Steps in the Dance of Closeness and Distance
by R. Gidon Rothstein
Parshat Ha’azinu
It’s the Synergy
Meshech Chochmah’s long second comment to 32;3 starts by noticing Moshe waited twenty-one words of song to mention God’s Name. Sifrei said it showed Moshe was one-seventh of an angel, who speak God’s Name after three words (kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, holy, holy, holy, from Kedushah). Moshe had to wait for the twenty-first one.
The Jewish people invoke the Name after only two words, Chullin 91b tells us, Shema Yisra’el. [A verse Moshe himself taught us. I suspect Meshech Chochmah would have distinguished what Moshe said Hashem had taught him for the people to say, and what he himself said, in Ha’azinu.]
He assumes Jews get to God’s Name quicker because they are a collective, where angels are inherently solitary, neither learn nor gain from each other. It fits with Shabbat 89a where the Gemara thought Moshe proved the angels could not receive the Torah because they have none of society’s ills, like murder or robbery. More than that they do not have human experiences, Meshech Chochmah is saying the Torah addresses itself to a society, and angels are always alone.
[In kedushah, we do say the angels call out to each other before saying kadosh, kadosh, kadosh; I could have imagined they were binding together to praise God. Meshech Chochmah seems to think they call to each other from their solitary places, to praise God together, but not unite in any way.]
People are more necessarily social, as Ben Zoma notes in Berachot 58b. The first human, Adam, had to take care of all his needs on his own, where he, Ben Zoma, woke up every morning to find his needs provided by the invisible hand of the market. Torah is meant for a society, the reason ten men working together serve God more than ten times each individual. The community says God’s Name after two words, less than one-tenth of the twenty-one even Moshe needs.
For this Meshech Chochmah, ki Shem Hashem ekra shows the goal of bringing God into the world, angels doing it as individuals, where people work in communities, an advantage, the reason people received the Torah rather than angels.
Staying Away From Worshipping Other Powers, the Nature of the Relationship with Gd
The phrase shichet lo, lo banav mumam, 32;5, challenges translation. According to Sefaria, it means “their baseness has played him false,” where other online translations have variations of the Jews having acted corruptly, to their shame, or have become blemished. Rashi and Rashbam (known as a literalist) think it means their hashchatah, going wrong, is their blemish.
Not quite what Onkelos said, di pelachu la-ta’avata, that they worshipped other powers than Gd. For him, shichet lo, linking the Jews’ going wrong to God, was their having worshipped other powers. Part of the reason for the attention to their misplaced worship becomes clearer at 32;17, where the Song bemoans Jews’ offering sacrifices la-shedim lo elo’a, elohim lo yeda’um, demons, no-gods, gods they have never known. Here, more clearly, the complaint is about their worship of powers with no real power.
Onkelos instead writes de-let behon tzeroch, for whom they have no need, dachalan de-lo yeda’anun, sources of fear/awe they have not known (meaning, I think, have no historical relationship). The idea of God as dachala, a source of fear/awe, comes up again in the next verse, 32;18, where Onkelos renders tzur, when it is about God, dachala takifa, a mighty source of fear/awe; in contrast, when verse 31 contrasted our tzur to other nations’, he wrote only takif, strong or mighty. In 32;21, hem kine’uni be-lo el, they incensed Me with no-gods, Onkelos returns to fear/awe, writes be-lo dachala, with non-fear/awe-creating beings.
The crucial blemish of the Jews, for Onkelos, comes in forgetting their relationship with a dachala, a true and ultimate Source of fear/awe, turning instead to powers without any power, who have no call on Jews’ fear or awe.
More Than Exile
When Hashem threatens to scatter the Jews in punishment for their wrongs, verse 32;26 uses the word afeihem, which Sifrei saw as a compound of af ei hem, but where are they? Ramban took this to predict the whereabouts and identity of the people would become unknown, as happened to the Ten Tribes. As for the next phrase, Hashem will erase memory of them, Ramban saw his current exile, in which the Jews aren’t thought of as a nation at all. [A situation that has changed since God has blessed us with the State of Israel.]
The next verse tells Ramban we deserved eternal exile (an example of how Hashem punishes us less than is justified, in contrast to how we often experience it), which tells him tamah zechut Avot, the merits of the Patriarchs have been used up (in contrast to our High Holidays liturgy, which are full of references to their merits, a topic I think about during High Holidays prayers).
How Other Nations Help Us
We are saved from that fate because the redemption and restoration of the Jews to Israel will and does sanctify Hashem’s Name, pointed out in Yechezkel 20;41 and 44 (Moshe Rabbenu said so earlier in the Torah, too, when the Jews’ sins threatened them with annihilation).
None of the other nations, at the time of the Giving of the Torah, remembered Hashem’s power or role in the universe. They had strayed, denied Hashem’s existence or power, leaving only the Jewish people to stand up for that idea. Through the Jewish people, Hashem re-inserted into human experience, by performing signs and wonders on their behalf.
Were Hashem to cause the Jews to be permanently forgotten, those lessons would again be lost, people would return to believing in the powers of the stars and other such idolatries, a defeat to the purpose of creation. Instead, Hashem will restore the Jews to Israel– and deserve’s got nothing to do with it– to help humanity back to the path it was supposed to take.
Unnatural Losses and Divine Providence
A wise Jewish people would spot when God causes troubles because of their sins, we read in verses 29-31. For Sforno, the wisdom lies in noticing the unnatural element in losses. When a smaller army defeats the Jews handily, it can only be because their own God fights against them, suppressing or removing their strength and military prowess (God forbid).
Other nations lose at war, too, but verse thirty-one distinguishes based on “our” God versus theirs. Those other nations have a sar, an angel, whose status in Heaven guides their fortunes. While that sar is ascendant, they will win; when they lose, it is because the sar has lost. Non-Jewish nations’ losses are never against the pattern of nature, since those sarim reflect the ordinary natural world. Nations rise, flourish, and fall, all within ordinary patterns.
Jews are in the paradoxical position of being guided directly by God, so when they lose, it is always unnatural, always because God has decided to punish them (Sforno writes “turns against them.”)
Should we notice it, we can use it to improve. If we are wise.
Yehoshu’a was still or finally Himself
In 32;44, Moshe recites the Song for the people, he and Hoshe’a the son of Nun, whom we know better as Yehoshu’a. Chatam Sofer first sends us to Rashi, who says the verse wanted us to know Moshe had his disciple teach in public, to show him public respect, forestalling anyone later claiming he was unworthy. To show us Yehoshu’a did not let it go to his head, Rashi says, the verse gave his original name, a signal he was, internally, the same he had been from the start.
Chatam Sofer’s first idea expands on that. Until now, he suggests, Yehoshu’a needed help to maintain his status, similar to how Bereshit 6;9 says God walked with Noach, taken to mean was supporting Noach. Now, when Yehoshu’a had some sort of parity with Moshe, he could be just Hoshe’a.
Or He Got too Big for His Britches
Chatam Sofer then writes “or possibly the opposite,” [to me a commentarial move to always bring pause; What does it mean when a reader is equally comfortable with opposite readings of the same text? It suggests he sees value in teasing out all possible meanings, because they have what to teach us,] starting with Targum Yehonatan to Shelach, Moshe called him Yehoshu’a because he saw his humility.
At the end of Moshe’s life, R. Yehudah in the name of Rav (Temurah 16a) thinks Yehoshu’a slipped up in that regard. Moshe urged him to ask him any questions, and Yehoshu’a said he had none, because, after all, the Torah itself testifies he attended Moshe faithfully, never leaving the tent.
For that, he forgot three hundred halachot. [It’s not our topic, but Rav was trying to explain why the first verse in Yehoshu’a makes a point of calling him mesharet Moshe, Moshe’s attendant.] Without the humility, he was Hoshe’a, not the Yehoshu’a who deserved Hashem’s help. [This version explains why he is called Yehoshu’a in his book– the loss of the halachot taught him the lesson, helped him recover his character.]
For Chatam Sofer, the Torah calls him Hoshe’a here either because he retained his original humility or momentarily lost it.
Angels, the Jewish people, other nations, and Yehoshu’a, all take steps too and from God, an intricate dance we hope is moving us closer to the time we all recognize God’s rule in the world. Ketivah ve-Chatimah Tovah.
Other Comments We Saw On This Parsha :
Onkelos, Devarim 32;2, ya’arof …tizal
Rashi, Devarim 32;2, Tizal ka-tal, Ki-se’irim
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 32;3, Ki shem Hashem ekra
Ramban, Devarim 32;4, Ha-Tzur
Ramban, Devarim 32;5: Shichet
Onkelos, Devarim 32;6, am naval ve-lo hacham,
Rashi, Devarim 32;6 and 7, whole verses
Ramban, Devarim 32;6, Am naval
Onkelos, Devarim 32;12, badad yanchenu
Ramban, Devarim 32;12, Hashem badad
Ramban, Devarim 32;16: Be-to’evot
Ramban, Devarim 32;19, Mi-ka’as
Ramban, Devarim 32;21, Hem kin’uni
Ramban, Devarim 32;26, Af’eihem
Rashi, Devarim 32;27, Lulei
Or HaChayim, Devarim 32;27, Lulei ka’as oyev
Ramban, Devarim 32;28, Ki goy
Ibn Ezra, Devarim 32;43, Ve-chiper admato
Rashi, Devarim 32;44, Hu ve-Hoshe’a
Kli Yakar, Devarim 32;44, Hu ve-Hoshe’a
Ha’amek Davar , Devarim 32;44, Hu ve-Hoshe’a
Emet Le-Ya’akov, Devarim 32;44, Hu ve-Hoshe’a
Rashi, Devarim 32;50, Ka’asher met
Meshech Chochmah, Devarim 32;51, Al asher me’altem