Ha’azinu – Listen! Is a long poem Moses declaims to the Israelites, his penultimate speech before his death. The poem serves as both a prediction and a warning to the Israelites – you will stray from My worship, go after idols and gods who are no gods, and I, God, will punish you by sending foreign enemies to defeat you. But eventually God will forgive and redeem the people, defeating their enemies. The core theology of the poem is that all outcomes, for good or for ill, are the result of God’s intentions and actions, not due to any human agency.
We read this portion on Shabbat Shuvah – the Shabbat of Return, between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. While in modern times we may reject the theology of Deuteronomy, that God punishes the wicked and rewards the pious, the greater lesson is the lesson of these Ten Days of Awe – that we are accountable for our actions and that actions have consequences. These Ten Days are our opportunity to examine our actions of the past year, to hold ourselves accountable, and to seek forgiveness and make restitution in any way we can. In doing so, we will create our own reward – each of us making our own little piece of the world a better place.
-Rabbi Bonnie Margulis
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