Edited and adapted from Ari’s Grill & Torah on October 14, 2016
Parashat Ha’azinu is the second-to-last parsha. Next week we have V’Zot HaBracha, and that is it. Moshe Rabbeinu is about to die, and he is handing the control panel over to Yehoshua. He has some last-minute messages for the nation of Israel, and normally, when someone is about to die, his last message is probably the most important one. He is not fooling around anymore.
Why an Eagle?
Ha’azinu is known as a song. Even in the Torah itself, for those who have never seen the inside of a Torah scroll, it is actually written in song form. There are two columns, and it looks literally like a poem.
One of the really strange expressions in this week’s parsha is the way the Torah describes God. A lot of times the Torah talks about God in human terms. We obviously do not regard God as having human form, but the Torah speaks that way so that we can understand different characteristics and traits of God.
There is something very, very interesting here. If you were to give God an animal character, what animal would you choose? What animal do many people associate with God?
A lot of people would say the lion. The Lion of Judah is the lion of kingdoms. Judah’s symbol, the symbol of kingship, is the lion. We know the lion as king of the jungle, fierce and powerful. People often put God into this category of something fearful, stronger than anyone else and ready to devour anyone who stands in the way.
But that is not the image Judaism gives us here.
The Torah says:
“כְּנֶשֶׁר יָעִיר קִנּוֹ, עַל גּוֹזָלָיו יְרַחֵף — K’nesher ya’ir kino, al gozalav yerachef.”
God is compared to an eagle with its young.
“יִפְרֹשׂ כְּנָפָיו יִקָּחֵהוּ — Yifros k’nafav yikachehu.”
It spreads its wings and takes them.
“יִשָּׂאֵהוּ עַל אֶבְרָתוֹ — Yisa’ehu al evrato.”
It carries them on its wings.
So what is the story with comparing God to an eagle? What is the symbolism there? Why is God compared to an eagle, and what is this idea about spreading the wings and taking the nation of Israel upon them?
The eagle is a bird that is not afraid of other birds. Most birds put their young under their wings because they are afraid of predator birds attacking from above. They hide their young under the wing to protect them from those attacks.
The eagle is not scared of other birds. What is the only thing that threatens the eagle in the sky? The arrows from beneath, from man, shooting upward.
Therefore, when the eagle spreads its wings, it puts its young on its back. The explanation says that the eagle is saying, “Better that I get the arrow in me and not my children.”
That is why God is compared to an eagle.
Who Is God Judging?
What is really interesting is that this whole parsha, this whole Torah section, is full of allegories and parables that are very difficult to understand. Certainly, once they are translated into another language, it becomes even harder to get the original meaning.
I want to bring out two parts of this.
The first is that God is compared to an eagle. Then the Torah talks about the punishment of those who come against Israel.
It says:
“אִם שַׁנּוֹתִי בְּרַק חַרְבִּי — Im shanoti berak charbi.”
It talks about some kind of lightning, like a sword.
“וְתֹאחֵז בְּמִשְׁפָּט יָדִי — V’to’chez b’mishpat yadi.”
God will use that to hold judgment over the nations that came against Israel.
“אָשִׁיב נָקָם לְצָרָי — Ashiv nakam l’tzarai.”
“I will take revenge against those who came against Me.”
“וְלִמְשַׂנְאַי אֲשַׁלֵּם — V’limsana’ai ashalem.”
“I will repay those who hate Me.”
Then it says:
“אַשְׁכִּיר חִצַּי מִדָּם, וְחַרְבִּי תֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר — Ashkir chitzai midam, v’charbi tochal basar.”
God is talking about taking revenge on those who went against the nation of Israel.
But the biggest point here is that God says to the nation of Israel: You have nothing to be fearful about. Whatever happens in this world, yes, sometimes the nations will go against you, but in the end God will certainly judge those nations.
I never fully understood this, because the truth of the matter is that there are people from other nations—Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, whatever it might be—who do not hate the nation of Israel. In fact, today we see a lot of Christians who are unbelievably pro-Israel, sometimes even more pro-Israel than some Israelis are.
So why does it say here that God is going to take revenge on those who came against Israel?
Obviously, it is not talking about people from other nations who did not take action against the nation of Israel. There are a tremendous number of what we call tzaddikei umot ha’olam, the righteous among the nations. They do not have to be Jewish to be righteous. The nations have seven commandments that they have to keep, the Seven Noahide Commandments.
Beyond that, we know there were non-Jews during the Holocaust who saved Jews, and today we have many Christians who support Israel as a Jewish nation. Certainly those people are not what the Bible is talking about when it says that God is going to bring judgment.
It is talking about those who stood against Israel.
Criticism Is Not Hatred
And the issue is not simply criticizing Israel. Criticism is fine. I have a lot of criticism of the Israeli government myself.
Look at Moshe Rabbeinu. His father-in-law Yitro was not Jewish. He came from a different nation, from an idol-worshipping nation, and he had even been a high priest there. Yet Yitro criticized Moshe Rabbeinu.
He said, “Moshe Rabbeinu, you cannot do this alone. You need assistance.”
That kind of criticism was not only good, it was accepted. We have an entire parsha in the Torah named after Yitro, and that parsha contains the Ten Commandments.
So here you have a Gentile who gave criticism in order to fix, in order to help. Not only do we not look down upon that, we put him on a pedestal. A Gentile gave Moshe advice on how to better run the nation according to God’s word, and the section of Torah bearing his name contains the Ten Commandments. It is one of the holiest parshas in the Torah.
So we are not talking about people who criticize Israel.
We are talking about people who are dishonest, people who hate.
I think we saw a flat-out example of this this week with UNESCO. I was very clear in my response from the Old City of Jerusalem. What UNESCO did was based on total dishonesty.
And the problem is—and this is a real problem today—that the world is going down this rabbit hole, and it is really, really not good. The rabbit hole is an immoral hole.
No more definitions. No more right and wrong. No more male and female. Nothing matters anymore.
Those of us who believe in God and believe in morality have to be willing to be unpopular. We are not going down that rabbit hole.
We believe there is morality. We believe there is right and wrong. And we believe that we do not have the right to define right and wrong however we want. God has the right to define right and wrong.
“This Is Your Life”
I think Moses’ final lesson to the nation of Israel was exactly that.
He says it very clearly:
“שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם — Simu levavchem.”
Make sure you pay attention to this.
“לְכָל הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מֵעִיד בָּכֶם הַיּוֹם — L’chol hadvarim asher anochi me’id bachem hayom.”
Make sure you pay attention to all the things that I am telling you today.
“אֲשֶׁר תְּצַוֻּם אֶת בְּנֵיכֶם — Asher tetzavum et beneichem.”
That you will command your children—
“לִשְׁמֹר לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת כָּל דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת — Lishmor la’asot et kol divrei haTorah hazot.”
—to keep and to do all the words of this Torah.
“כִּי לֹא דָבָר רֵק הוּא מִכֶּם — Ki lo davar reik hu mikem.”
It is not just some kind of, “Oh yeah, it’s a nice thing to do.”
No.
“כִּי הוּא חַיֵּיכֶם — Ki hu chayeichem.”
This is your life.
We do not have life without this. We have nothing without this.
“וּבַדָּבָר הַזֶּה תַּאֲרִיכוּ יָמִים עַל הָאֲדָמָה — Uvadavar hazeh ta’arichu yamim al ha’adamah.”
Through this, you will have long life in the land that God is giving us—the Land of Israel.
I guess UNESCO did not really read this part of the Bible.
I am not sure how that works with the Christian countries that abstained. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.
Forget about Israel. Forget about the Jews. You have spat in God’s face, because any Christian who knows the Bible knows very clearly that the Land of Israel is the land of the Jews. There is no disagreeing with that in terms of the Bible.
Those leaders who abstained from that UNESCO vote—that is total blasphemy. Shame on you.
The problem is not that they have criticism of Israel. It is total dishonesty. To say that there is no connection between the Jews and Jerusalem is total dishonesty.
The Torah Is Our Life Source
But the most important thing for Israel is that if we are not following the way of God in Israel, we have no life.
What does it mean that we have no life?
You can be as secular as you want. You can say you do not believe. All those things are nice. But we have no right without the Torah. We have no right to this Land of Israel. None whatsoever.
If there is no Torah, then UNESCO is right.
Historically, of course, we were also in Jerusalem before the Arabs. But the Torah teaches morality, and by keeping the Torah we will not stray from morality. We will know what morality is.
There simply is no morality beyond the Torah.
And what the Torah is saying, right before Moshe dies, is: Listen, you are going into the Land of Israel and you have a lot of work to do. You are going to have to have an army. You are going to have to plant your fields and sow your fields. You are going to build businesses. Whatever you are going to do there, you have to remember that the only reason we are here in the Land of Israel, the only way we are surviving war after war after war—not only surviving, but victorious war after war after war—is because God is on our side.
I have said it many times to radical Muslims who start screaming at me and saying, “We’re going to destroy you.”
I say, “Listen, guys. You’ve tried to destroy Israel six times already. You failed every single time. It’s time to get the hint. Allah is a Zionist. It’s clear as day.”
We have been outnumbered. We have been out-weaponed. We have been out-everything, and we have won war after war after war. Six million Jews in Israel, with hundreds of millions of Muslims around us who do not exactly like us.
So this is what Moses is saying as he is dying. Whatever happens, nation of Israel, you have to remember that the Torah is our life source. That is our life source.
You want to survive in the Land of Israel? Yes, build an army. Of course, build an army. Yes, guns and planes and tanks, one hundred percent.
But remember, those are your tools.
Your strength comes only from the Torah. Your strength only comes from God.
Don’t Worry About UNESCO
And do not worry about UNESCO. Do not get upset over them. It is a joke. Who are they?
The Jews were in Israel long before UNESCO existed. Forget UNESCO itself—the Jews were in Israel long before many of the countries voting in UNESCO ever existed.
Do not get upset by them. Laugh at it.
As I tell people, you cannot help stupidity, but you can help expose it to the world so everybody knows.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Shabbat. Have a peaceful and spiritual Shabbat, enjoy your families, and Shabbat shalom from Gush Etzion.