Haazinu

1. Haazinu
Introduction - this is the great poem/song that was introduced in the last
portion. It warns, instructs, and it gives hope. It’s an amazing piece of
sacred text. Let’s dig in.
I. Read 32:1-4.A. What do you make of Moses’addressing the heavens
and the earth? Does this resonate of something we learned in our study
of the prophets?
(It’s as if Moses is saying, as we see in the prophets, that the heavens and
the earth will serve as witnesses of our following or abandoning our
covenant with God. How we live is witnessed in the world. This shows
Divine pathos in that Moses is establishing a God-desired foundationin
which consequences forour living outside of God’s way will be due to our
straying, not to a cause beyond ourselves.

2. Some sages believe differently, that this is designed to suggest that there
are different types of people who are heaven-oriented and others who are
earth-oriented, and that this language simply means that all should attend
Moses’words.)
B. What do you make of all the images of water in this teaching?
(Isn’t this as if water flows from Moses’ speaking, as it was to have been
when God instructed Moses at the rock? Look at verse 4. God is the Rock
(tzur) from which Moses draws the inspiration and instruction. Perhaps
there is an element of Moses doing teshuvah at the very end of his life. He
does beautifully and powerfully what God commanded, to draw forth the
most important water for the people, principally the nurturing or sustaining
support of, or that which strengthens the spirit, and from the great Rock.)
C. And what do you make of the verse on the water that flows and how it
flows?

3. (It’s as if the water comes in different ways to meet the different needs of
different people, or, said another way, to meet all our needs.Young growth
may require more gentle rain or dew. Grass may do bestwith a steadier
rain. To vegetation, that is, that which is more firmly planted (those who
may be more learned or rooted?), the bestwater may come in the form of
more pelting, penetrating rain.
There are several views of these differentiations among the sages and
other observers overtime. One recalls a lesson we’ve learned before: all
these sorts of rain are dependent upon the people living in God’s way. )
II. Moses continues to worry about that which can lead the people to stray
and abandon God. He has taught in prose to instruct the people and to help
guard them against the instinct to stray. It’s as if he now wants to call upon
the power of song and poetry in the final part of his oration.
He begins by calling upon the people to remembertheir past. Read 7-14.
A. Why does Moses want to draw the people’smind to the days of old?

4. (He believes that people who have lost their past lose its power and
meaning and thus becomesubject to whatever whims and forces are
current in the day. This unmooring from a glorious past is surely cause to
go in a different and wrong direction. But through remembering God’s
saving hand in stories,traditions, and those who carry them forward, we
have our bestchance to live in covenant with God. Moses recounts
explicitly God’s finding and bringing our ancestors out of the wilderness and
the waste, protecting them, guarding them - all, as a principal focus of
Divine attention. This is intended to orient the people to the good life with
which God has blessedthem, the life in the promised land.
What is the text discussing when it mentions God rescuing us from the
desert regions, in an empty howling waste?
The Sinai? The beginning of the creation? In God’s revelation to Abraham?
In each moment when we are out of sync with God or we wander away?)

5. B. What about these images of God as an eagle feeding, training, and
catching its young as they grow weary or fall?
(Discussion)
C. How do you respond to the image of God’s setting us atop the highlands
to feaston abundant food in the seeminglymost barren place, eating,
among other things, in those famous words, honey from the rock?
(Discussionof both the physical and spiritual dimensions of these words.)

6. III.Read 15-18.A. Is it inevitable that a people who grow rich and
materially successful come to the view that their well-being is the result of
their own doing? What forces lead to this view? If this is so, how can it be
successfullycontested?
(Discussion)
B. What’s the significance to them and to us that the gods to whom the
people will stray to worship are said to be new, who have come lately and
were never before known?
(Our capacity to make gods or idols knows no bounds and will play out in
all times and places. We are never to think that the risk is confined to the
idols in Abraham’s father’s shop!

7. We’ve talked about it before and should refresh our memoryon all the sorts
of new gods we’ve created in our own time that were foreshadowed inthis
text and should worry us today. What about the thought that we can look to
each other in our own communities alone, perhaps with assists from
science, to meet all of our needs, without any resort to God? Have you ever
heard this view expressed?)
IV. Read 21. What does God mean by responding to the no-gods the
people create with no-folk? (Note in verse 5 the reference to unworthy
children, literally no-children. Note no-loyalty in verse 20.) What do you
take from all this “no” talk?
(Discussion)

8. V. Read 26-28,36-39.Irrespective of the the people’swaywardness, why
do the people survive, according to the text?
(First, the no-folk do not acknowledge God and thus will not be allowed to
prevail.
Second,there is a matter of honor in God’s position prevailing.
Third, there’s a sense in which regardless of the ongoing pattern of
waywardness, there’s an enduring tie betweenGod and the people he
initially appointed, there’s an enduring purpose forthis people in fulfilling
God’s mission, and God will support whatever remnant stays true to Him.
We need God, and God needs us.)

9. VI. Read 45-47.Recognizing that we have not yet reached Moses’final
words/blessing to the people, which we’ll study next week, he ends this part
of his oration in a minor key with this powerful warning. Yet, this comes
after the glorious account of God’s redemptionin our history, the richness
of the promised land to come,and so many positive verbs right here in this
part of the text. In the midstof the warning, we sense the more hopeful
feeling of a major key through words recited to all Israel - words to take to
heart and to enjoin them on the children that they may faithfully observe all
terms of teaching. This, he says to the people,is your very life for through it
you shall long endure in the land you are to possess. Explain this complex
music!
(Discussion- the combination of extraordinary promises and powerful
warnings.)
Conclusion - while Moses must and will die, as we have discussed, he has,
through powerful and beautiful speech, in his final days drawn life-
sustaining water for the eternal benefit of humankind from the mighty Rock.
Indeed we people of faith are foreverindebted to the speechof this prophet
and teacher to whom speechdid not come easy. Truly, we have learned
what a treasure it is for us to have and study Moses’words - in his
teachings, the mitzvoth, the wisdom,the stories and accounts of God’s
presence and nearness and meaning for us, his love and leadership of the

10. people, and the example and memory he has given us of living in God’s
way.
But we’re not done. Next week…Moses’closing blessing forus, and a “final
exam” - I promise each and every one of you will enjoy and won’t want to
miss!