HA'AZINU

To Listen

Song of Moses

The portion of Ha'azinu always falls immediately before or after Yom Kippur and is primarily comprised of a 70-line poem called the Song of Ha'azinu or the Song of Moses. The poem is delivered by Moses on the last day of his life and he implores the people to remember to follow the commandments of G-d in order to achieve blessing and success. The poem begins with "Listen, O heavens for I will speak". The commentators point to the word "listen" used by Moses as a stronger and more compelling word than "hear". Often times we hear things, but we are not truly listening. The directive to listen shows us the importance of following and understanding the song of Ha'azinu and to remember G-d's word. Two great Kabbalaists, the Maharal of Prague and the Mezitcher Magggid commented that by listening to and being able to recite the Song of Ha'azinu, one could purify their mind, achieve physical longevity and be guaranteed success in business affairs. In the first part of the poem, we find a large Hebrew letter "Hei". The letter Hei is found 2x in the tetragrammaton, the powerful 4-letter name of G-d (comprised of a Yud, Hei, Vav and Hei) and we can connect to the Hei in this reading and draw down additional energy from the Light we received on Yom Kippur and the other holidays during the month of Tishrei. Further into the poem, when recounting the importance of remembrance, it states "but Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; you grew fat, you grew thick, you have become obese, and he forsook G-d who made him, and scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation." This suggests that once we become successful and "fat", our ego will lead us to forget G-d and we will believe that our fortune is based upon our own merit. In order to overcome our ego, this part of the poem has a small Hebrew letter "Yud". The letter "Yud" is the smallest Hebrew letter, so by making it even smaller, we can connect to the energy of making ourselves small or reducing our ego in order to access the Light - always remembering the path of the Torah as set forth in the Song of Ha'azinu. 

Concluding Words & Manifestation

Shabbat Ha'azinu is Mose's final speech to the nation of Israel before he passes on. Through his concluding words we can connect to all of his life's work and the manifestation of his total energy. His final words are, in part, "[c]ommand your children to be careful to observe all the words of this Torah. For it is not an empty thing for you. Rather it is your life!" The portion of Ha'azinu is the last portion of the Torah that is read on Shabbat, as the final portion in the Torah scroll, Parsha Vezot Habracha, is read on Simchas Torah - not on Shabbat. Accordingly, we can also connect to the totality of the Torah this week. It is interesting to note that the portion of Ha'azinu spans the entirety of Chapter 32. We can connect to the mystical energy of the number 32 as set forth in the Kabbalistic text, the Sefer Yetzirah, where it states "With 32 Mystical Paths of Wisdom, G-d Engraved and Created His Universe". This refers to the 10 Sephirot of Consciousness and the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, and the number of times which the name of G-d (Elohim) is mentioned in the story of creation in the Book of Genesis. The number 32 is also comprised of the Hebrew letters Lamed Bet, also representative of the entire Torah as the Torah begins with the letter Bet in the word "Bereshit" and ends in the letter Lamed in the word "Yisrael".