Ha'azinu

Nearly the whole portion is the song Moses was commanded to write, spoken into the ears of all the assembly: "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew." It opens with the ground of everything: "The Rock — His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice; a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, righteous and upright is He." The corruption is His children's, not His: "Is He not your Father who created you, who made you and established you? Remember the days of old... ask your father, and he will tell you."

The song remembers what God has been to Israel: finding him in a desert land, in a howling waste, encircling and caring for him, guarding him as the apple of His eye — "as an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreads its wings" — setting him on the heights of the land, feeding him honey from the crag and oil from the flinty rock. And then the turn: "Jeshurun grew fat and kicked... he forsook the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation," provoking Him with strange gods, sacrificing to demons, forgetting "the Rock who bore you." Judgment answers: "I will hide My face from them; I will see what their end will be" — a fire kindled, evils heaped up, arrows spent — jealousy answered with jealousy, "a no-people."

Yet the judgment stops short, "lest their adversaries misjudge, lest they say, 'Our hand is high; it is not the LORD who did all this'" — for "their rock is not like our Rock." "Vengeance is Mine, and recompense"; the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees their strength is gone; "see now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me; I put to death and I make alive." The song ends with the nations called to acclaim His people, and atonement for His land and people. Moses finishes and presses it home: "Set your hearts to all the words... it is not an empty word for you — it is your life." That same day God tells him to ascend Mount Nebo in the Avarim range, to see the land of Canaan and die on the mountain as Aaron died on Hor, "because you broke faith with Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribat-Kadesh... you shall see the land before you, but you shall not enter it."