its creation, before any desires to perform some act or another. The question asked on Rosh Hashanah is not only what will happen to us in the coming year but whether anything significant will happen at all.
The first important thing on Rosh Hashanah is the need to "awaken" G-d's will in the world and specifically within us. He must "wake up" and agree to reveal anew His royal power over us, and to have faith in us. And this is the essence of crowning G-d as the King over the entire earth.
We repent in order to succeed in crowning G-d, but the coronation itself is way beyond our actions and our thoughts. It involves the link between us and Him. This connection precedes the commands to perform or abstain from specific actions.
This deep concept lies at the root of the blowing of the shofar, when we shout out to the Holy One, Blessed be He, about how we belong to Him, reminding Him of His connection to us and His desire for us.
An Allegory by the Baal Shem Tov
We can see the basis of the above idea in an allegory told by the Baal Shem Tov:
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A king once had an only son who was very learned, and he loved him and treated him as the apple of his eye. The father and the prince decided that it would be a good idea for the son to travel to distant lands in order to learn wisdom and to better understand how people behave. The king gave his son a large entourage of ministers and servants and a large fortune, so that he would be able to journey to far lands and to the islands in the sea. In this way the son would reach a higher level than he could ever attain in his own house.
As time passed, the son used up all the wealth that the king had given him, spending it on the costs of the journey and mostly on new lusts that he had picked up on the way. And he then went on to a very faraway land where his father was not known at all.
Because of his difficulties the son decided to return home to his father's land. But he had been away so long that he had even forgotten how to speak the language. When he finally arrived in his own country he began to hint to the people around him that he was the prince. He arrived in the palace court and hinted at them that he was the king's son, but they did not pay any attention to him. And then he started to shout out in a loud voice, so that his father would recognize him. And when the king heard the voice, he said, "That is the voice of my son crying out in his great need!" And the love for his son was reawakened in the king, and he hugged him and kissed him.
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G-d sent the souls of Yisrael to this world in order to mend and raise up the world, so that they too would rise to a higher spiritual level. But the love of our bodies and of the physical lusts drove the souls away, until they forgot their mother tongue. By blowing the shofar we cry out with a simple sound, return to our father, and remind Him that together with Him we form a single entity.
This sound is not only the voice of repentance! It is in essence a renewal of our contact! I am Your son and You are my Father! Father, develop a desire for me! Father, have faith in me once again. Father, I want to be with you!
EDUCATING THE YOUTH
A Cure for Megalomania– by Eliyahu and Hila Fargeon, "The Jewish Tent"
On the beach, we operate workshops and hold meetings sitting around in a circle for the purpose of enhancing the contact and the awareness of the participants. In one of these meetings during Succot on Lebanon Beach, we asked a few dozen young people to tell us which is their favorite holiday. The vast majority said that it was Purim, time when some of the participants are very careful to observe the special mitzva of the day with great dedication. We were thus quite surprised to hear Yoel, who said that his favorite holiday is Rosh Hashanah. He said, "The moment I hear the sound of the shofar, I feel within me a release, my soul cries out again and again, and I can't stop crying. I can feel all the filth pouring out of me, and this gives me strength of my own." The reaction of his girlfriend, Ilana, was just the opposite. She said, "I have a hard time with Rosh Hashanah, because I do not feel my soul reaching out to G-d but rather that He demands that I appear before Him. But when I remember my situation I am ashamed to go to Him."
During the rest of the year, we disperse and go back to our normal tasks. The beginning of the new year is unique with its many holidays, where the Holy One, Blessed be He, has arranged for us to be within the circles of the family (at home) and in the community (during prayers). Just as the close proximity and the constant encounters between us and the Creator act on the souls of humanity to make the day of the shofar blast into the beginning of the entire year, the start of all processes of revolution and change, so the family atmosphere and the "togetherness" of this period have the power to influence the links among family members during the rest of the year.