by Azriel Heuman
Parshat Haazinu (Deuteronomy 32) is Moses' final song — the great poetic rebuke delivered the day before his death. In September 1985, Azriel Heuman, an engineer at AT&T Consumer Products in Holmdel, New Jersey, posted a D'var Torah to net.religion.jewish illuminating the song's structure and its central teaching.
The song was chanted by the Levites in the Temple every Shabbat, divided into six sections that cycled across six weeks. Those same six sections, Heuman argues following Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, map with "remarkable accuracy" onto the stages of Jewish history: G-d's introduction of His relationship with Israel; Israel's genesis and calling; Israel's good fortune and spiritual loss in that fortune; the resulting downfall; the diaspora as warning; and the final redemption.
The essay focuses on the third section — the hinge on which all the others turn — and on three Hebrew words: VAYISHMAN YESHURUN VAYIVAT. "Israel at its peak will get fat and rebel." Hirsch's commentary unpacks the analogy: surplus food becomes excess body fat only when it is not converted into energy and work. When spiritual and moral growth fail to keep pace with material prosperity, the surplus accumulates as spiritual destruction.
The essay was posted for Rosh Hashana 5746 (1985–1986).
The Structure of the Song
Haazinu contains the "song" of Haazinu which Moshe taught to Israel and which Moshe used to rebuke Israel on the day before his death. This song occupied an important role in our Jewish tradition. It was chanted by the Levites every Shabbat as part of the Mussaf offering in the Temple. The song was divided into six sections for the Temple chanting, with one section chanted each Shabbat so that the whole song was completed over six weeks. The Torah reading today is divided into these same sections, and it is halachically forbidden to further subdivide these sections during the Torah reading. Usually, the weekly Torah reading may be divided beyond its usual seven portions, as long as the reading is not stopped on a sentence of admonition or rebuke. Since the entire song of Haazinu is a rebuke, its subdivision is strictly governed by tradition.
Each of these six sections has its own line of thought, as follows:
- Aliyah for Kohen — As an introduction: the characteristics of G-d's general and special relationships in His management of the world and Israel.
- Aliyah for Levi — Israel's genesis and calling.
- Aliyah for Shlishi — Israel's good fortune, and its losing its direction in this good fortune.
- Aliyah for Revi'i — The resulting downfall.
- Aliyah for Chamishi — The diaspora as a warning.
- Aliyah for Shishi — The redemption and its effect on the world.
These six sections reflect Jewish history with remarkable accuracy.
When Yeshurun Grew Fat
I'd like to zero in on the third section because I think that it is very relevant to today's Jewish-American experience. It seems that in suffering, the Jewish People have mostly remained intact — religiously. But it has seldom been able to stand good fortune. With three words, Moshe captures the quintessence of the whole of Jewish history and at the same time tells Israel the reason for its failing in good times, and thereby tells us how to overcome this failing.
VAYISHMAN YESHURUN VAYIVAT (Verse 15) — Israel at its peak will get fat and will then rebel. The sense of the passage, by analogy, is: the better and fatter the food which a person eats, the more the surplus must be used up in energy and work. If the surplus is not used, it stores itself in the body, leading to the person being overcome by fat.
This is the history of Israel. It did not use the abundance and surplus with which it was blessed to increase its spiritual and moral achievements, as its mission requires. Its moral improvement did not keep pace with its material good fortune. It did not understand how to remain master of its riches and good fortune, and did not know how to use them for purposes of mitzvot. Instead it allowed itself to be overcome by riches and good fortune, and its spiritual and moral self was ruined by it.
Source for the above: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on Haazinu.
Colophon
Written by Azriel and Chaya Heuman, AT&T Consumer Products, Holmdel, New Jersey. Posted to net.religion.jewish, September 1985, with greetings of Gemar Chatima Tova (may you be sealed for a good new year). Article-ID: homxb.3780065.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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