Parshat Haazinu
The greater part of the Torah reading of Haazinu ("Listen In") consists of a 70-line "song" delivered by Moshe (Moses) to the people...
Parshat Haazinu
(Deuteronomy 32:1-52)
The greater part of the Torah reading of Haazinu ("Listen In") consists of a 70-line "song" delivered by Moshe (Moses) to the people of Israel on the last day of his earthly life.
Calling heaven and earth as witnesses, Moshe exhorts the people to "Remember the days of old / Consider the years of many generations / Ask your father, and he will recount it to you / Your elders, and they will tell you" how God "found them in a desert land", made them a people, chose them as His own, and bequeathed them a bountiful land. The Song also warns against the pitfalls of plenty: "Yeshurun grew fat, and kicked / You have grown fat, thick, and waddled/ He forsook God who made him / And spurned the Rock of his salvation" — and the terrible calamities that would result, which Moshe describes as God "hiding His face". Yet in the end, he promises, God will be avenge the blood of His servants and be reconciled with his people and land.
The Parshah concludes with God's instruction to Moshe to ascend the summit of Mount Nebo, from which he beheld the Promised Land before dying on the mountain. "For you shall see the land opposite you; but you shall not go there, into the land which I give to the children of Israel."
(Used with permission from chabad.org)
